i honestly haven't been a big fan of some of the Roots recent works...

but UNDUN is pretty much a flawless record to me...

i think I can say honestly it may be the most thoughtful, consistently written album in the CANON of hip hop. Not that it's the GOAT MC performance...its just to me there are no throw away lines and there ARE MANY MANY high points...absolutely incredible writing

i think the production is fresh sounding and fits perfectly with the ARC of the story and album... i might understand if it is not someones cup of tea though

conceptually?? what album that has been released in x amount of years was really more important than this one? every major issue in the black community comes up in the discourse... poverty, drugs, education, family, crab mentality, transcendance of surroundings, violence etc

the fact that it just seemingly went unnoticed...smfh. it didnt even get the critical darling treatment

i wont even mention...the technical ...i'll just say it sounds like it was mixed by professionals

why bother?

...

maybe the grammys will validate it

::sarcasm::

i'm talking bout the people dammit

I'm saying to expect a well-done concept album written for grown-ups (or at least, not 'tweens) to be a sales hit in this era is asking a bit much. Especially in an era that is so focused on singles...

Even back in the day, an album like Undun would have to breathe a bit before catching on, and even then "catching on" wouldn't necessarily mean being a hit

#1 right under my grammy comment i wrote ::sarcasm::

#2 i never said anything about sales

my point more or less...is why aren't people talking about it more

this shit should be the jumpoff of discussion like how ROOTS (pun intended) was lol

IMO the roots are simply ahead of their time...kids in 20 yrs or so will rediscover em & go nuts like people my age rediscovered shuggie otis & went nuts

it was at least owed that much, IMO.
liked it much better than the two albums prior (Rising Down, How I Got Over)

for the first time in ehh a month probably

the warm winter cheated me out of what would have been a perfect cold weather soundtrack, but nonetheless it's a PHENOMENAL album that touches an emotional chord for me

also, i can't help but read subtext into "i remember" for the jazzyfatnastees

a concept hip-hop album

i guess Make My was the lead single

did it get any play?

no videos

no follow up singles

and for those who aren't okayplayers

you expect the general public to put together the storyline on their own?

a friend of mine, who i would call a fan was playing the album in his car

and i had to explain the Redford concept to him

fools don't read nowadays

be happy that the roots are in control of their career to the point where they can put out an album like Undun

platinum success...

but damn man... if someone can make such an artistic statement as UNDUN and hardly a blip

its discouraging that all

this is REALLY... i really love UNDUN post and dont understand how so many people couldve missed it

>but damn man... if someone can make such an artistic statement
>as UNDUN and hardly a blip

True artistic statements have been ignored since the beginning of time.

just randomly announce the album on like, Twitter and in The Lesson just weeks before its release? Without so much as a mention previous to that? That doesn't help.

I still listen to it a lot.

I get that there's a story and I know that it's deep and sonically
nuanced... but are these the things I look for in good hip-hop? Nope.

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"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

iono ...maybe somebody woulda dug up the kid that did the sleep beat which is pretty original and interviewed him

or maybe PORN got a verse of the month for kool on

some kinda recognition or discussion lol

u know how like sometimes the industry is just like...eff the sales... this is such an artistic statement we are gona get behind it (e.g. spaulding)... i kinda wished that happened

i think its a really important record...

especially in the context of trayvon...because the album humanizes the caricature the mass media set out... the caricature and dehumanization that lead to a george zimmermann in the first place

iono...i'm rambling. on vacation. in between creating

why would Undun have done better than that?

Beautiful album, like 5 tracks are little 1 minute instrumntation sesssions. It's what, like 7 actual songs on there?

I love this shit

Lets be real though, this is NOT the kind of album that's built for sales or attention. Hell most Roots albums have that one catchy poppy/radio type joint, and that was nowhere on this one. There's no "Here I Come" or "The Seed" or "Rising Up" or anything remotely in that vein.

Great album, but not built for the kind of attention you want for it.
If you're jaded by a tepid response to a great album that made zero attempt at garnering that sort of attention, I dunno what to tell you

I loved the album too

But what did you expect?



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Two things

1)as long as you dug it, that should be all that matters. The Roots are in a very good place in spite of their lackluster album sales. In 2012, it's not about the 1988 version of "winning".

2)they're deep n their catalog and will be treated as such. Think of Neil Young. Dude has been consistent for years and will sell the same amount of records no matter what. But he still delivers quality product (IMHO).

And I'm thrilled for them that they are in the position they are in. They deserve it. Consistent quality deserves reward.

ESPECIALLY since these dudes are on TV every night!

i mean, don't that count for SOMETHING???

put an album tomorrow how much love would it really get. I'm sure there are peeps who didn't know that Max Weinberg plays with the E Street Band. Now as far as the critics go? I can't really comment on that because I don't really pay critics too much mind nowadays. I do know that NPR was loving the album but like I said who gives a ish? I think right now the Roots are at a place where they can release music they want to release and if the public and critics jump on the wagon cool. If not then who cares?

I figured that the industry would have acknowledged them on that merit alone.

First of all, like others have said its a "concept" album by the Roots...

it was never going to be HUGE.

others have covered that 100%


But, lets be honest...

#1 there is NOTHING seperating this album from being a regular Roots album.

The concept just isn't there...you can take the idea of it being a concept away from it and it literally does nothing to the album

They really, really screwed up by having all these rappers be the same, generic voice of the same character...

it really prevents it from being as interesting as it could have been...plus it really does become completely impersonal.

Like a lot of reviews said, it makes it...boring

They should have had each rapper be a different character...would have been far more interesting and a true concept

or something else...

but as it stands once you have spun it a couple times, there is no reason to go back

Its just the 3rd straight Roots album with a ton of guests...


#2 Some of these hooks suck, man. I'm sorry. I love the firs track, Cool On, Stomp, Tip The Scale...

but Make My is boring as sh*t, I can't even remember the Phonte track, and

Lighthouse??

That hook is almost parody bad

So, there are very few **songs** that stand out. Not in the way that past Roots songs like Star, etc have stood out.


The Roots are my favorite rap group of all time. I actually loved Undun at first, then I realized it left rotation quicker than any Roots album before.

Im not saying this is a bad album

But its far from perfect.

It has really low replay value IMO which is probably why no one is talking about it even in the rap nerd world

are some of my favorite songs on the album. the one thing i do agree with is it would have been better if the different voices represented different characters. i still love the album though, musically it's great.

but I was also a huge Radiohead fan and a big Bjork fan...

The reason I lump these 3 together is because they all bore the shit out of me right now. Maybe it's the amount of albums and songs that I played over and over again but I'm at a point in my music career where I want to be MOVED & ENTERTAINED... and right now the Roots do a terrible job on both fronts.

I don't want to work to listen to an album. I don't want to have to "get it" in order to "get it."

Right now the Roots are making music for themselves and that's cool... but most times when you do that you also end up with no sales and no recognition. This isn't a Shuggie Otis deal where it just took too long for the album to drop and it was rediscovered years later. The Roots drop an album every 2 or 3 years and it feels like the work hard to make each one less interesting and appealing to the listening audience. I know it's hard to write a hit but dammit... you can at least try to write some catchy shit from time to time.

Maybe the Roots are right where they want to be but I think they are in a position to be THAT band since they are on TV. All it takes is one song to change your history. Get Adele on a hook, get Rihanna... or whoever is about to be blow. I know it may seem like a gimmick but hell, you are already Jimmy Fallon's back up band so make that shit happen.

... they should do a joint with the chick from Alabama Shakes. That'd be DOPE!

Not sure if you are being sarcastic but no... definitely not her. I have no idea who she is and the Roots are on a major...

how about doing something major...

>
>conceptually?? what album that has been released in x amount
>of years was really more important than this one? every major
>issue in the black community comes up in the discourse...
>poverty, drugs, education, family, crab mentality,
>transcendance of surroundings, violence etc
>


A LOT of albums cover all these bases. Off the top of my head I could name Watch the Throne, Thug Motivation, KRIT Wuz Here, The Carter, iSLAND (G-Side), Section.80, Longterm Mentality, etc etc


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>A LOT of albums cover all these bases. Off the top of my head
>I could name Watch the Throne, Thug Motivation, KRIT Wuz Here,
>The Carter, iSLAND (G-Side), Section.80, Longterm Mentality,
>etc etc

>A LOT of albums cover all these bases. Off the top of my head
>I could name Watch the Throne,

these guys celebrate the very things that oppress Black people. i was surprised by some of the verses on WTT but those guys smfh... agree to disagree

Thug Motivation

...uh u mean the album that was marketed with the snowman? lol... maybe we not talking bout the same thing here

KRIT Wuz Here

dope record but...for me the writing just dont compare.
to me...sleep deads everything on that record


>The Carter
lol...again...agree to disagree

, iSLAND (G-Side), Section.80, Longterm Mentality,
aint heard two of these and i kinda liked section.80... KL style aint really my cup of tea. i dont think he wack at all though

because all those albums sure enough talk about all those subjects, they are just at times ambiguous or approving of them rather than critical

and even then, I'm sure you could find a line or two on Carter or Thug Motivation regretting a decision. not on the level of Clipse's "Nightmares" but something.

a lot of albums aren't given credit for discussing something just because they aren't talking about it the way people want them to.

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how about in a RESPONSIBLE way

the carter and thug motivation enhance the caricature propagated by mainstream media

undun unravels (or at least attempts to)

thug motivation had elementary school kids walking around the hood in crack shirts

are you serious? or you not from the hood...have no crack fiends in your family?

shit is laughable

**I mean almost EVERY album is gonna have to touch those topics (these are the issues in the black community)...the difference is in how it is treated.

i mean...i guess i assumed people understood that the roots were making a point.

why would anybody champion music that is a threat to the community??

only outsiders

"what album is more important" and then a mention of the issues "crime, violence et al"

why would i list an album that compounds or glorifies these problems?

you just wanna seem smart?

to their albums.

Undun really is a remarkable record. I don't think the concept of it makes it obtuse at all even. I haven't even listened yet and let the lyrics and story sink in. It just SOUNDS incredible. Definitely like it considerably more than HIGO and RD. It's up there with Things Fall Apart and Game Theory to me...





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.

Mainly- it's somber, it's subtle, there were only 9 actual songs if you remove the interludes and orchestral outro, and for a "concept album" there really isn't much of a story arc at all (IMO). It's just a portrait of a man who made some bad decisions.

But I agree with you. It's really a beautiful album.

> and
>for a "concept album" there really isn't much of a story arc
>at all (IMO). It's just a portrait of a man who made some bad
>decisions.

Sounds like 'Crime and Punishment' and a host of other
novels considered among the best ever written.

Undun is a character sketch. There's not much of a traditional narrative. 'Arc' implies change- introduction, buildup, climax, denouement, etc. You could argue that undun has all of that, but it's so subtle that it's barely discernible. It's more like a bunch of vignettes about Redford that don't necessarily connect in terms of a narrative.

Maybe the articles I read about undun wanted it to be something that it really isn't (a story). Again, it's more of a portrait.

Not the same thing.

I don't really care for UNDUN as a whole...production was great, which never seems to be a low point for the roots, but they have been doing the same albums since game theory.

What I liked about them before is that they would switch up their focus for every album...DYWM to Illadelph to TFA...to The game theory

It was a nice progression

The last three albums have been Game Theory part 2 to 4 for me...great songs on those albums but not great albums...and UNDUN is not flawless, it's just very-well produced

>The last three albums have been Game Theory part 2 to 4 for
>me...great songs on those albums but not great albums...and
>UNDUN is not flawless, it's just very-well produced

None of Rising Down, How I Got Over, nor undun sounds AT ALL like Game Theory IMO. That's a strange way to put it.

i don't know what you're talking about, but there are similarities

This isn't snark I promise you; I really hear absolutely no similarities between any of them. In fact I think they are equally as diverse individually as their early albums were. This is the first time I've ever heard anyone say this.

I guess maybe I'm as shocked as I am cause Game Theory is my favorite Roots album, while I wasn't really feeling most of Rising Down or How I Got Over. Not that they were/are "bad" but they are closer to the bottom of the list of favorite Roots albums.

similarities didn't imply quality...but I will come back with further insight towards my comment

in terms of the reaction.

Tere wasn't a song on there that was gonna blow up as a single, Def Jam basically has them on the label for prestige-artist bragging rights & budgets them accordingly, the record industry is dying, the band didn't tour the record because they're busy working, and for all the talk about the story that worked as a blueprint for structuring the album bthe Redford character wasn't really memorable on its own merits.

Musically it was a motherfucka though & each MC did their thing.

and isnt it a better album too?

>and isnt it a better album too?
- Not even close my dude.

I still got my money ready for it.

underrated reply

On the dock of that bay serving a life sentence,even if I’m going to hell I’m gonna make an entrance

i see your point about the album not making the critical rounds like some of their earlier albums have, but i think the only way The Roots would get attention is if they 'went against the grain' (c) Black Thought and pulled out some more accessible music.

unfortunately, an album as high in quality as Undun coming from The Roots isn't attention getting because they have like 10 other albums that are just as quality works of art. so people just hear the album and think 'The Roots made a good album.' and then go look for some reason to hype Kanye or something. Good albums, for The Roots, just aren't noteworthy enough to follow for mass publications and the band aren't trendy enough to really get blog or radio love on the indie front so i think the album was a success in that they'll probably get nominated for a Grammy, ?uest gets to keep his 80 Metacritic rating, and they're still on the label.

at this point in their career, it's as much about playing the game to keep making music and keep the lights on as anything. which is kinda sad because there are few parallels for them in modern-day music and they aren't followed for their longevity and craft over the derivative and flimsy stuff that does get attention.

its too short. and feels over edited. its an interesting album but i think they ran out of steam so the album just doesnt fully work as a narrative piece, and it doesnt really work all that well as a series of isolated songs either. its a classic case of the roots over-thinking things. but it has some great instrumental parts, production is amazing as normal, and quest gets free jazz and 70s stevie in there which was very cool. i just think they didnt quite get there with the aim this time round. but kudos for trying.

its a classic case of the roots over-thinking things.

+1

more replay value at least

I co-sign with most of the comments criticizing Undun. I do give The Roots credits for staying true to their vision and putting out quality music. This does not mean that I have to like it. Looking back at their catalog, it looks like they reached their artistic zenith with the controversial Phrenology cd. It had all the elements of their previous releases and took them to the the next level

Tipping Point was an exhale record purposely scaled back. It had some nice moments such as Stay Cool and the opening tracks Web and Boom. Unfortunately this record is the template of what all their releases to the present have been. Corny as hell hooks ( I Don't Care, Somebody's Gotta Do It) and short running time.

The Roots got back on the track with what I think is their last great cd Game Theory.With the release of Rising Down, How I Got Over and Undun they indulged in all their worst qualities. They are listening to their own press and are feeling themselves to the detriment of making good music.

I don't care if Undun is a concept cd, that's all well and good but is it kicking? This is the first Roots cd I did not buy and if they continue making records like this (which it seems they will) I will not support them. Because of their day job, they can now pretty much do as they please and I wish them well.

Here are some things they can to shake things up because they are stuck in a bad funk:

1-Use the band on the entire record instead of guest musicians and guest rappers

2-Decide what direction they want to go -make an r&b joint, make a rock joint, make a hip hop joint. By changing genres with every track, it cause the listener to lose focus and interest

3-Take the time to write some good songs and produce a 50 min plus record

4-Cut out those Dice Raw and others hooks

I'm in the same boat...

IMO it seems like the Roots are content with critical acclaim which means no sales.

The hooks aren't hooking anyone right now...