at first i was like "hell yeah" on first thought, but with the points other people have brought up i'd say the roots are much more of a rancid type punk (never "selling out" to use that horrible term, but im not liking their new albums as much) they have genrally political songs but no deep concious songs, topics can be drawn in comparison though, general disscussion of street life, drugs etc without glorifying it the clash don't really have any comparison and there is no way in hell topper headon was the best drummer around, i hope that wasn't a school of rock quote you took that from :p In terms of the political messages i'd say the Roots could be more compared with the skinhead Oi bands of the 80's, Sham69, cocksparrer, The exploited - pro nationalist (not racist, loadsa people get skinheads and boneheads/hammerskins mixed up (black empowerment kinda idea for the roots)