March 1st, 2005
Roots Manuva - Awfully Deep
Roots Manuva
Awfully Deep ***
‘Colossal Insight’? ‘Awfully Deep’? Has the man who gave us the classic line ‘Witness the Fitness’ gone all profound and spiritual on us? Well not really, but he’s back with his own take on hip hop and this time it’s a dubby, melodic collection of tunes. It’s still all about the breaks of course, but the rhythm seems more of the focus here and the way Rodney Smith makes the music as important as what he’s actually saying sidles up to the ‘lyrical malaria’ of Jurassic 5. His roots are planted firmly in hip hop but he picks and mixes his way through musical influences as diverse as ambient, carnivalesque stuff to his favourites: dub and breakbeat. Roots’ unmistakable voice glides through lyrics that are head and shoulders above the usual rap banter and as usual, his tongue is firmly in cheek for some of the tracks. After all, this IS the man who managed to work footballer Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink into one of his rhymes. Awfully Deep is not nearly as good as Run Come Save Me, but it’s an interesting addition to the canon of UK hip hop.
Info: Roots Manuva