Hip-hop group gives musical ride with new album

by Jim Snook photography editor

In the world of hip-hop music, originality and individuality are the keys to success. Most recently, the Roots, a band composed of a bassist, a keyboardist, a drummer and two MCs have taken originality to the extreme.

Few hip-hop bands last long enough to make a forth recording, and perhaps only the Roots have made one while their career is still on the ascent. Their second recording, 1995s "Do You Want More?!!!??!" and its follow-up, 1996s "lliadelph Half Life," bridged hip-hop to funk and jazz while also developing a stoic lyrical version sorely missed from the mainstream music scene.

"Things Fall Apart," the highly anticipated album from MCA hip-hop group the Roots, features artwork as powerful as its music, as the album will be released in a limited edition collector's series of five separate album covers.

Five stark black-and-white photographs grace the covers of the limited edition pressing. One shows out-of-control New York Police Department officers pursuing AfricanAmerican citizens during a race riot in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Another is the famous image of a savagely burned toddler shortly after a ~rld another is a closeup figure Giuseppi "Joe the outstretched hand with the Ace of Spades in his hand. The forth shows a haunting face of a starving Somalia child, and rounding out the covers is an interior of a gutted church de~troyed by a~fire.

One of the five covers of the Roots' "Things Fall Apart" War II bombing of Shanghai, China.

''Things Fall Apart," which draws its title from the Nigerian China Achebe's classic 1958 novel (which in turn got its name from the famous poem "The Second Coming" by W.B. Yeats), is in stores now.

Musically, the group is at its best with special guests, including Black Star's Mos Def, who contributes some oldschool fun and technique on the track "Double Trouble."

"Ain't Saying Nothing New" is a good track about the staleness of hip-hop. Innovative percussion offsets Erykah Badu's supple vocals on "You Got Me," along with an organically developed jungle beat.

The main sample used for the intro is from "Mo' Better blues." The only other sample is in "Without A Doubt," courtesy of Schooly D's "Saturday Night."

The Roots set a new standard of rap two years ago by fully mixing live instruments into their act. They call themselves hip-hop, but with an organic feel.

Now is the time to unleash this organic feel on a more accepting crowd and "Things Fall Apart" does just that.

From beginning to end, Black Thought, Malik B. and ?uestlove, plus the many others that make up the Roots, take you on a musical ride that explores the many facets of hip-hop. This album is not going to play out quickly so don't play yourself; go out and get it!

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