Album Preview: The Roots "Undun"

It’s been a long time—nearly a quarter century, in fact—since two students at Philadelphia School for Creative and Performing Arts, Ahmir Thompson and Tariq Trotter, formed a hip hop ensemble that would come to be known as the Square Roots. Today we know those two students as ?uestlove and Black Thought, and their extended musical family as The Legendary Roots Crew.

Always one of hip-hop’s hardest working outfits, The Roots can now be seen each and every weeknight on NBC as the house band for Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, backing all sorts of diverse and eclectic visiting artists. Not that the daily routine and steady money of their TV gig has caused the band to grow complacent—not by a long-shot. Since they started at Fallon in March 2009, their playing sounds tighter, their original recordings more focused than ever.

While each track stands on its own, there’s no way to make sense of this reverse narrative arc unless you start at the beginning—which is to say, the end.

The Roots will release their 13th studio album, Undun, on Def Jam December 6. It’s an overwhelmingly powerful work of art, as ambitious and cohesive as a late Beatles album, but 100% grounded in hip-hop. When Questlove says that Undun should be “experienced as a continuous work” he’s not being pretentious—just helpful. “We want to tell stories that work within the album format,” he expained, “and we want the stories to be nuanced and useful to people.” While each track stands on its own, there’s no way to make sense of this reverse narrative arc unless you start at the beginning—which is to say, the end.

Earlier this month, The Roots longtime manager Rich Nichols invited a select group of journalists to MSR Studios in midtown Manhattan for a preview of this amazing album. After demolishing a few trays of chicken and veggie platters, we moved into the recording studio where we listened to nine of the album’s ten tracks before watching as Questlove took his place behind the traps to lay down the 10th and final track. As album listenings go, this one was simply unforgettable. Click through to hear Complex’s first impressions.

Written by Rob Kenner (@boomshots)

Produced by: The Roots

Complex says: Undun tells the life story of Redford Stephens, a young hustler who gets killed at age 25. As in the film Memento, the action runs backwards, allowing listeners (as well as Redford’s disembodied spirit, channeled by a rotating roster of Roots-affiliated rappers) to reflect on the twists and turns of his tragically abbreviated life.

At the outset, Redford’s dead like Freddy in Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly. “Oh—there I go from a man to a memory,” Black Thought rhymes over a tweaked-out piano on this spooky opening track. “Wonder if my fam will remember me?”

Produced by: The Roots & Khari Mateen

Complex says: The first Undun track to leak on these Internets is all about making one’s departure from the world. ?uestlove’s crisp snare drum keeps time like an EKG as electric keyboards shape melancholy melodies.

“I did it all for the money Lord,” Big K.R.I.T. pleads at the final hour, but the track’s swelling orchestral sweep makes it clear that Redford knows there’s more to life. At one point he reflects that “I feel the pull of the blank canvas,” suggesting unfulfilled artistic aspirations, and the path not taken.

Produced by: The Roots

Complex says: Clashing cymbals and earthshaking drums provide the soundscape for war. “Yo—the spirit in the sky screams homicide,” Black Thought declares. But even when it’s time to uncork the redrum, whispers of peaceful resolution tickle the back of Redford’s brain.

“Never hope for the best/I wish a nigga would/Turn around and walk away/I wish a nigga could.” But in this movie, doves get their necks snapped and olive branches get crushed underfoot. “Weakhearts cannot be involved/Stick to the script nigga/Fuck your improv.”

Watch ?uestlove recording drums for this track. As Questo puts it: “The name of the game is POCKET.”

Produced by: The Roots

Complex says: A gutteral blues wail and steely guitar riffs keep looping through this moment of doomed flossing. “Come get your kool on,” runs the seductive refrain, “Stars were made to shine.” Redford is “dressed to kill” but still he “hopes somebody call my bluff.”

When he says “Damn it feels good to see people up on it,” the reference is not to Biz Markie but Biggie, who was heard rapping the line on Diddy’s “Young G’s” after his own untimely death. Even as he revels in the spoils of the game, Redford’s artistic soul cries out for expression. “Fuck a genie and three wishes/I just want a bottle and a place to write my novel.”

Produced by: The Roots

Complex says: Even at the height of his drug-game trajectory, Redford’s having second thoughts. “Yo We obviously need to tone it down a bit,” Black Thought observes. “Brothers keep going for theirs/And never get enough.”

As ?uestlove abuses his drum kit a gospel-tinged chorus hammers home the fact that the stakes couldn’t be higher. “Don’t worry about what you ain’t got/Leave with a little bit of dignity.” Then just as the song ends, those relentless drums slow down to a dead standstill—or were they speeding up?

Produced by: The Roots

Complex says: The track opens with snarling guitars and what sounds like a Knute Rockne halftime speech—“It is your time! It is your moment!”—except that our hero isn’t playing football, he’s just balling. “It’s a life or death moment for [Redford],” says Porn, who contributes a sick verse— “Put the barrel in your mouth and blow the devil a kiss”—to this decisive track.

“That’s the point of his life where he’s either gonna live or he’s gonna die with whatever path he has chosen to go down. There is a sense of ‘I’m forced to do this’ or some remorse, but there’s also a sense of decisiveness that ‘I have to go to the next step with this.’ He doesn’t give a damn from here on out.”

Produced by: The Roots

Complex says: The emotional center of Undun is this song’s haunting hook: “It feels like there’s no one in the lighthouse/Face down in the ocean.”

Dice Raw, who actually sang the chorus, explains the image: “If you look of it as a street term, the lighthouse is kind of like the street lamp. Like you’re running from police and you see your apartment light, and you’re like ‘I just got to get to the crib!’ You’re looking at the lighthouse trying to get there, but no one’s in there looking for you. It’s kind of like a metaphor for life. A lot of people just feel alone–whether it’s some street shit or some regular life shit.”

To be face down in the ocean then is to be caught up in the street. “It’s kind of like you’re out there in the ocean and sometimes you think like ‘Why am I even out here,’ ‘How did I get here’ and ‘How do I get out of here,’ and you got to rely on yourself.” As the track comes to a close “Before the dark abyss/I’ma hit you with this.” And the last word echoes through the night.

Watch ?uestlove beating the crap out of his snare and hi-hat as he lays down the drums for this track. No wonder he got a cramp!

Produced by: The Roots

Complex says: The symphonic sweep of this song calls to mind some Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles shit. The tension here is between memories of innocence—embodied by the wisful chorus, “I remember/Can you remember how it was?”—and Redford’s sense that he’s already gone too far too turn back from his life of crime. “A leopard can’t change its spots,” Black Thought intones, “So I’m forever ill/Sometimes it’s cut and dried as a buiness deal/You gotta cause the blood of a close friend to spill.”

Produced by: The Roots

Complex says: If track 10 is Redford’s birth, then number 9 fast forwards him through youth and innocence all the way to “something like a living hell.” The life expectancy for “soldiers on the street with 8th grade diplomas” is grim at best. Redford already has one “brother on the run, and one in/He wrote me a letter, when you coming?” The best this young man can look forward to is a life spent trying to tip the scales—whether the scales of justice, or of triple-beam dreams—his way.

Produced by: The Roots

Complex says: Rich Nichols describes this instrumental requiem as a “sort-of birth cycle.” But the dreamy piano mood piece punctuated by staccato drumbeats feels more heartsick than hopeful. “It’s almost like he was undone upon birth,” Nichols says of Redford. “It has more to do with the possibilities that you’re born with, and the likelihood of things happening to you. You can grow up in a particular neighborhood and obviously you can be a doctor, lawyer, or whatever—but more than likely your life is gonna be a certain way. Not saying you’re gonna be a criminal, but your outcome of you life is definitely gonna be affected by your surroundings, statistically. Any individual can do anything, but if you take a bunch of stats (1:48), more than likely you’re gonna live life a certain way.”