(JUAN.of.a.KIND)

The Roots - Make My (feat. Big K.R.I.T.)

From Nah Right:

undun is an existential re-telling of the short life of one Redford Stephens (1974-1999). Through the use of emotives and Redford’s internal dialogues the album seeks to illustrate the intersection of free will and prescribed destiny as it plays out ‘on the corner’. Utilizing a reverse narrative arc, the album begins as the listener finds Redford disoriented–postmortem–and attempting to make sense of his former life. As he moves through its pivotal moments he begins to deconstruct all that has led to his (and our own) coming undun.

“At this point in our career we’d like for our work to have a unifying theme, and an experiential quality,” says Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson, 40. “We’ve been intentionally making our albums shorter in length so that they can be experienced as a continuous work. The music is band-oriented with an eye on the moody cinematic. As a DJ, I am the King of playlists, but I don’t want our albums to feel like a playlist or a mixtape for that matter. We want to tell stories that work within the album format and we want the stories to be nuanced and useful to people. undun is the story of this kid who becomes criminal, but he wasn’t born criminal. He’s not the nouveau exotic primitive bug-eyed gunrunner like Tupac’s character Bishop in “Juice”… he’s actually thoughtful and is neither victim nor hero. Just some kid who begins to order his world in a way that makes the most sense to him at a given moment… At the end of the day… isn’t that what we all do?”

Can’t believe that The Legendary are already putting out a brand new LP (and a concept album at that). I’m all for shorter (read: 40 min) studio recordings if it means more frequent releases from the hardest working band in hip hop music. Plus, you gotta love that extended breakdown at the end.

Official tracklist:

1. Sleep
2. Make My feat. Big K.R.I.T.
3. One Time
4. Kool On
5. The Jump
6. Stomp
7. Lighthouse
8. I Remember
9. Tip The Scale
10. Redford

undun hits your favourite music retail outlet on December 6th (instant coppage on day one). Should be the perfect way to end what has turned out to be a fine year for hip hop.

(Source: okayplayer.com)