Undun / [Explicit]

The Roots | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (December 6, 2011)
• Original Release Date: 2011
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Def Jam
• ASIN: B005VR9328
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #590 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #16 in Music > Rock > Rap Rock
  • #20 in Music > Rap & Hip-Hop > Pop Rap

Editorial Reviews

Amidst The Roots' busy schedule, from performing as the house band on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to recently fronting a Pre-Emmy Awards jam session, the legendary crew has returned with their latest musical creation, a new album entitled undun (Island Def Jam). Set for release on December 6, 2011, undun marks the first conceptually-based album from The Roots and quickly reaffirms the creativity of the outfit that are notorious for pushing the envelope. The album's first single, "Make My" featuring Big K.I.R.T. is set for release November 1st on iTunes. In addition to their new album, The Roots are set to perform in New York City on November 29th and 30th and December 5th at the Highline Ballroom.

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?"

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars DEAR MUSIC APPRECIATORS, December 6, 2011

By 

Andrew H. Lee "Constant Listener" (Snohomish, WA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Undun / [Explicit] (Audio CD)

Dear Music Appreciators,

I come to this album as one who knows nothing of The Roots beyond the few dozen times I've been flipping channels and decided to watch a bit of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Based on their work on that show I knew they were an incredibly talented and versatile band, and this, their latest studio album, is simply further evidence of that fact.

Unlike many of their more popular peers, this is not simply a vehicle for a few hot singles with some filler in between. This is a real "record" in that old school sense of the word - a collection of carefully crafted songs that go well together and are meant to be experienced in order, one after another. This is the kind of record that would sound best on a record player, or at least on a Discman with some big ol' headphones while you're pounding the city pavement or shooting down a subway line.

On their late night television gig The Roots are a band that flies high above the anchors of musical genre and this album is no exception. This is not really just a rap album or a hip-hop album or a soul album or a funk album or a pop album or a rock album, it's...well, it's a ROOTS album. And it's something of a concept album, centered around one Redford Stephens, who happened into a life of crime in inner-city New York and died at twenty-five.

The album opens with Redford dead, moves backwards to explore his story, and ends with four short, hopped-up. classical sounding instrumental tracks - a sort of "Redford Stephens Suite" to memorialize the fallen character.

While there are rhymes and beats to please even the most primitive music fans, this is essentially rap-infused, art-flavored hip-hop for smart people, and as such it succeeds beautifully, so why not buy this now and plant The Roots latest album in your mind to see if it will grow a little?

Sincerely,

Constant Listener

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Undun is art, December 6, 2011

By 

Daniel C. Wilcock "journal-ist" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Undun / [Explicit] (Audio CD)

The Roots tenure in the music business spans much of hip hop history from the late 80s, through the 'golden age' of hip hop, to its current state of affairs. Each of their albums has a different tone, and this is by far the darkest and most poetic. A 'concept album,' undun tells the story of a poor kid who thinks he's making the right decisions, but gets drawn deeper into the drug game until he's killed. Yet the story is told in reverse, kind of like Pulp Fiction.

As a Roots fan since Do You Want More, this album inspires me. Their musicianship is perhaps better than it has ever been. Quest and Co. are experimenting with lush classical tones amid the boom-bap-blip, especially on the album's closing suite of four instrumental songs. The MCing is inspired. Black Thought is ill, and more precise than ever. Great guest spots from the likes of Greg Porn, as usual, and haunting hooks and verses by Dice Raw.

As much as it inspires me, it also depresses me. That's the point. The Roots are making real art here, a work with a poignant message that can be interpreted on many different levels. For me, they are telling a dark story that contains a message about life's value and how humans cannot survive faced with only bad and worse choices.

The stand out track for me is Sleep, which marks death. The music is so weird and hard hitting. Almost like something from Portishead circa the mid-90s. The lyrics and the imagery of falling leaves create a mood of bittersweet release.

I'd recommend this album to anyone who likes hip hop but yearns for something beyond the sophomoric slogans that dominate the genre these days. It might be dispiriting thematically, but simple pop doesn't wake people up.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stop Watching The Throne and Get Undun!, December 6, 2011

By 

Gary Anderson (Spokane Washington) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Undun [Explicit] [+Digital Booklet] (MP3 Download)

The Roots continue to prove that they are the most consistent music group out there. Even some of their older albums that were perhaps not as good as we might have liked, were still leaps and bounds better than seemingly 80% of the other music out there.

In my time of doing reviews on my blog I've only given four albums a perfect five rating. The Roots' album from last year, How I Got Over, their collaboration with John Legend "Wake Up", Hidden Beach Unwrapped Volume 1 and "The Carnivale" by Wyclef Jean, which remains today one of my top 10 albums that I've ever heard in my life.

Today The Roots get the fifth 5 Rating (and third album to get that that they are involved with). I've been a fan of the Roots for a long time, having come to them via D'Angelo who is my favorite artist. I heard some collaborations that he had done with them in some live recordings that I have and was just hooked.

Here you have a rap group that's an actual BAND. They play their instruments, and they play them well. It's not often you come across a hip hop band, but the Roots have been putting it down for hip hop in a serious way for years now and show no signs of creative drop off.

Never more clear than on their newest album "UnDun" which in a first for the legendary Roots Crew, is a concept album. Undun chronicles the life and death of Redford Stephens who embraces some bad choices in his life and ends up paying the ultimate price for it, and tells said story in reverse.

The album begins with his dying and works it's way back to the beginning of the story -- the end of the album. Clocking in at just a shade under 40 minutes it's a fairly short album, however it's an amazing piece of work that seems to alternate between being staggeringly beautiful and hauntingly depressing at various points throughout.

One thing that I loved about How I Got Over was their utilizing feature appearances by artists that many perhaps would not have heard, who listen to the Roots regularly. Artists like The Dirty Projectors, Monsters of Folk, Joanna Newsome and STS.

This album also features some of these indie rock artists and once again I'm kind of blown away by the incredible sound that has been made with the Roots collaborating with these artists.

In fact one of my favorite tracks on here is "Sleep" which features a singer named Aaron Livingston. I have never heard him before, but he has a line in there that when I heard it I just sat back in awe, dumbstruck by the implications of it and the very idea of it.

Something so seemingly simple, and yet complex and deep at the same time. One of those things you'll end up thinking about later after you've put the album away to go to sleep yourself.

I love the idea behind this concept album. The idea of chronicling a man who for lack of a bad choices might have ended up with a whole different (and perhaps much longer) life, and made it out of the environment that he found himself trapped in.

I've thought back before to mistakes I've made, decisions I've made and how it influenced my life and how it impacted my ending up in the very room I sit right now writing this review.

If I had done things differently, would I be here right now? Would I have ended up in another state? Perhaps gone to college, got a helluva job? Met someone, settled down, had kids, and the stereotypical American Dream?

Or was I always destined to end up where I'm at now? I thought about that as I listened to Undun, because it made me wonder whether Redford was doomed from the beginning. Whether his ending was predetermined from jump street and that he realized that and simply embraced what he felt was his destiny.

It's definitely an interesting conversation piece, I think. And that, ultimately, is what separates The Roots from your average hip hop artists out there. The Roots stay coming correct with their intelligent and introspective works, while many others tend to focus on more materialistic gains.

Unfortunately too many people would rather Watch The Throne, rather than get their heads into some real solid intelligent hip hop music. And that's sad, but unfortunately a part of life.

As the album ends, it has it's final piece, a cover of singer Sufjan Stevens' song Redford, split into four "movements", and tell the "beginning" of Stephen's life.

The first part is Sufjan himself on the piano, followed by a string quartet interpreting the song. After that you have Roots' drummer Questlove and pianist D.D. Jackson going to work, and then the final movement, which actually represents the beginning of Redford Stephen's life.

As I'm listening right now to the final four tracks that form this sort of orchestral movement it's absolutely stunningly beautiful! I mean I've read online where there were some who heard the album and didn't like the final four tracks and felt that it would have been better ending on the 10th track.

I think those who feel this way are missing the whole idea of a concept album, and how every piece fits. Every piece tells a part of the story. Every piece serves a purpose. And personally, I actually thought I'd be moved to tears by the 12th track "Possibility". It was amazing in a way that words can't express.

To sum up, this is yet again, another potentially classic album by a group that we've come to expect excellence from. However just because we have grown to expect this type of brilliance, doesn't negate or diminish the quality of this album.

Some of the usual suspects show up for appearances including Dice Raw, Phonte, P.O.R.N. and Truck North, as well as Big K.R.I.T. who has a great future ahead of him in hip hop.

I also liked some of the vocalists on here including Bilal, Livingston and even Mercedes Martinez & Tracy Moore, of Jazzyfatnastees fame, who contributed the vocals to "I Remember" which is outstanding!

All in all, if you like good hip hop music, if you like good MUSIC period, you need to do yourself a favor and pick this up!