Send "Roots Manuva " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 Roots Manuva has come a long way in the last decade. From the bedroom bashment of his debut album, Brand New Second Hand, to consolidating his status as the elder statesman of UK hip-hop on 2008’s Slime & Reason, Rodney Smith has consistently made music both sonically and lyrically engaging. Unfortunately, Caribbean-inflected UK flava works according to its own internal logic. Further, with the exceptions of Duran Duran, perhaps Radiohead, probably Coldplay, and some of the more successful trip-hop acts, UK artists have largely struggled since the 1970s to make a stateside impact. However, the musical situation is more complicated than the charts would have us believe. While the Caribbean and America are geographically close, the mass post-war immigration of the Windrush Generation completely changed the UK’s urban cultural landscape. Though American radio stations playing New Orleans R&B were primary influences on the development of ska and thus rocksteady, soca from Trinidad, and the reggae continuum, the British-born children of the Windrush Generation embraced the reggae riddims and politics, and so did their punk peers. While hip-hop owes its very existence to the wordplay of Jamaican deejays, whose ability to toast over pre-existing tracks was taken up by the emcees of the South Bronx, these influences bleed into one another in UK hip-hop. This lends a distinctive tone to their tales of British urban grit. Roots Manuva is certainly not lacking in this department, but Duppy Writer sees him move his crossover potential into even more accessible territory. Duppy Writer contains only one new track in the wonky skank of Jah Warriors. Otherwise, the tracks here are original Rodney Smith vocal manoeuvres dubbed out by Brixton-based producer Wrongtom. Wrongtom has worked with Roots Manuva before, providing an extra disc of dubs to Slime & Reason, and he has also proven his credentials by working with Lynval Golding’s Pama International, with legendary label Trojan Records, and—for better or worse—with Staines lad’s mag rockers Hard Fi. Duppy Writer includes reworkings of tracks from all of Roots Manuva’s releases, including the outtake-tastic “Dub Come Save Me” and “Alternately Deep”. The cuts here are, then, retro-dubbed. They anachronistically drag verses written in, and perhaps about, the noughties into productions with the imagined markings of previous decades. Indeed, these productions are warm and sunny. They bring their own barbeque, totally lacking in grime ultraviolence or the apocalyptic sentiments of dubstep. Wrongtom opens up the echo chambers, making for tunes that trundle, urged along by big, rich basslines....full text |
| Thequietus |
| A friend of mine recently postulated the theory that if you do the same thing for long enough people will eventually notice and you'll be revered for it. It could be called the theory of consistency. Or predictability. Or monotony. This is palpably bollocks. The records that comprise Rodney Smith's career (even disregarding assorted dub versions, remixes and obscurities) are not consistent, predictable or monotonous. There was the raw Brand New Second Hand. Then there was Run Come Save Me with 'Witness (1 Hope)', a track so colossal it would always overshadow the album that bore it, no matter how good the album was. Awfully Deep was unbearably bleak. And in 2008 Smith went pop, after a fashion, with Slime & Reason. The latter contained some glorious moments and was engaging where its predecessor had been morose. But despite this, Slime & Reason sounds patchy in retrospect, due in part to the number of producers involved. For Duppy Writer, Roots Manuva has recruited only one, and in Wrongtom (perhaps previously best known as Hard-Fi's tour DJ) he may have found the perfect foil....full text |
| Contactmusic |
| For all the respect paid, and his undoubted influence on British hip hop, there is always a suspicion that Rodney Smith - aka Roots Manuva - was doing less with the more god had given him. At around the time of the release of his second album Run Come Save Me - what with its Mercury Prize nomination and acres of adoring press - it looked like finally there was an artist in possession of the strength of character to take the fight to the US hip hop scene. And yet somehow, probably within the four year gap until the follow up Awfully Deep was released, that head of steam bled out, the creative higher ground being stolen inevitably by a hungry new generation of boys in the corner, most feeding off the more DIY style of flow which first surfaced publicly via The Streets Original Pirate Material. Still very much active since then, if Smith cares much now about seeing this crop harvesting a clutch of number one singles and annexing the pop market, the boldness of Duppy Writer's high concept certainly doesn't show it. Working again with Wrongtom - who produced a number of reworked tracks from 2008's Slime & Reason - Duppy Writer reaches further into the Manuva back catalogue, allowing the reggae sounds of the rapper's familial Jamaican roots to be proudly shoved to the foreground....full text |
Roots Manuva lyrics
|
| |||||||||||||
