My Gut Reaction: The Roots - ...and then you shoot your cousin (May 19, 2014)

The Roots tend to rank among my favorite hip hop acts. The genre’s most well-known live band has never received the commercial success they absolutely deserve, but the Roots Crew have been critically acclaimed almost from the jump, and for good reason: they’re fucking great. Led by drummer Questlove and one of the best, if not the best, rappers in the game, Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter, The Roots have been honing their craft ever since their first offering, 1993’s Organix. Through their efforts, Philadelphia is no longer known as a hub of criminal boasts (see: Beanie Sigel, Freeway, Meek Mill), nor just as the hometown of the Fresh Prince. The fact that they appear on broadcast television every weeknight as Jimmy Fallon’s house band on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon is just icing on the cake, a fitting reward for a career well-done. 

But that’s just it: they’re not done.

Various Roots songs have been fixtures on my playlist for… god damn, over twenty fucking years now, and I consider myself a fan, and yet I haven’t written about the group in four years. Their eleventh (!) album, …and then you shoot your cousin, dropped four and a half years ago, long before all that life shit got in the way of regular updates to the site. The only excuse I can come up with is that Def Jam Records released the project at a time when I was buried in different ideas, and even though I picked up the album because come on, it’s The Roots we’re talking about, I never found the time to give it a spin, let along write it up. When it rains, it pours in our chosen genre, so I didn’t think this was out of the ordinary.

I didn’t listen to …and then you shoot your cousin until now.

I know, I’m ashamed of myself too. Some fan I must be, right? My guess is that the album was in my realm of general awareness, but quickly was lost in my nigh-mythical piles, and even though I knew I was missing something, it never clicked that I had missed an entire Roots album until now. Sorry.

…and then you shoot your cousin is a concept album, as was their previous effort, Undun, because The Roots have long since mastered the art of producing a “normal” hip hop album and feel the need to constantly challenge themselves. But while Undun followed a single protagonist’s viewpoint, this follow-up (which isn’t a sequel) features multiple characters and motivations, even with a run time of just over half an hour. In an interview, Black Thought described the project as a satirical look at the prevalence of violence in our society, but that doesn’t mean any of this shit is going to be funny.

…and then you shoot your cousin moved little more than negative nineteen units at retail, which is likely my fault, as my reviews have been scientifically proven to drive sales of the critically-acclaimed projects Def Jam releases as tax write-offs. The Roots haven’t dropped a new album since 2014 (although Tariq dropped an EP with producer 9th Wonder, Streams of Thought, Vol. 1, during the Kanye West tsunami earlier this year), so maybe today’s post will indirectly encourage Questlove to finish up whatever they’ve been working on so the fans can finally hear it.

*waves to Questlove, who we all know is an avid reader of the blog*

(The track numbering below reflects how the songs are labeled on the back cover of the album, as all of the Roots’ songs are numbered consecutively.)

171.  THEME FROM MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT (NINA SIMONE)

Including excerpts of songs from artists entirely unrelated to The Roots is a brilliant move on the group’s part, as it immediately transports the listener to the mindstate of our hosts’ choosing. Also, motherfucking Nina Simone, people!

172. NEVER (FEAT. PATTY CRASH)

… and then I’m immediately taken out of the proceedings with the vocals of guest crooner Patty Crash, who sounds fucking terrible over the simple-but-moody instrumental. Her discordant harmonies hurt my ears, and I am pretty sure that I’m bleeding out now. I think her work would sound better away from the trappings of what is ostensibly a rap song. Which, speaking of, Black Thought’s lone verse is a goddamned masterpiece, as he spits from the point of view of a man who is just lost. “Forever is just a collection of nows,” he says at one point, and you feel that shit, not just because this type of depression is highly relatable, but because Tariq has just proven once again that he’s one of our chosen genre’s most unsung writers. So it’s just too bad they had to include the hook on “Never”, is what I’m saying.

173. WHEN THE PEOPLE CHEER (FEAT. GREG PORN & MODESTY LYCAN)

For some reason, “When the People Cheer” was the first (and only, I believe) single Def Jam released from …and then you shoot your cousin. I imagine I’ll figure out why in a bit, but for now I’ll just say this… wasn’t the best choice. The track kicks off with the still-unfortunately-named Greg Porn, who sounds okay, but his verse is weakened by both the lithe instrumental and guest singer Modesty Lycan’s hook, which treads the same sonic territory as Patty Crash did on “Never”. Once Tariq steps up to the plate, with a funny-yet-sexist character who just sounds bored with absolutely everything, the track picks up a tiny bit, but in no way could that shit have ever been expected to help sell the project, right?

174. THE DEVIL (MARY LOU WILLIAMS)

The vocals excerpted from “The Devil” segue nicely into…

175. BLACK ROCK (FEAT. DICE RAW)

… this Black Rock-sampling song, which utilizes the same source material Black Milk molded into “Deadly Medley” (off of Album Of The Year) with similar results, although hearing Dice Raw and Black Thought spit over the loop made me appreciate the Milk/Royce da 5’9”/Elzhi collaboration that much more. Given the fact that these guys are just playing roles, there is hardly any boasting or bullshitting present on “Black Rock”, which serves the story just fine, but I kind of wish these they would have taken the instrumental to spit some “normal” Roots shit over it, too. Both Dice Raw and Thought sounded pretty nice, but this doesn’t really work outside of the (loose) context of the album proper. Oddly, I was left wishing that Dice Rae had outsourced his hook-singing duties, though.

176. UNDERSTAND (FEAT. DICE RAW & GREG PORN)

An organ-heavy production from Questlove and the band is carried by Dice Raw’s matter-of-fact hook and Black Thought’s short first verse, during which Tariq continues to redefine “despair” with the litany of character thoughts being displayed. Gregiston Pornography fares much worse, however, dragging everything down with his pseudo-Wale flow that I somehow never picked up on before, unless he made the particular creative choice to portray Waluigi as a character in this tale. The Roots would have been better off had they just asked Wale to pop in for a cameo. Le sigh.

177. DIES IRNE (MICHEL CHION)

I mean, you can’t listen to this (what serves as an) interlude and not feel an overwhelming sense of dread. You just can’t.

178. THE COMING (FEAT. MERCEDES MARTINEZ)

No rhymes to be found here, either. Instead, guest Mercedes Martinez sets up the next track by crooning over some moving orchestral work.

179. THE DARK (TRINITY) (FEAT. DICE RAW & GREG PORN)

Tariq, Gregory, and Dice Raw each tackle a verse on “The Dark (Trinity)”, a low-key affair that features actual straight-up lyricism and doesn’t just sound like Black Thought and the crew have spotlights pointed at them as they pull away from the kitchen table set to weave their respective tales downstage, directly to the audience. Pornografia’s middle stanza is the worst by far, as the man manages to sound like he’s never spit to a beat a day in his life, but as this track is intended to be treated as satire, that’s kind of the point, and yet I still didn’t care for his performance. Thought kills it, as usual, but I was more impressed with the artistic evolution of Dice Raw, who has come a long way from the shit-talking hustler he was aiming to be on “Clones” and the like.

180. THE UNRAVELING (FEAT. RAHEEM DEVAUGHN)

Don’t be thrown off by the presence of guest star Raheem DeVaughn: “The Unraveling” is a first-person account from a dying man and, as such, is as far from “radio-friendly” as rap songs can get. This shit isn’t quite as dark as you would think, but it does run pretty deep, thanks to Tariq’s wordplay, as the rap god drops a ton of jewels into what is ultimately an incredibly short performance: DeVaughn receives more screen time than Thought on here. The music is subtle and moving, shuffling our protagonist off of this mortal coil in ways both efficient and melodic. So yeah, throw this one on the next time you’re at a house party.

181. TOMORROW (FEAT. RAHEEM DEVAUGHN)

DeVaughn performs alone over a hopeful, uplifting instrumental as the credits roll (probably). Great decision on the Roots Crew’s part to not end things with “The Unraveling”, instead choosing to encourage listeners to not give up on finding happiness, however fleeting, or some shit in this utter hellscape life can sometimes become. As a song, “Tomorrow” is pleasant, nonthreatening, and I’ll never listen to it again. But as the ending to ...and then you shoot your cousin’s narrative, it works extraordinarily well. So kudos for that.

THE LAST WORD: …and then you shoot your cousin works more as a single episode of television than it does as an album. Let me explain: instead of cherry-picking single songs from the project, which doesn’t really work here, the album demands to be listened to from start to finish in order to experience the story properly. Which is fine, as it’s fairly short. …and then you shoot your cousin lands at the corner of Creativity and Challenging, as this is never going to be considered a typical rap album, but that doesn’t mean it’s inaccessible in any way: Questlove, Thought, and company have purposefully designed the album to welcome all audiences, which is important when one considers the subject matter. As what reads as an audio version of a stage play, The Roots nail it. There are, of course, some questionable instances of casting: Greg Porn was just a poor choice overall (was Peedi Crakk unavailable?), and Patty Crash didn’t work for me, but everyone else invited step up their respective games. This is a nice diversion in the Roots catalog, and is still worth a listen, even with the existential dread it’s bound to stir up in the listener, but it plays more to the art houses than the multiplexes, and while I have no issue with that, who doesn’t just want to hear a Roots album with Thought and some of his friends just destroying microphones at this point?

-Max

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