The Roots: Things Fall Apart Review

The Roots – Things Fall Apart

            “Check it out! You’re now in tune to the/sounds of the/ R to the/double O to the/T - S and I stretch limits to this profession” was all I remembered hearing in the 4-hour drive from Newark to Washington, D.C. during summer 2011. My mom, grandpa, classmate Denise, and I were on our way to my 3-week residency at Georgetown University for a summer college prep program. I was one of two students from my high school to be accepted. The other student was Denise. It was my first time *really* listening to The Roots’ third studio album (fourth if you count their demo Organix from 1993 as their debut). I literally just got it in the mail from Amazon.com the day before, and boy was I stressed out at the fact that I would not be able to listen to it while at Georgetown. I was on a quest to get deeper into the music of The Roots, and I read online that this was their best-known project and considered a hip-hop classic. Things Fall Apart’s production began in 1997, and it was released February 23, 1999.

            Here’s a bit of background information: The Roots, at this point of time, consisted of about 8 members. They each have various nicknames that they’ve given each other and that the fans lovingly call them; I will list their most prominent stage name first in quotations (brace yourself!). The co-founders of The Roots are Tariq “Black Thought a.k.a. Riq Gees” Trotter, the lead emcee, and drummer and band leader Ahmir Khalib “Questlove a.k.a. ?uestlove a.k.a. B.R.o.The R. ? (Beat Recycler of The Rhythm) a.k.a. Questo aka Cornell Quest a.k.a. Mark a.k.a. DJ Questlove a.k.a. Professor Questlove a.k.a. Roots” Thompson. The rest of the members are emcee Malik “Malik B” Abdul-Basset; emcee Karl “Dice Raw” Jenkins; bassist Leonard “Hub” Hubbard; keyboardist James “Kamal a.k.a. Kamal on the Keys a.k.a. Mal-Dog a.k.a. Calzone a.k.a. Klang” Gray; keyboardist James Poyser, beat boxer Rahzel “Rahzel the Godfather of Noyze” Brown; and beat boxer Kyle “Scratch” Jones. They have a handful of managers, producers, and engineers who live in the Roots camp. Their late manager Richard “dixpop” Nichols was the executive producer. Scott Storch, a producer who has been affiliated with The Roots since 1993 had his hand in constructing some songs from the album. 

The Roots have a production group for their albums, called The Grand Wizzards, who consist of Richard Nichols, Questlove, Black Thought, Kamal, Scott Storch, James Poyser, Hub, Dice Raw, Kenyatta “Kelo” Williams, who is one of their more prominent producers, and Chaos and Wigs, two other producers. Other important members are managers Shawn Gee, A.J. Shine, and musicians and engineers Anthony Tidd, Steve Mandel, and Bob Power. Guest appearances include rappers Common, Eve, Elo the Cosmic Eye, Beenie Siegal, singers Erykah Badu, D’Angelo, Jill Scott, spoken word artist Ursula Rucker, and producers Jay Dee a.k.a. J Dilla and DJ Jazzy Jeff.

I broke down the album in 5 different categories: Production, music, lyrics, mood/theme, and impact. 

Production: The Grand Wizzards done it again! Or, should I say, the Soulquarians done it again? Although The Grand Wizzards produced this album, most fans would consider this a Soulquarians produced album. Considering how Things Fall Apart was recorded from 1997- 1999 in Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Land studios in NYC alongside D’angleo’s Voodoo, Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun, Bilal’s First Born Second, Mos Def’s Black on Both Sides, Common’s Like Water for Chocolate and a handful of others with similar sounds and ideologies, and that most of the artist from said albums contributed to Things, and vice versa, and the fact that most of these musicians were born under the sign Aquarius, it’s safe to call it a Soulquarians production. While being interviewed for Vibe Magazine, Questlove came up with the name Soulquarians. The name stuck with Vibe, and they ran with it. 

Mood/Theme: The title Things Fall Apart was inspired by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe’s book of the same name. His book follows the story of a Nigerian man who returns to his village only to see that it has changed; Western ways were wiping out the traditions of his culture. Questlove mentions in his autobiography Mo Meta Blues that he saw that as some sort of an analogy for what happened to hip hop. When constructing an album and especially when coming up with a title, The Roots usually have three key aspects they take into consideration: What is happening with the group musically and personally at that period of time, the state of hip hop in that period of time, and then the vast changes the world is going through. In this case, the dawn of a new millennium was approaching, and so were major conspiracy theories (see: Y2K). Hip-hop was about 3 years out of its prime years, its golden age, and it was moving into a more popular and glossy landscape. Terrorism, racism, and other major political issues were tearing American citizens apart. 

I always felt that the album artwork helps give a visual to the music. What we see is pretty close to what we’ll hear. Things Fall Apart was originally released with five different album covers. The main cover that is seen on all of the current releases of the album was a woman running during a riot in Brooklyn in the 60s. The other four are a crying child, the inside of a burned church, an infant crying in the rubble of Shanghai following Japanese attacks during World War II, and the bloodied arm and hand of mafia boss Giuseppe Masseria after his shooting death in 1931. Each and every cover represented a theme of failure in society: fear, famine, murder, destruction, poverty, and police brutality, among other issues. 

The mood of the album was also due to how The Roots were being “accepted” to hip hop fans. They were, at this point, still seen as that weird hip-hop band that plays instruments. As Questlove put it, The Roots were like the Down syndrome cousin at the family reunion that everyone picked last to participate in the games. They weren’t the new kids to the music industry, but they weren’t the group with tenure. They were still finding themselves, but on this record, the fans finally found The Roots. The album has a dark cloud over it, ready to pour down and flood the streets with lyrical and musical hail stones. The album should be listened to, dissected, regurgitated, and ingested again. It will leave you with a funny taste in your mouth the first time you listen; yet you would want to go back for more, until that funny taste becomes your favorite flavor. 

Lyrics: comparing this to The Roots two prior albums, I would consider this a battle rap album with conscious elements. People love to label The Roots as conscious hip hop, mainly because they aren’t mainstream and played on the radio and have had songs that dealt with more social issues versus materialistic, misogynistic, violent subjects. Overall, Black Thought raps more about how other rappers are sub par and are sellouts, and that The Roots are the best crew around. BT spits fury and verbally rips apart each track he’s on. Normally, he raps about how much pride he has for his city, Philadelphia, and more specifically, his neighborhood, South Philly. He has various nicknames for Philly and The Roots’ affiliation with it, such as illadelph, 215 (the area code), ill-a-5^th dynasty (the 5 representing power). All of the rappers also usually name drop various locations in Philly, which does help if you’re visiting one day and would like to know where to go or stay away from. Black Thought, for years has been considered one of the most underrated rappers and one of the greatest rappers of all time. The way he constructs his rhymes to perfectly flow within the music still stuns listeners. He is able to alter the pronunciations of words in order to make them work for his rhymes.

             

Black Thought also has a way of creating lush, intricate rhymes for his love songs. There are only two such songs on this album: “Act Too”, an ode to hip hop, and on “You Got Me”, a song expressing how he will never leave his lady’s side, regardless of where his career takes him. He proves he can battle rappers into the ground as well as make women swoon with his words. Regardless of who or what he rhymes about, he’s the man. His rap from “The Next Movement” sums it up perfectly: “Listen close to my poetry, I examine this/Like an analyst, to see if you can/handle this”.

Music: There are many rumors that surround The Roots, one of them being they do not sample. They’ve been sampling since their inception! Questlove has mentioned in countless interviews that they incorporate various elements from other songs into their music in almost every record. They just have a very good way of hiding it. Because they are a live band and do not use turntables and a DJ, listeners may not realize that the beat Quest is pumping out is an obscure Prince beat, or that the cowbells from “Without a Doubt” is a sample from gangsta rapper Schooly D’s song “Saturday Night”. A majority of their music are new creations inspired by recycled materials, which could be lyrics or music. Rahzel the Godfather of Noyze and Scratch share beat boxing duties throughout the album. They provide sound effects, most notably the sounds of a record scratching, bass lines, glass shattering, engines, and everything else under the sun. On the song “100% Dundee”, Rahzel takes on the bass and drum at the same time! “3rd Acts: ? vs Scratch 2...Electric Boogaloo” features Scratch acting as turntables and performing vocal snippets of older hip hop songs. Questlove keeps the groove going and gets the rhythmic details precise. He likes to make listeners believe that it is in fact a drum machine playing the beats rather than a drummer, so he keeps his drumming so rigid, yet lively. He keeps in time while also reminding you that there is a person creating this music with an instrument rather than a drum machine. Kamal and James use a Fender Rhodes on most of the songs, and this helps the recordings have a lush, almost comforting feeling to it. On harder tracks, the keyboardists accompany Questlove and Hub with sharp, lively chords. Hub keeps listeners on lock with his smooth and bouncy bass lines. Behind Questlove, Hub is usually everyone’s favorite member. Some tracks include other percussion, guitar and orchestral instruments, to add layers to the music and to the album as a whole. The album is recognized for it’s seamless, fluid sequencing. It is organized into four acts, as if it were a theater production. They wanted to have “sonic, artistic thoughts” end and the next begin.

Impact: Things Fall Apart finally went platinum on April 24, 2013, after 14 years. Plenty of music writers consider this their greatest work; their breakthrough album. It was the first Roots album to sell over 500,000 copies. The album was nominated in the 2000 Grammys for Best Rap Album, but the only win The Roots saw that night was for Best Rap Performance by Duo or Group for the song and single “You Got Me”. Roots fans are still arguing today about if and why this is their best or greatest album; some, like me, say that it is indeed their breakthrough, but not their best, and it is not my favorite. No one can ever deny that this is their classic album. Alternative rap fans put it high on a pedestal, and mainstream fans at least know it from the lead singles “The Next Movement” and “You Got Me”. This is the last Roots album featuring all of the original line up from 1994, so it allows fans to go back and hear them as a solid unit.

Track list: (I rated it on a scale of 1-10, ten being the best). The Roots love to continue where they left off from the last album, so they have a continuing track numbering for their albums (normally this would be numbered 1-19).

54. Act Won (Things Fall Apart): 10
55. Table of Contents, Pts. 1 & 2: Part 1 gets a 9, Part 2 gets a 4.

56. The Next Movement: 8

57. Step into the Realm: 9
58. The Spark: 5

59. Dynamite!: 8
60. Without a Doubt: 7
61. Ain't Sayin' Nothin' New: 10
62. Double Trouble (Mos Def): 10

63. Act Too (The Love of My Life): 10
64. 100% Dundee: 8

65. Diedre vs. Dice: 5

66. Adrenaline!: 7
67. 3rd Acts: ? vs Scratch 2...Electric Boogaloo: meh. 5
68. You Got Me: 9
69. Don't See Us: 5
70. The Return to Innocence Lost (spoken word accompanied with music by Ursula Rucker): 6

71. Act Fore (Still Out There): 9 (this is the hidden track).

On a scale of A to F, I would give Things Fall Apart an A-. As with all other Roots albums, this took me a few months to a year to fully digest and appreciate. I always say that I have a favorite Roots album, a most cherished Roots album, and a most appreciated Roots album, which this is. I appreciate how the album was conceived and born, and how it grew and aged like fine wine. This is probably the first album I would introduce someone to if they would like to hear something from The Roots, especially since it features the strongest lineup The Roots have ever seen. For me, this album is kind of like the peanut butter in between the bread of their two prior albums. Although the priors are my favorites, this one is stuck in the middle musically and sonically. It incorporates jazzy instrumentation that was prominent on their first album Do You Want More?!!!??! as well as the hardcore, grimy, boom bap of their sophomore effort (and my all time favorite) illadelph Halflife (1996). Things meets these albums dead in the middle. Things may have fallen apart, but The Roots brought Things together with this album (was that corny?).