Day 0944 - Phrenology

The Roots “Phrenology” (2002) – got it

Considering the Roots now have a prolific discography and are prominent as the house band for 'the Late Show with Jimmy Fallon', they had relatively humble beginnings.  Drummer ?uestlove and rapper Black Thought would busk on the street with ?uest playing on buckets.   The group kept a reasonably organic sound as they developed into their first recordings, playing with live musicians and mixing jazz sounds into their backing tracks.

Over their first few albums their line-up changed a bit.  They experimented with some different genres, and formed the Soulquarians collective which (as previously mentioned) also worked on albums by Erykah Badu and Common.

Their fifth album 'Phrenology' is bursting with music, from the brief explosion of hardcore in "!!!!!!!", the funky soul of "The Seed (2.0)", the jazz-backed rap of "Something in the Way of Things".    There's the Epic track “Water” which swings from hiphop to a run through what almost sounds like an Ennio Morricone score and an almost avant outro.

The closing song hidden in the tracklisting as an untitled track and mixes hip-hop in with electronica.   Basically these guys can touch upon any area of music they like and it seems to work.

Really need to check out some more of their stuff, I kind of lost track of them after the following album "The Tipping Point".

Day 0934- Power in Numbers

Jurassic 5 “Power in Numbers” (2002) – got it

I was introduced to Jurassic 5 through the video for “What’s Golden” (a single from this album).  I was struck by the great beat, interesting production, smart lyrics and the chorus that manages to be catchy without needing rely on a sample or a guest singer.  The real clincher for me was hearing Chali 2na… this group is more than one MC but his bassy percussive rapping style was something I hadn’t really heard before.

I picked up this album not long after that, and it didn’t disappoint.  The tracks have a lot of soul and jazz that sounds like similar to what the Soulquarians’ were doing, though in this case that sound comes courtesy of DJs Cut Chemist and Nu-Mark.   They lay a jazzy groove behind “If you only knew” and strings and melancholic guitar in the Nelly Furtado-featured “Thin Line”.

I like that while there are touches of typical hip-hop braggadocio, the group are largely humble, intelligent and kick against the misogynistic and ‘gangsta’ norms found in some areas of hip-hop.

There is some speedy, snappy rapping on track “A day at the races”, and in fact across the record the MCs seem able to speed it up or slow it down to suit.  They also have a really great style they deploy which is somehow legato and staccato at the same time… like the vocal equivalent of driving over a cattle-stop where the words flow together but each syllable is bouncing off the previous one… ah sorry, I’m dancing about architecture.

Essentially, it’s an album that is bursting with talent, from the core members (most of whom have pursued solo careers) to the guests who include Kool Keith performing the acapella track “DDT”.

J5 would go on to release one more album (2006’s “Feedback”) before splitting up.  While they have reunited for the odd show, no further material (outside of the single "Customer Service") has been released since then.