Not counting Slick Rick, Roots Manuva is England’s finest rapper in my opinion. This is the cool sounding MC’s sophmore release.
1. Intro
2. Bashment Boogie
Nothing special this track but a decent opener. Simple beat with a nice bassline. Manuva’s flow seems to fit nicely. Annoying bloke singing the hook though.
3. Witness (1 Hope)
Anyone who hasn’t heard this track (probably the majority) download it now. Bangin beat, lyrics, tight flow and check out that bassline. His best song to date.
4. Join the Dots
Real nice beat sounding similar to something Beatnuts might use. Don’t like whoever does the opening rap but normal service soon resumes. Great chorus too.
5. Interlude
6. Ital Visions
Strong Contender for best song on the album. Simple but nice beat with drums and synths, but once again its the amazing bassline which is the highlight. This track also shows how Manuva has improved lyrically since his debut, tackling some political issues amongst other topics.
7. Kicking the Cack
Everything about this track is horrible. Skip this one everytime.
8. Dub Styles
Quite annoying and repetitive beat, pretty crap lyrics and flow but something keeps me listening to this. Addictive.
9. Trim Body
A pretty dark hardcore sound here. But ***** knows what he was smoking when he was recording the lyrics. Can’t hardly understand a word.
10. Artical
Probably too hardcore for my taste. Beat is a simple drumline and bassline with Manuva spitting bars over it. Decent rap.
11. Hol’ it up
Another speaker breaker in terms of Bass. Average track. I just don’t like the guest appearances – the English accent on them sounds horrible.
12. Stone The Crows
I seriously will need some new woofer’s after this album’s bass has finished *****ing with them. I’d love to here a car bumping it. A good track. “Shouldn’t really be here shouldn’t really exist, shouldn’t take these drugs shouldn’t get so pissed”.
13. Sinny Sin Sins
Another great track and probably the deepest one on here. Drums bassline and strings set the backdrop for Manuva to rap about his past, how he was forced to go to church and life etc.
14. Evil Rabbit
A fantastic dark beat using a guitar. This track has really grown on me and Manuva sounds brilliant over this.
15. Swords in the Dirt
A good track with everything from lyrics to beat sounding on point. Nice scrathes on the hook.
16. Highest Grade
Song bout weed. Another great bassline. Pretty average production. Not a particularly ear catching song.
17. Dreamy Days
Despite this track having a video and some airplay, its still a real good track and not too commerical. Deep lyrics, great production.
Despite UK rappers hardly getting any recognition (and rightly so in most cases), Roots Manuva is certainly one talented rapper. There’s not person in rap who I can think of who sounds like him which immediately makes him unique. Although I imagine this is a hard album to find, if you can hunt one down – buy it, it won’t disappoint true hip hop fans.
3.5 seems like a too low score, and 4/5 seems a little too high – so you do the math.
I thought I’d ‘keep it real’ here and showcase this English rapper. Roots Manuva is from South London, and released this, his debut album in 1999. His website (rootsmanuva.co.uk) says of the album, “He could, after all, have taken the obvious big-money route and hired in a heap of famous guests to make safe, production-line hip hop. Instead he chose to spread the love a little”, by this meaning Manuva has no well known guests or production teams, just his own close people.