^{Originally published on Realbuzz.com [1]}

In 1999, The Roots [2] came out with a double-disc live album, The Roots Come Alive [3], with songs culled from performances in Switzerland, New York, and various other locations. Rising Down [4], the group's tenth album — second since Jay-Z brought them over to Def Jam Records — is in many ways more live than that release. Throughout, we are treated to a number of interludes, speeches, and instrumental shifts reminiscent of a Roots concert. A somewhat grungy tone pervades, as if the band went in, played their instruments, and the tracks made it to the album without too much tinkering (that's what it sounds like, though I doubt it's true...). The result is something somehow personal, as if we are witnessing the album, instead of just listening to it.

The usual cast of cameos makes its appearances — Common, Dice Raw, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, among others. But really, as all Roots fans know, Black Thought [5] emerges as the most impressive. The only other rapper I can think of that has a flow as natural and entertaining as Black Thought's is Ghostface Killah [6]. I'm not sure if it's a function of their having been MCs for so long, or if they've always been able to rap this way, but it really seems as if they're just talking, and what they're saying happens to rhyme. Nowhere is Black Thought more impressive than on "75 Bars (Black's Reconstruction)": "Show me a puppet without a puppeteer/I'm in the fields with a shield and a spear/I'm in your girl with her heels in the air." It's a free-association track on African American identity that rivals Beck for Rorschach-like complexity.

Because The Roots play their own instruments, instead of relying on samples and looped beats, their sound is often much fuller and more organic than most other rap music. It's not without its jarring qualities - sometimes it's strange to hear that rock-style electric guitar cutting through a rhythm. But the band members, led by visionary drummer ?uestlove, by now have developed such chemistry that at times it really seems they can do anything with their respective instruments. (Last time I saw them in concert, they reproduced Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot.")

Though much of their ouvre is phenomenal, very little of it is actually marketable. Usually, though, The Roots will deign to reserve four minutes of each album for a radio-friendly song. On Phrenology we got "Break You Off"; The Tipping Point gave us "Star" and "Don't Say Nuthin'"; and Game Theory brought the shoulda-been-huge "Don't Feel Right." (And of course, "You Got Me" from Things Fall Apart sort of defined their careers- but that entire album is so classic I prefer not to single out any song as better than the others.) Likewise, on Rising Down, The Roots have given us "Rising Up."

It begins with some soft female vocals:

"Yesterday I saw a B-Girl crying, and I walked up and asked ‘what's wrong?'

She said the radio's been playing the same song all day long.

I told her I got something you been waiting for

I got something you been waiting for!"

Then Black Thought jumps in with his non-stop spit-fire lyrics, delivering exactly what the song promises - something different from anything else out there, but still incredibly exciting. Beneath the vocals, there's an ocean of drums that sounds like the guys in Washington Square Park banging on upside-down paint cans — a sound that, for whatever reason, never fails to elicit adrenaline.

By no means is Rising Down the easiest or prettiest album to listen to. The Roots demand some attention, and even some thought, from their fans. But they have a mission, namely to make music that they want to make, unadulterated by others' interests, and the craftsmanship they put into their tunes is visceral, and worthy of our time.