CD Reviews

Roots Manuva | Slime and Reason

Big Dada/Ninja Tune (2008)

By ANDREW GRAHAM | October 15, 2008

3.0 Stars

By the time rap music arrived in California, it had already outgrown its original Bronx blueprint: early Left Coast tracks, released in the same year as classics by De La Soul, Public Enemy, and BDP, sound passé for their era. No surprise, then, that it took the UK a while to produce rap that reflected more than a reworking of already retired US sounds. Dizzee Rascal, the Streets, and Lady Sovereign have had transatlantic “crossover” success, but the richest fruit of British rap’s gestation period is the growing catalogue of Roots Manuva. Slightly less coherent than his previous stunner, Awfully Deep, Slime & Reason has tracks intended to fill dance floors and cuts that are more layered, their intricate beats and rhymes better suited to headphone enjoyment. The opener, “Again & Again,” does marry the floor filler with the head nodder; that established, bombastic bangers like “Do Nah Bodda Mi” and the single “Buff Nuff” can live comfortably alongside moodier, more introspective cuts like “Let the Spirit,” “I’m a New Man,” and “Struggle.”

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