While not the most anticipated album of 2013, the unlikely
collaboration between Elvis Costello and hip-hop ensemble The Roots might have been
the most surprising. Announced by Roots drummer and bandleader Questlove in
January, the album marked a significant departure for The Roots, who have
always been, ahem, rooted in hip-hop, R&B and soul, whether they’re
collaborating with Jay-Z or covering the Monsters of Folk. In the months since,
little information was released about the record, except its upbeat lead
single, “Walk Us Uptown,” and the WTF title Wise
Up Ghost.
In
hindsight, the album sounds a lot less out-there than some might have expected.
In typical fashion for Questlove and Costello—two of the most biggest music-nerds
in the industry today—the album lends from a range of styles, including funk,
soul, and gospel, pulled together in a way that sounds cohesive and vaguely
familiar. This is a record that
showcases the great influences of early rock ’n’ roll, chopped and screwed with
the soulful hip-hop dynamics that The Roots have been perfecting over two
decades.
But this upbeat collection of retro-rock
stings as much as it soothes. Costello’s complex rhyme schemes often lean
toward the ominous and apocalyptic—an interesting counterbalance to The Roots’
ultra-chill beats and overdubs. The infectious horn-hook in “Walk Us Uptown” is
turned on its head with Costello’s frighteningly dystopian imagery: “Will you
walk us uptown / and we’ll stand in the light / of your new killing ground /
and we won’t make a sound.”
Some Costello fans might be annoyed
with the record’s subtle hip-hop aesthetic: songs that lift and flip samples of
earlier Costello material. The early
rock waltz of “Tripwire” borrows heavily from “Satellite,” and several lines
from the R&B slow jam “Stick Out Your Tongue” are lifted from Costello’s
“Pills and Soap.” But what The Roots
bring to the mixing table makes each song uniquely its own. It’s the sound of two of pop music’s wisest
and hippest song smiths delivering concoctions of timeless rock ‘n’ roll jams.
Grade: A-
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