The Roots - Rising Down

[Mantra]

It's a banging album no riffs with this one!

[Wu-Tang Gambino]

It was a great album but it is lowest quality Roots album.

[hide1998]

It was a great album but it is lowest quality Roots album.

How do you figure that? Lots of experimentation (yet still raw hip-hop), great rhymes from EVERYONE involved, tight concepts, etc.

It may not be your favorite Roots album, fair enough, but to say it is the lowest quality Roots album is stretching more than a little bit.

[GhettoGnom]

The album starts with a bang with Criminal, Rising Down, 75 Bars & Get Busy... Shaping up towards a classic, but then kind of falls down... Not any tracks I ain't feeling, but most of the tracks after Criminal ain't as good as the aforementioned...

4/5

[Ghost_Deini_]

i dont listen to the roots that much besides illadelph halflife but this is a sick album. rising down the song is the shit.

[ElusiveFugitive]

i didn't hear it the same way as everyone else seems to have. I thought it was alright, but i've only given it a listen or two. I really like Criminal, Rising Down, Rising Up....but none of the other tracks really hit me hard. I'ma give this another listen.

^ co-sign ^

[baritone]

this is the album that put me on to the roots when i was in virginia

i aint even know the roots were this ill

[-The A to the Z-]

Still my favourite album of 2008 bar none.

Too many guests perhaps, but they all give immaculate performances - especially Peedi, I loved his verse!? Plus this album introduced me to Saigon, which is ever so kind of The Roots .

I definitely prefer it to Game Theory also.

[CharlesJones]

I stopped liking The Roots after Things Fall Apart album so i'll pass on this one. How are the beats on Rising Down? I didn't like the beats on Phrenology, The Tipping Point, Game Theory albums.

[OddioPellMell]

i got this the same time i got the 8 diagrams cd and this got the heavy rotation. The Roots are heavy hitters, they just get better

[claaa7]

this is one of them albums that i initially didn't like, mainly because it strayed away alot from the original Roots sound which had been re-visited to great extent on previous (brilliant) effort "Game Theory". the sound is more digital and electronic, with heavy keyboards and synthezisers being the backbone of most of the songs construction. the first 2-3 times i bumped it i thought it was kinda alright but it was growing then one time it just struck me; more or less every song just felt RIGHT and flew perfectly like every well-thought and well worked out album should.

the song that sets it all off, "Rising Down", is so dope it fucking hurts - that beat is hypnotizing and what an amazing line-up of Mos Def, Black Thought and Styles P is (!). following the pattern of 'Game Theory' the album is filled with political messages, mostly reflecting on the high crime rate and struggling people of Philadelphia and this works great. I always held Black Thought in a very high regard since the first time i heard him but sometimes i wish he would've used his talent to speak on a little more important and heavy things than battle rap (altho i of course love that shit too). And it really works here, just check his verse on "Criminal" or "Singing Man", where he perfectly embodies a hustling thief that feels his pushed into comitting crimes and the soldier in the middle of a war forced to kill human beings, respectively. There's alot of great concepts riding those heavy beats so it great to hear at least one song with Black just eating mics - "75 Bars", is just that, 75 bars of Black Thought murdering competition without even stopping to take a breath. might not reach "Thought @ Work" but still INCREDIBLE!!

Tariq is joined by a whole lot of guests on the album and most of them does what they're supposed to - especially the high profile names like Mos Def, Styles P, Talib Kweli, Common, Saigon and of course ex-Roots Dice Raw and Malik B. I still feel there's slightly to little of Black Thought on here, the afro-mentioned "75 Bars" is his only real solo cut and the other one; the incredible "Unwritten" is cut so short it might as well be called a skit or intermission. All the guests does give the album a "family" feel, which works well in the context of The Roots being a band.

The bonus track "Birthday Girl" doesn't do it for me though, it doesn't fit at all with the album and either way i just don't feel it. Shame though that they cut the other bonus song (not on mine or the US version), called "The Grand Return", cuz that shit works perfectly with the rest of the album and should definitely been kept (especially since the album is only around 40 minutes). Either way this album is a true keeper and one that makes me fiend for "How I Got Over" as soon as possible (heard it will drop this year tho). All in all this is a 4/5 album for me - true BANGER!