Anyone that knows me, knows that I love this album so much that it is kind of embarrassing, so much so that I've been toying with naming it the number one record of the year, and had it come out sooner, I very well just might have. "Undun" is a concept album about Redford Stephens, an all too common street thug, whose struggle to escape the streets ends in a life of crime and his eventual demise. Concept or not, this is the truest record of the year about a reality that most of us don't want to think about any longer now that the novelty of acts like N.W.A. and Wu-Tang Clan have worn. I've read some ridiculous reviews that claimed the subject matter is too generic, which says more to me about the critic than The Roots' pitch perfect album. At this point I'm going to pull the "my day job is a criminal defense attorney and I deal with an endless permutation of Redford Stephens on a daily basis" card to exclaim that there isn't a note on this record that doesn't ring true, unlike the oft celebrated bravado of rappers who pretend that drug dealing and crime is a pathway to anything but premature death or incarceration. I wish I could agree with those writers who find this subject passé, but unfortunately there is nothing generic about "Undun," other than insulated white critics pretending that this is anything but the reality of the streets even at this late date in our nation's history. Musically The Roots has never sounded more expansive or focused. At this point in their career the band has perfected the eclectic organic approach that made albums like "Phrenology" so captivating. It's an incredibly diverse record, yet entirely consistent. If anyone still wonders why The Roots is such a highly regarded band instrumentally, they need look no further than "Undun." Shades of light and dark ripple throughout these songs, and although this is the exact opposite of a party album, the band grooves even as hell is realized. The moving orchestrated finale is a perfect denouement. Recalling Duke Ellington's gorgeous meditative solo piano pieces, "The Redford Suite" calls upon the mystic chords of our collective memory, universalizing the character of Redford as any American born into a mythological land of infinite horizons and opportunity that will soon find out that the American Dream is as much a fairy tale as the stories that our parents used to read to us at bed time.
If there is one record I could make everyone listen to this year, it would be "Undun."
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