
The Roots – …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin
For a legendary hip-hop band with nearly three decades of legendary albums, it is only natural for The Roots to eventually hit a wall in terms of creative output. With mostly underwhelming production style, their new record …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin is not much more than a hurried concept album with vague moments of continuity. A good representative for the album is the track “Never,” a dreary jazz beat accompanied by Patty Crash’s shrill voice. The song follows a gradual buildup as the instruments become busier, only to be cut off quickly before reaching any sort of climax. This is the atmosphere for most of the album, the music and verses sounding just below the brink of their full potential. With an average song length of 2-3 minutes, it appears there is not enough time given to address the album’s complex issues of teenage angst in an unprivileged[...]