THE ROOTS- …and then you shoot your cousin- MAY 19 on DEF JAM RECORDINGS

Wed May 7 14:50:39 CDT 2014

THE ROOTS
…and then you shoot your cousin

MAY 19 on DEF JAM RECORDINGS

OFFICIAL LYRIC VIDEO FOR THE ROOTS  "WHEN THE PEOPLE CHEER":
HTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=CQGGNZIYHYA<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQGgnzIYHYA>

THE ROOTS “TOMORROW” FEAT. RAHEEM DEVAUGHN: HTTPS://SOUNDCLOUD.COM/DEFJAM/THE-ROOTS-TOMORROW<https://soundcloud.com/defjam/the-roots-tomorrow>

THE ROOTS PERFORM AS MUSICAL GUEST ON NBC’S “THE TONIGHT SHOW” MAY 20

6-PART NEW YORK MAGAZINE ESSAY SERIES “HOW HIP-HOP FAILED BLACK AMERICA” BY ?UESTLOVE:

HTTP://WWW.VULTURE.COM/2014/04/QUESTLOVE-ON-HOW-HIP-HOP-FAILED-BLACK-AMERICA.HTML<http://www.vulture.com/2014/04/questlove-on-how-hip-hop-failed-black-america.html>

HTTP://WWW.VULTURE.COM/2014/04/QUESTLOVE-ON-MONEY-JAY-Z-HOW-HIP-HOP-FAILED-BLACK-AMERICA-PART-2.HTML<http://www.vulture.com/2014/04/questlove-on-money-jay-z-how-hip-hop-failed-black-america-part-2.html>

ITUNES PREORDER : HTTP://SMARTURL.IT/IATYSYC<http://smarturl.it/iATYSYC>

#CRWN XI WITH ELLIOTT WILSON AND THE ROOTS' ?UESTLOVE & BLACK THOUGHT TUESDAY MAY 20. NYC. HTTP://NUE.AG/1SBTPQ6<http://nue.ag/1sbTpQ6>
…AND THEN YOU SHOOT YOUR COUSIN AT THE PUBLIC THEATER : HTTP://PUBLICTHEATER.ORG/THEROOTS<http://publictheater.org/theroots>/

[cid:image001.jpg at 01CF6A0C.1CDBC370]

"Young America now embraces hip-hop as the signal pop music genre of its time," Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson recently wrote. "So why does that victory feel strange: not exactly hollow, but a little haunted?"

This question was raised as a starting point for "How Hip-Hop Failed Black America," the six-part series that the drummer penned for New York magazine. "Once hip-hop culture is ubiquitous, it is also invisible," he continued. "Once it’s everywhere, it is nowhere. What once offered resistance to mainstream culture is now an integral part of the sullen dominant."

These same issues lie at the heart of the new album by the Roots, …and then you shoot your cousin. Over eleven tracks in a concise thirty-three minutes, the band raises a series of challenges to its listeners: What is hip-hop, anyway? What does it sound like, and why? What is it supposed to accomplish? None of this is ever addressed explicitly, of course—but it informs every choice, whether structural, sonic, or thematic.

The album's title is taken from a 1997 lyric by the Blastmaster KRS-One ("MCs more worried about their financial backin'/Steady packin' a gat as if something's gonna happen/But it doesn't, they wind up shootin' they cousin, they bugging"), an early harbinger of the unintended consequences of Thug Life styling. Produced by the Roots brain trust of Questlove, Tarik “Black Thought” Trotter, and Richard Nichols, along with contributions from a range of young talent (Mike Jerz, Trapzillas, The Wurxs, D.D. Jackson, Joseph Simmons, Damion Ward, Ray Angry), …and then you shoot your cousin examines familiar figures in hip-hop storytelling—hustlers and outlaws—but told from a perspective that the genre has largely pushed aside.

"It’s not just about just one kind of character," Black Thought has said. "We create quite a few different characters in this record. It’s satire, but in that satire it’s an analysis of some of the stereotypes perpetuated in not only the hip-hop community, but in the community."

In contrast to the endless parade of Bugattis and bling that have come to define current hip-hop, these songs are populated by dudes who are struggling, both financially and morally, with the ways of the street. "On my existential grind doing consequential dirt/Searching for physical pleasure if I don’t go mental first," as Black Thought rhymes on "When the People Cheer," the album's first single, while on "The Dark (Trinity)," he laments "The law of gravity meets the law of averages/Ain’t no sense in attempting to civilize savages." It recalls the view depicted in "Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?," the groundbreaking study in the 2005 best-seller Freakonomics, which showed that crack dealing offered the same pay structure as McDonald's or Wal-Mart—aside from the bonus of a one-in-four chance that you get killed.

But those aren't the stories we hear from 21st Century MCs, who have embraced income inequality as enthusiastically as the Forbes 500. "Hip-hop has become complicit in the process by which winners are increasingly isolated from the populations they are supposed to inspire and engage," wrote Questlove. "It’s a significant turnaround and comedown for a music that was, only a little while back, devoted to reflecting the experience of real people and, through that reflection, challenging the power structure that produces inequality and disenfranchisement."

For the narrators of …and then you shoot your cousin, the biggest fight is the fight for their souls. In "Understand," the chorus describes how "God sees the face of a man/Shaking his head, say he never understand," while in the verse by Greg Porn, he envisions the day when "the fire truck wash my soul down the sewer/Or to a new hell with a wi-fi connection/So I can pay for my sins on PayPal." These are voices filled with doubt, aware of their situations but paralyzed by their circumstances.

The music on the album raises the same sorts of questions. Does hip-hop only mean beats and rhymes? How much are samples required to be sliced and diced? Or are some things intrinsically "hip-hop," whether they fit the form's conventions or not? We don't even hear anyone rapping until three full minutes into the record—after a segment of Nina Simone's 1959 "Theme from The Middle of the Night" sets the tone of nocturnal solitude, and then Patty Crash sings the lengthy, melancholy intro to "Never."…and then you shoot your cousin is full of singing—from jazz legend Mary Lou Williams to soul new-schooler Raheem DeVaughn to Mercedes Martinez from the Jazzyfatnastees—and also strings, with the Metropolis Ensemble contributing to about half the album's tracks, plus a dramatic interlude of "Dies Irae," the fourth movement of “Requiem” by Michel Chion.

At a time when the very notion of a long-playing album is in doubt, the Roots have created a work that is intentionally short and meant to be absorbed in full. Rather than emphasizing singles, the impact of …and then you shoot your cousin, the group's eleventh album, is more theatrical, accruing as it goes on, with situations and narrators that bounce off of each other to reveal a larger story. Things start with Black Though "spiraling down/Destined to Drown" on "Never," and pass through Dice Raw agonizing "How did I end up where I'm at, it's kinda hard to explain yo/I remember all I wanted was a gold chain and Kangol" on "The Dark (Trinity)." By the end, though, there is hope, as we look to "Tomorrow," and Raheem DeVaughn sings "We all fall short sometimes/It costs nothing to help sometimes."

"As the Roots round into our third decade, we shoulder a strange burden, which is that people expect us to be both meaningful and popular," Questlove wrote in one of the New York essays. "We expect that. But those things don’t necessarily work together, especially in the hip-hop world of today." This is the challenge they have set for themselves, and as the brave, innovative, profound …and then you shoot your cousin demonstrates, they remain determined to Occupy Hip-Hop, and to speak truth or die tryin'.

Carleen Donovan
PRESS HERE (New York)
138 W. 25th St., 9th Floor, New York, NY 10001
P: (212) 246-2640
carleen at pressherepublicity.com<mailto:carleen at pressherepublicity.com>

PRESS HERE (Los Angeles)
8105 West Third St., Los Angeles, CA 90048
P: (323) 556-9752

 www.twitter.com/presshere<http://www.twitter.com/presshere>
Click to view website:
[Description: Description: Description: cid:image001.jpg at 01CD6F46.9F2B47A0]<http://www.presshere.com/>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.pressherepublicity.com/pipermail/phmr/attachments/20140507/ca1ba9f1/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 27174 bytes
Desc: image001.jpg
URL: <http://lists.pressherepublicity.com/pipermail/phmr/attachments/20140507/ca1ba9f1/attachment-0002.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 1747 bytes
Desc: image002.jpg
URL: <http://lists.pressherepublicity.com/pipermail/phmr/attachments/20140507/ca1ba9f1/attachment-0003.jpg>