The Roots Re-Tell Story of A Criminal On New Album Undun

Last year The Roots woke up everybody with their collaborative album featuring John Legend. In 2011 they are back with their already tenth album entitled 'undun'. To make this album unique the album's length has shortened, which is not an advantage for the listener per se, and re-tells the story of a kid who becomes a criminal. The kid, Redford Stephens (1974-1999), is incorporated into the album creating a cinematic feeling without losing touch of their band-oriented style.

The album’s first single, “Make My” featuring Big K.I.R.T. is set for release November 1st on iTunes. In addition to their new album, The Roots are set to perform in New York City on November 29th and 30th and December 5th at the Highline Ballroom.

“At this point in our career we'd like for our work to have a unifying theme, and an experiential quality,” says Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson, 40. “We've been intentionally making our albums shorter in length so that they can be experienced as a continuous work. The music is band-oriented with an eye on the moody cinematic. As a DJ, I am the King of playlists, but I don't want our albums to feel like a playlist or a mixtape for that matter. We want to tell stories that work within the album format and we want the stories to be nuanced and useful to people. undun is the story of this kid who becomes criminal, but he wasn't born criminal. He's not the nouveau exotic primitive bug-eyed gunrunner like Tupac’s character Bishop in “Juice”... he's actually thoughtful and is neither victim nor hero. Just some kid who begins to order his world in a way that makes the most sense to him at a given moment... At the end of the day... isn't that what we all do?”

undun Tracklisting
1) Sleep
2) Make My
3) One Time
4) Kool On
5) The Jump
6) Stomp
7) Lighthouse
8) I Remember
9) Tip The Scale
10) Redford

"undun" by The Roots - release date: 12/6/11..