Roots Manuva - 'Banana Skank EP'
These are fine times indeed for British hip-hop, with mainstream artists and underground acts both thriving, a burgeoning battle scene picking up millions of views on YouTube and the likes of Rodney Smith aka Roots Manuva fashioning an actual...
Roots Manuva - '4everevolution'
Rodney Smith, aka Roots Manuva , was trading in wry, humorous Brit-hop back when a teenage Mike Skinner was still chained to a games console. With ‘ 4everevolution ’ Smith continues to avoid the genre’s default Americanisms and instead...
Album review: Roots Manuva Meets Wrongtom -...
In a UK hip-hop scene that fluctuates between talent famine (usually when rappers inexplicably try to hang out with indie bands) and the current feast, Roots Manuva has become as comfortingly reliable as a beloved cardigan. This is not a new...
Roots Manuva, Master Shortie, Ebony Bones
It’s the NME Award Shows’ moment to, as Master Shortie puts it, “give some noise for UK hip-hop”, but down at KOKO, Camden’s Twiglet pseudo-urchins are having some trouble krumping in their winkle-pickers. Still, there’s no need for...
Roots Manuva
As the Bible has shown us, saviours tend to have a rough innings. By the time Rodney Smith was getting used to his ‘Brit-hop’s Second Coming’ mantle, a grimy cloud was already looming. While the Martian club-dub of breakthrough anthem...
Roots Manuva
He might have invented grime, but to youthful ears Roots Manuva will resemble nothing more than a ragga Hadouken!. Yes, we’re trapped in a knackered 1983 Asteroids machine while Roots speed-raps about being buff, getting buff stuff and all-round...
Roots Manuva : Dub Come Save Me
Good as 'Laika Come Home' is, though, it suffers by being a bit on the ignorable side, and this is where 'Dub Come Save Me' stamps it's superiority. It's not just the lyrics ("The lyric is the penis/The rhythm..." says Roots, "...is the vag") of...
Roots Manuva feat. Chali 2Na : Join The Dots
Whatever happened to Jurassic 5? Well, they produced a great debut, then the world of hip-hop accelerated so fast in the space of about 18 months that they just got left behind. Which is bad news for Roots Manuva - here joined by Jurassic's...
Roots Manuva : Cambridge Junction
Roots Manuva Cambridge Junction While young US hip-hop acts seem to be able to make the transition from the block to bling bling in a matter of minutes, for their British counterparts, it's always seemed a much longer slog. So then, here's...
Roots Manuva : Dreamy Days
On a scale of one to naff, how naff is it to compare rappers to boxers? Nine out of naff? Never mind. Roots Manuva is the first British rapper in aeons who can confidently pitch up against the US hip hop heavyweights. His baritone delivery is...
