THE LOST AND FOUND

The Roots have a new record coming out April 29th, “Rising Down”, and naturally it continues The Roots’ custom of having an ill ass album cover. Three songs have been released so far by them through Okayplayer, as well as one abomination featuring one of the fall out boys that’s being labeled a single. The speculation is that a post-Jay-Z Def Jam is freaking out over how to market the album, so they forced The Roots to churn out something which would be more likely to get some airtime. Say what you want about Jay as a label head and his publicly criticized choices regarding artist promotion, but one point to make in his favor is that he let Game Theory drop with no bullshit.

edit: Okayplayer recently announced Birthday Girl was officially dropped from the North American release (probably due to everyone acknowledging it was a piece of shit), although the song will still be sold on iTunes. Apparently a video is scheduled to be shot, rumored to be starring Sasha Gray, so at least some good will come of that. We’ll be sure to post the resulting hot mess when it leaks.

?uestlove has said that the album will be much darker and more electro than their previous discs, and that he considers Rising Down his “baby”. I’m a big Roots head… so naturally I’m biased when saying this album sounds incredible… and better than anything else that has come out in 2008. Of the Rising Down tour dates announced Toronto was the only Canadian city to get a show from the Legendary… which blows because their show here in February was ridiculous.

Here are the songs which have leaked so far. Mos is back on his respiration shit….

edit: Here’s the original version of Rising Down, which wasn’t released until now due to a sample clearance issue. I think the album version is better to be honest, but it’s cool to hear this too.

LISTEN/DOWNLOAD:

The Roots feat. Mos Def, Styles P, Dice Raw - Rising Down (Hum Drum) (Original Mix)

The Roots feat. Mos Def, Styles P, Dice Raw – Rising Down (Hum Drum)

The Roots feat. Peedi Crakk, Dice Raw & DJ Jazzy Jeff – Get Busy

The Roots – 75 Bar’s Black’s Reconstruction

VIDEOS:

The Roots – 75 Bars Black’s Reconstruction

The Roots feat. Peedi Crakk, Dice Raw & DJ Jazzy Jeff – Get Busy

- Oren