Roots Manuva – 4everevolution

A Rodney Hylton Smith full-length usually comes with a guarantee of three things – rhymes that vary from the profound to the inexplicable, a hefty dose of soul and the kind of bass designed to be heard on soundsystems that’ll push the groove through to Shanghai. If that’s all you want, Beyond This World or Watch Me Dance will be enough to satisfy your urges, the first lacing primo 80s soul with chunky beats and the latter a dancehall stomper that sucks you in like a black hole of immense funkified gravity.

Roots has never been a one-trick pony, though, and there’s a diversity here that’s rare in a career as far gone. Crow Bars invokes the spirit of hip-hop’s godfathers via Daddy Kope’s fluid linguistics and Roots even gets his croon on in a reggae style in the album’s token tokin’ moment Wha’ Mek? A few cuts might fade to the back of the mind after a listen, but that’s only because the rest are so very fine.