The story of Roots Manuva

You may already know the basics of the Roots Manuva story. Rodney Hylton Smith was born and grew up around Stockwell in South London. His parents were from a small village in Jamaica called Banana Hole, his father a preacher. His family weren't exactly loaded (hence his mother's use of the term "brand new second hand" to characterise the occasional pre-used present), but they were strict, as befits members of the Pentecostal Church.

When Smith found himself drawn to the reggae of the UK's sound system culture and hip hop (through the lyrical expressiveness of Rakim), his parents hardly approved. In fact, he had to listen in secret.

But it was worth the effort. In 1999, four years after the release of his first single, Roots Manuva dropped the instant-classic "Brand New Second Hand" to critical acclaim and commercial success. At a stroke, the market for hip hop from the UK was thrown wide open by a record that found Manuva described as "the most significant and original new voice in hip hop" (The Independent). It is hard to underestimate the impact of the record on a genre of music which seemed to have gone into hibernation in the UK of the early nineties. (As a result of this success, Roots also became something of a cameo king, destroying microphones for the likes of Leftfield, Skitz, Mr Scruff, Mica Paris, 23 Skidoo and Pharoahe Monch, amongst others).

Since then, Manuva has been "living in a dream". What makes him special, perhaps, is his willingness to gamble with this dream. He could, after all, have taken the obvious big-money route and hired in a heap of famous guests to make safe, production-line hip hop. Instead he chose to spread the love a little. That's why he describes the album as "a patchwork reflection of the bittersweet-tainted joys and pains of progress. It's so easy to get cynical in these big, bad corporate times - so this be a declaration of good hearted ghetto hoorah joyous intent." In the process this future-blues man has created a record that re-writes the hip hop map in a way no album has done since Outkast's "Aquemeni".

Musically, the record represents a leap forward from "Brand New Second Hand". Manuva has produced three quarters of the new material himself and his refusal to conform shows at every turn. Hip hop is re-imagined as a loose Scratch Perry skank, as electronic barrages of noise, as guitar feedback over minimal beats, as "that tropical shit," as Specials-style lope. The range of the sound is a reflection of the Manuva mindset - seemingly disparate but all pushing in the same direction.

"It's more focussed than Brand New Second Hand," Smith explains, "Because I had specific ideas of what I wanted to pull out melodically from that record. I really wanted to just move a stage up to the sickest melodic structures that I could think of. The whole recording process involved more attention to detail and a lot more time to freak out and be totally creative. I was left to mess about. I felt like Quincey Jones! Just there giving Jamie [the engineer] orders - 'I need this sound, I need that sound, set up these effects'. A total kid in the sweet shop."

Lyrically, too, "Run Come Save Me" shows Roots stretching himself, expressing emotion in sometimes cryptic but nevertheless heartfelt ways. Few big name MCs are really honest - it's more effort than it's worth. But Smith seems to love language too much to lie. "I like words. Just writing as a whole, not specifically songs. I try not to think about it too much. If I really sat down and looked into how much I'm giving away about myself I probably wouldn't write anything..."

If you expect Smith to tell you what the record is about you've got another thing coming: "The definitions of the songs grow all the time and I don't really see them straight away. I don't always see them even a year after things are made. I listen to things that I made five years ago and go, 'Oh, I understand where I was coming from."On the other hand, listen carefully and it's all there - while Manuva may switch from seeming nonsense to narrative/anecdote to politics in eight bars and then back again, the fractured pieces still form a picture.

And the picture is of an entire life and personality with all its contradictions and complexities. From church boy to teen tearaway, conscious poet to lady's man, blunted mystic to rum guzzler, creator of jump-up carnival anthems to crazed introspective and on and on. Put quite simply, "Run Come Save Me" is masterpiece, or as close as we get in this day and age. As the man himself puts it, the album is "audio smoke signals, my message in a bottle".

( from the roots manuva website )