A few weeks back, The Roots announced that they will be releasing their first ever concept record by the name of "Undun" on December 6 on Island/Def Jam Records. Think of the album as an audio novel. The novel is a re-telling of the short life of a Redford Stephens (1974-1999). Here is a description of the album from The Roots' drummer Questlove:
“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?”
Today, The Roots have released the audio of the first single "Make My" featuring Big K.R.I.T. via Okayplayer. The single will be available on November 1. Take a listen to the song below.
The Roots "Make My" featuring Big K.R.I.T. by okayplayer
Here is the tracklisting for "Undun"
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
Here is a video of Questlove explaining the new concept record.
