Roots Manuva - London Brixton Academy - 4/3/05
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
You've got to love a good homecoming. Few communities more warmly welcome a prodigal son back into the fold than that of a hip-hop crowd opening its arms to one of its true boys done good. But it isn't strictly necessary to milk the 'I was born just round the corner' card quite so dry as our Rodney does. He's a popular guy we'll bet, but he's not packed Brixton Academy purely with his close friends and family. Knowledge of his background isn't a prerequisite of enjoying a Roots Manuva show. Little more than being there is.
He does his best to raise eyebrows - just glimpse at that lightshow, at times resembling playing an overly large version of Space Invaders, or a hat that makes him look ever so slightly like an Iced Gem. But if he's setting up obstacles in a cheeky attempt to disguise the vitality of his tracks with a little pomposity and bombast in honour of his big night (it seems he genuinely can't believe the amount of people gazing back at him), the veil is a pretty thin one. These are the kind of beats that occasionally get so loud that your ears periodically pack in, leaving you only able to sense when to move - and it's very difficult to stop moving - thanks to that rhythmic tingle that occurs, bizarrely, at the end of your nose. His is the kind of voice so distinctive and listenable that not once does it grate even when you realise that in essence, all you've been listening to is the man talking at you for over an hour and a half. We forgive the silly hat. Maybe not the orange trousers.
That first of Roots Manuva's distinctive talents is something he was born with - the growling but gentle way of speech that you only ever sound like an idiot trying to imitate. It has an odd lullaby quality such that when a tune arises that doesn't rest on being quite so stark and upfront or dark and brooding to arrest the attention, delight can be found in just taking a moment to listen to this exceptional lilting vocal, one that sounds like it could visit extremes of emotion with only the slightest emphasis of a syllable. Consistently, even if you can only grab passing morsels, there seems some depth to the lyrical content that elevates this beyond mere party music to the beats of those who think. All this, and he barely even sings a note.
The other thing that sets him apart is less of a natural gift and more the result of hard slog. Over the course of three highly acclaimed LPs a style has been forged that now rests in a state that the remainder of the UK hip-hop scene will take a good few years yet to figure out. And its peaks were all on display, from the recent, futuristic blasts of the eerily menacing 'Colossal Insight' and 'Too Cold' back to a proper communal sing-song effort for a brilliant 'Dreamy Days'. Of course, he puts 'Witness' on, and the place goes mad.
But then again, put 'Witness' on anywhere, and that place will probably go mad. In all honesty it's still such a fine cut that the set should have ended there as he threatened it would instead of tailing off into a slightly unnecessary encore, but few quibbles come more minor than that. The people got to hear the hit, but thankfully, so much beyond. Even if you were one of the few who only really turned up to witness the fitness, there was more here; namely a brain behind the brawn.
Artists in this article: Roots Manuva
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