Roots Manuva: Bleeds (Big Dada)
Many artists on the UK's fecund grime and rap scene weren't even at primary school when Rodney Smith released his first album as Roots Manuva, 1999's Brand New Second Hand. Certainly not Edinburgh-based label mates Young Fathers, whose own musical template owes much to his game-changing mix of languid dub and jittery sonics. With apologies to fellow veterans such as rapper Blak Twang and grime pioneer Wiley, Smith's mantle as the Godfather of British Rap is well-earned.
Bleeds is his sixth album - or his ninth, if you include the various dub and remix versions of his earlier efforts. Either way it finds him on typically uncompromising form.
Opener Hard Bastards is an expletive-ridden anti-poverty rant and I Know Your Face recounts a near-death experience, though whether his or someone else's isn't made clear. Meanwhile Facety 2:11, a collaboration with Four Tet's Kieran Hebden, foregrounds the electronica producer's own restless talents in a welter of spluttering percussion which is equally hard-edged.
But it isn't all confrontation ans stress: Don't Breath Out finds Smith in more reflective, stream-of-consciousness mood as he raps over a ghostly Barry White sample while closing track Fighting For? is as chart-orientated as anything he's ever done. Yet another accomplished broadcast from Planet Roots.
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