National R&B/Soul Act

The Roots

Dominating

By now, Roots drummer/mastermind ?uestlove's dogged rim-shot beats -- the dominant sound on D'Angelo's Voodoo (Virgin) -- are this close to becoming a rap-production cliché on the order of Dr. Dre's whinnying Mini Moogs, or those piano-loop-and-turntable-chorus tracks that DJ Premier's apostles can't get enough of. But if you let it, the Roots' '99 opus Things Fall Apart (MCA) will still smack you all over the room. Like Prince Paul's A Prince Among Thieves (Tommy Boy), it roots down (so to speak) in hip-hop's contradictions instead of seceding from the system; like Ego Trip's tome of rap life, Ego Trip's Book of Rap Lists, it doesn't flinch from airing internal conflicts over what this music ought to do and be. Helping these "live band" hip-hoppers cross into the R&B category was the Erykah Badu-crooned couples-therapy ballad "You Got Me" -- a showstopper in concert, and on their patchy disc Roots Come Alive (MCA).

-- Daniel Stuckey