The Roots - Do You Want More?!!!??! - 1994 - DGC
The second Roots album scored them their first hit with "Proceed." I suppose not a hit in the grand scheme, but it at least put them on the hip hop map. This, their major label debut certainly felt more produced than their actual debut, but it still retained a very live feel to it. You can definitely close your eyes and picture them playing on a street corner or in a small club. In fact "Essayhuman?!!!??!" - their soundcheck song at the time - was even recorded live for this record (as it was earlier on Organix). What's great about this record is just how jazz it all was. From the chilled to frantic tempos of "Mellow My Man" to the scatting in "Datskat" to the drums-vs.-voice in "? Vs. Rahzel" to the Steely Dan-nod bassline in "Swept Away" to the goddamn bagpipes in the title track, this is an album built on jamming, improvisation and the absolute thrill of exploring what your instruments can really do. Even Black Thought's vocals (and to a somewhat lesser extent Malik's... and to a much greater extent Rahzel's) are more concerned with sound than context on much of the material. And then you hit the final two tracks: an insane (freestyle?) cypher over intense vocal-only backing track followed closely by a slow-burner spoken word piece by Ursula Rucker. It's a crazy melting pot of sounds that embrace hip hop and jazz totally 50/50 in a way that is impressive - even if not perfect (I mean "Lazy Afternoon" only has one verse repeated multiple times) in such a commendable way that it should serve as the blueprint for all live hip hop bands, which we seriously need more of.