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It looks as if Roots Manuva had to travel through some kind of personal hell in the making of this album, and the fact he's emerged the other side with a grin and sense of humour still intact says much about the strength of his personality.
Being labeled as the future voice of UK hip hop seems to have weighed heavily in that time, and Roots (real name Rodney Smith) seems to have felt the pressure like never before as he struggled to come up with the goods. Well, that struggle is over, and the results are magnificent, the battle won.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the solemn majesty of Colossal Insight, a loping bassline underpinning a rap where Manuva tellingly states "I'm just a UK black making UK tracks", imploring the critics not to pigeon hole him, whilst still managing to add a mischievous commentary on the chorus from afar.
The album's title track relates the depths to which he plunged, as he was sent to "the farms of the funny", where "nurses poke you in the arse and measure your schlong - that practise is wrong!" It's the darkest moment of the record, and hits hard only two tracks in.
It doesn't get much lighter on Too Cold, the slow footstep of the bassline vividly evoking the onset of old age, as Roots' voice reaches new depths of register. "I'm too cold, I'm too old" he raps pertinently - probably a result of Awfully Deep's "too much strong drink and too many nights of wayward thinking!"
But this is not a depressing record - far from it. An inner resolve is always present, and Smith's humour is never far from the surface. A Haunting is a marvelously macabre piece of ska, a strange but appealing track where he refers to the "eye of the Tigger", and Babylon Medicine finds a hilarious reference to "flabby butt cheeks and big beer bellies". Rebel Heart meanwhile finds him totally confident again, toasting over a Streets-esque garage beat, and Chin High deals with money, or more specifically its abuse.
Musically, Awfully Deep is a melting pot of styles, repeated listening revealing textures with the odd flute stab here, a subtle trumpet line there. And of course there's Rodney's extraordinary voice, from the manic laugh at the end of A Haunting to the solemn beauty of The Falling, a track that seems to have an undercurrent that says "I made it, but give me a bit more time to recover."
However you choose to interpret this record one thing's for certain - Roots Manuva is one of a kind, instantly recognisable yet difficult to track down musically, obviously British but cosmopolitan in his outlook on life. "This could be my last LP" he offers on Colossal Insight. I hope not - it seems like he's just hitting his stride.
- Ben Hogwood
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