Genius: Cousin Review
Nina Simone's creepy-while-somehow-soothing voice is a perfect paint for the canvas that the string-heavy beat provides.
Spectrum Culture: Cousin Review
The angular melody, dissonant background strings and Simone’s nervous, vibrato-laden voice establishes a menacing presence.
Pop Matters: Cousin Review
It manages to balance its weird orchestra breakdown with a rather contemporary beginning and ending.
Pitchfork: "And Then You Shoot Your Cousin" Review
“Roots albums, no matter the landscape around them, always feel sturdy, firm—responsible, in the classic Gangstarr way.”
Paste: "And Then You Shoot Your Cousin" Review
In “…And Then You Shoot Your Cousin,” The Roots prove their mastery of mixing high and low culture for diverse audiences. It’s a headier album, but one rife with significance.
HipHopDX: "Cousin" Review
“It’s a curious turn, but one that finds them as oddly whimsical and satisfying as ever.”
New York Times: A Haunting History Lesson With Your Hip-Hop
The musicians weren’t the same Roots band seen regularly on NBC’s “Tonight” show with Jimmy Fallon. They included the Metropolis Ensemble — the conductor Andrew Cyr, a string quartet and four singers — and the jazz pianist D. D. Jackson, who wrote dramatic, somberly dissonant arrangements for the ensemble.
The Musical Hype: Cousin Review
All preconceived notions of ‘hip-hop’ are tossed out the window, as the transcendence of the sometimes one-dimensional genre is epitomized here.
Subjective Sounds: Cousin Review
Putting the record on the turntable is an immersive experience that I consider to be synonymous with hip hop as the music will not only radiate through your body but will also touch your soul.
Rolling Stone: Cousin Review
In The Roots’ …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin, pianos and strings clash in explosions of third-stream jazz, French electro-acoustic pioneer Michel Chion brings noise, deep-blue tones vibrate like Miles Davis' Porgy and Bess.
Slant: Cousin Review
It’s hard to deny the overall effect of this strange, smartly conceived album.
The Guardian: Cousin Review
The Roots have total command of their combination of jazz-influenced hip-hop and social awareness.
Electronium
Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson (The Roots) returns to BAM with an all-star mash-up that celebrates the pioneering works of electronic music.
Shuffle Culture
Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson of The Roots, enlists a stellar lineup of artists for a free-flowing playlist-a kinetic mix of songs and sounds from unexpected musical bedfellows.
HipHopDX: Undun Review
The remainder of undun speaks through the instrumentals, where innocent pianos and violins turn into reckless percussions that fade into searing strings suggesting Redford has died.
New York Times: The Roots: 2 Albums, One Quest
The album has an instrumental coda… an elegiac string quartet and a last dissonant piano chord, an unpeaceful final rest.
The Guardian: Undun Review
Undun is also a mirror held up to present-day America, where ambitions are more likely to die than prosper. It's a downer, but timely and affecting, with moments of beauty.
Chicago Tribune: Undun Review
A gorgeous neo-classical suite closes the album… If an album can be both chilling and beautiful at once, "Undun" is it.
NPR: First Listen: Undun
Finally, credits roll over a sublime string quartet, mercifully for Black Thought's black thoughts — at least for a moment, before ?uestlove's meticulously arranged strings are silenced by the chilling, deathly growl of a struck piano.