The Roots, somewhat miraculously, have once again found time to record a full-length album while on house band duty five days a week for Jimmy Fallon. (Those dudes mean business.) The album in question, undun, will be out December 6, and today the band revealed some details about its “unifying theme,” which turns out to be the story of a guy named Redford Stephens. More from Questlove: “undun is the story of this kid who becomes criminal, but he wasn’t born criminal. He’s not the nouveau exotic primitive bug-eyed gunrunner like Tupac’s character Bishop in “Juice”
he’s actually thoughtful and is neither victim nor hero.” Dramatic! At any rate, congrats to the Roots for (1) being the Roots and (2) managing to shame everyone else with a 9-to-5 who hasn’t recently recorded an ambitious musical project. And if anyone else feels like announcing or releasing a concept album, this is apparently your week. [Consequence of Sound]
