Listen To The Roots' New Single, "When The People Cheer"

The Roots' new album, ...And Then You Shoot Your Cousin, is out on May 13; the album's first single, "When the People Cheer," is out now. It suggests that this new album is going to be very good.

If you liked the Roots' last full-length—2011's undun, a reverse-narrative concept album that, as far as I'm concerned, rivals Kendrick Lamar's good kid, m.A.A.d city in terms of lower-case-concept-album re-listenability—"When the People Cheer" will do it for you. It's got all of undun's pleasant trappings: a featured instrument that immediately grabs your attention ("Oh, neat, a piano!"), Black Thought's moody and tightly wound verses, and soaring vocals on a chorus that makes you see things: I live in a trap / Where things go crack / Wake up in the box with a box of Apple Jacks.

You can call this kind of Roots song old hat if you want to, but that's like complaining that Pusha T only ever raps about dope. If you're this good at something, why not keep doing it?