The band from the 215th returns with their 13th studio album on the Island Def Jam label simply titled undun. This is the band’s first conceptually-based album and it pushes their creativity beyond their musical boundaries. The first single off the album, “Make My” features Mississippi emcee and Def Jam labelmate Big K.R.I.V. and is scheduled for release November 1st.
undun is an existential re-telling of the short life of one Redford Stephens (1974-1999). Through the use of emotives and Redford’s internal dialogues the album seeks to illustrate the intersection of free will and prescribed destiny as it plays out ‘on the corner’. Utilizing a reverse narrative arc, the album begins as the listener finds Redford disoriented–postmortem–and attempting to make sense of his former life. As he moves through its pivotal moments he begins to deconstruct all that has led to his (and our own) coming undun.
“At this point in our career we’d like for our work to have a unifying theme, and an experiential quality,” says DJ/Roots drummer Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson. “We’ve been intentionally making our albums shorter in length so that they can be experienced as a continuous work. The music is band-oriented with an eye on the moody cinematic. As a DJ, I am the King of playlists, but I don’t want our albums to feel like a playlist or a mixtape for that matter. We want to tell stories that work within the album format and we want the stories to be nuanced and useful to people. 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. Just some kid who begins to order his world in a way that makes the most sense to him at a given moment… At the end of the day… isn’t that what we all do?”
undun releases December 6
Check out the new single, “Make My” feat. Big K.R.I.T. here!
