The Roots’ undun has a complex narrative about a low-level drug dealer named Redford Stephens that, as our reviewer notes, is often obscured by the glut of guest rappers. But this nine-minute video tells Stephens’ sad story in its clearest form, setting elegant black-and-white visuals to snippets of various undun cuts: the understated groove of “Tip the Scale,” the aptly titled crunch of “Stomp,” the elegaic soul-pop of “Sleep,” and, over the closing credits, the piano-splashed, FDR-paraphrasing uplift of “One Time.”
In a series of four instances from 1990 to 1999, we see the young man go from just another kid in a rough neighborhood to a criminal, and then, after he encounters some real trouble, we’re left to contemplate his inevitable fate. Lofty quotes from Malcolm X and others lend a slightly self-serious tone to the whole affair, but overall it’s an ambitious new look at an ambitious record (via Nah Right).
