Reissued September 27, 2019

Def Jam

3xLP

After over three decades in the industry, The Roots have risen to the hallowed heights of music royalty. Aristocratic late show sinecures, Oscar awards, star-studded collaborations and impressive solo careers; for Questlove, Black Thought and company, there isn’t much left to achieve. So glamorous has been their recent success that it is easy to forget where they came from. Even members of the band would agree that it was the 1999 game changer Things Fall Apart that finally won them the recognition they believed themselves due. Questlove was working on none other than D’Angelo’s Voodoo at the time, and frustrated with the lack of popular success of their first three projects, despite acclaim, Things Fall Apart was conceived. Darker and more subversive than the jazzy and aloof Do You Want More?!!!??!, Things Fall Apart captured the magical sound of the Soulquarian collective and added a rebellious lyrical bite in line with other groups like Outkast. There still exists a few hidden gems on the album, including the paranoid anthem The Spark, or the confidently declarative Don’t See Us, which reminds us that the hip-hop band could be one of the most criminally underutilized acts in music.