Roots Manuva - Don't breathe out

One of Britain's well-established rappers, beat-makers, hip-hop producers, [insert creative occupation], Roots Manuva, aka Rodney Smith, has released a new album on Big Dada. 

Big Dada

It came out at the end of last month – October 2015 – and here at Kölncampus, we jumped on it! We are proud to present to you “Don't breathe out”, one of our latest Lieblingslieder.

"Don't breathe out” is the third single off of “Bleeds”, his 9th studio LP, that he shared with the world via British newspaper, the Guardian.

“Bleeds” is actually quite difficult to pin down in terms of musical genre as it is a (very successful) marriage between the intricate production work (funk, soul, techno, electronica, bass, grime, trap and hip-hop) and Roots Manuva's piercing lyrics oscillating between rap, spoken word and singing. “Don't breathe out” is a funky hip-hop song rooted around Barry White's disco sample, ‘Honey Please, Can’t Ya See’.

Here's how Roots Manuva, the man himself, describes our Lieblingslied: “Lyrical rogue values in neo-spiritual rare groove, rehash bash on the edge of the funk that made the soul, but seek to refine a modern approximation of ‘Gospel for the out of box thinkers’. Let the funk forgive us for failing to work with the basic mechanism of ‘clap, sing, rap celebrate in the mutated shades of ragga funk, dub funk, techno funk future timeless travel on the lay lines of soul hip-hop fascination.’”

This single follows the Four-Tet produced track “Facety 2:11” (you know... "boat-race-boat-race-boat-race") and “One thing” produced by Switch, also on Roots' “Bleeds” album.

Album tip: “Stepping hard” - also highly recommended.

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