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ROOTS MANUVA

Slime & Reason

Big Dada

****

Rodney Smith has become is the UK's veteran verbal gunslinger, the rapper with a couple of albums under his belt who boldly blazed a trail for others to follow. Slime & Reasonis his fourth album and a much better proposition than his previous outing, Awfully Deep.The metamorphosis is down to Smith taking stock and realising that he's already got the complete package. Instead of again going sneaker toe

to sneaker toe with the Yankee bling brigade, the best thing to do is to accentuate his own positives. That means blistering dancehall depth, fantastic turns of phrase, and a wonderful observational style for detuning the modern world, all perfectly teed-up by producer Toddla T. As one of the many standout tracks puts it, The Show Must Go On. And it does, with some style. Such tracks as the sharp-eyed I'm a New Manand the booming Again and Againdemonstrate to Smith's abundance of smarts. www.rootsmanuva.co.uk JIM CARROLL

Download tracks: Again and Again, The Show Must Go On