With most acts that reach their seventh album, The Tipping Point, usually means they are just about to “tip” over and fall off. While the legendary Roots crew has come a long way since the days of “organic hip-hop jazz” that was found on both Organix and Do You Want More?!?!, this has never been a fear, thanks to the fact that they’re not afraid to think outside the box they have built around themselves. The Roots could have easily kept making records that sounded like those first two albums, however doing so could have inevitably got stuck in an endless loop of making the same album over and over again, ultimately leading to their demise. While each album they’ve released since then has shown progression, experimenting in different sounds and styles, they arguably had accomplished the perfect Roots album with Things Fall Apart. The question was, where do they go from there? Well, if Phenology was their “experimental” record, then The Tipping Point is the “back-to-basics” record. A short and sweet ten songs deep, ?uestlove and crew follow the decalogue blueprint set up by classics like Thriller and Illmatic, keeping the quality control on point as usual. 

     Like Illadelph Halflife, this record resorts back to the hardcore boom-bap, whether it’s the funky drums of 1980′s hip-hop (“Web”, “Boom”) or the sparse marching band claps of today’s sound (“Duck Down”). Regardless, while toying with less typical sounds than we are used to hearing from them, The Roots still bless us with their trademark musicianship, best evidenced on the stellar opener, a reinterpretation of Sly and The Family Stone’s “Everybody Is A Star” (check the breakdown outro). Here Black Thought parallels the song’s original message to today’s overnight celebrities plaguing the music industry with poignant lines like: “It’s a lot of bullshit floodin’ the scene / where everybody’s a star and hot shit is few and far in between / We losin’ grip of what ‘garbage’ mean / shorty wanna be himself but it’s hard to be.” Ironically, the dumbing down of hip-hop music as a whole in the last ten years also plays into both “I Don’t Care” and “Don’t Say Nothin’”, two otherwise intelligent, head nodding jams, with hooks that sarcastically poke fun at their audience (or lack of), without them even being aware of it. 

    But while some may argue The Roots where forced to “go commercial” with this record, the pieces that make up the album still fit together, even if picky listeners don’t like the drumming on this song, or the singing on that song. So while purists may complain about Devin’s crooning on “Somebody’s Gonna Do It”, they can’t front on Jean Grae’s lyrical process, so essentially one hand washes the other. And speaking of lyrics, Black Thought, forever the MC’s emcee, emerges stronger than ever on this record, not only sharpening his usual wit and wisdom, but also demonstrating just how skilled he is. Witness jaw-dropping acrobatics on “Web”, where Thought At Work plays marathon man, rhyming for four minutes straight with ?uesto, the funky drummer drummin’. Even more impressive is “Boom”, which is sure to be the most talked about song on this record, as Black Thought flawlessly rhymes with the voice, flow, vocab, and cadence of both Big Daddy Kane and Kool G. Rap. Thought’s impressions are so on point that first time listeners will easily assume that The Roots recruited the Juice Crew all-stars as guests.  

     The most consistent hip-hop group ever? Quite possibly, even if the membership seems like a revolving door at times. With seven albums under their belt, and 112 songs later (this is not counting the two extras on the From The Ground Up EP, and any other soundtrack / compilation joints), The Roots once again prove their consistency, without pigeonholing themselves to stick to one particular script. Tip your hat to that.