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The Roots: 'Rising Down' May Be Their Best Yet

By Tom Moon
Published July 14, 2008 at 4:00 PM EDT
Damon "Tuba Gooding, Jr." Bryson plays the sousaphone for The Roots.
AFP/Getty Images
Damon "Tuba Gooding, Jr." Bryson plays the sousaphone for The Roots.

The new album from the Philadelphia hip-hop band The Roots contains verses from the perspective of a child soldier in Sierra Leone, a campus shooter in America, and those in the grip of addictions. Rising Down may be the group's best album.

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Tom Moon
Tom Moon has been writing about pop, rock, jazz, blues, hip-hop and the music of the world since 1983.