Homing in on what makes a musical genre special or distinctive isn’t always to that genre’s advantage. This is indisputably the case with UK hip-hop, and nowhere more starkly than in the person of Rodney Smith. As Roots Manuva, the Stockwell preacher’s son has released two albums that have been showered with praise and awards, yet his commercial fortunes have been frustratingly modest. The result has been a general wringing of hands about the genre: a “What Brit-hop can do for you” where “What you can do for Brit-hop” (buying it might be a start) would be more instructive. Surely it’s time to move on, to stop applying to Smith this pointless litmus test and to see him for what he is rather than isn’t: a truly original lyricist and musician who, if he fits into Brit-hop at all, does so loosely and fleetingly. Rather, he soundtracks a Britain whose multiculturalism — musically, never mind ethnically — has yet (still!) to be widely absorbed or accepted. His humour only partly masking the pain, the man who once rapped about pints of bitter and cheese on toast here describes, on the title track and Too Cold, his recent near-breakdown, recalling recovery clinics full of saucy nurses wielding suppositories; and, on Mind 2 Motion and Colossal Insight, God-fearfully lambasts himself for his “sinny-sin-sins” and for failing at “study of the Good Book”. Britain’s most artful dodger, Smith ducks and dives below and between dub, 2-step, music hall, musical theatre, trip-hop, calypso, electro, you name it, creating a thrillingly kaleidoscopic backing to those extraordinary, vernacular-rich verbals. Now, enough of the hand-wringing, and more of the album-buying.

Big Dada

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