Bleeds

AlbumOct 30 / 201510 songs, 40m 45s
UK Hip Hop
Popular Highly Rated

The UK hip-hop pioneer presents his powerful state of the nation address. Where once his arresting, twisting rhymes would focus on personal hardships, now tracks like “Hard Bastards” and “One Thing” present class polemics dressed up as bangers. His sixth album is unrelenting stuff—the disturbing “Crying” literally cuts up the wails of women and children for its chorus—and it’s thrilling to hear the 42-year-old so turbo-charged with purpose. There are more easygoing moments (“Don’t Breathe Out” combines a Barry White sample with a mindful, playful flow) but this is his darkest, most vital work to date.

9 / 10

Stockwell's finest rapper, MC and producer releases another eclectically powerful album full of shuffling, fidgety, hard-hitting beats and powerful streams of equally forceful social commentary.

Rapper Rodney Smith has lost none of his edge - despite a move to suburban Surrey - on his sixth album

‘Bleeds’ bends and twists genres into more combinations than are possible on a Rubix cube.

 Download: Hard Bastards; Facety 2:11; Stepping Hard; I Know Your Face

With new album Bleeds, Rodney Smith – aka Roots Manuva – quashes the notion that middle age might have somewhat softened the Brit-hop GOAT’s gimlet eye.

8 / 10

Roots Manuva raps for the downtrodden and disenfranchised on his new album, Bleeds. The veteran British MC opens this relentlessly bleak LP...

8 / 10

Well, well, well. After four years of near silence, Roots Manuva releases ‘Bleeds’, his sixth LP to date. One of the pioneers of UK hip-hop,

Bitterness, intensity and a beautifully idiosyncratic meditation from the gruff South London rapper

9 / 10

7 / 10

Photo: Shamil.

There are some great moments on Roots Manuva’s sixth album, but some pretty horrific ones, too

Album Reviews: Roots Manuva - Bleeds

The singular Londoner ages with style and raps the blues. Review by Joe Muggs

8 / 10