New Music You Need to Hear

Here are some of the latest sounds that should be lighting up your ipod and mp3 players.

The Rising Down - The Roots
On their ninth disc The Roots seem determined to be the most political band in hip-hop and have taken Chuck D's statement about rap being the Black man's CNN literally. On the Rising Down rapper Black Thought and drummer Questlove come off like the Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of hip-hop. Black Thought drops lyrics about Hurricane Katrina, global warming, the up coming election and all things political while Questlove holds down the beats and leads the band with his subtle yet powerful production. With tracks like "Get Busy", "Criminal" and "I will Not Apologize" The Roots never stop their funky, socially conscious party. The only downside to the disc is the omission of "Birthday Girl"; a song the group did with Patrick Stump from Fall Out Boy. If for no other reason, the tune might have been the one "happy" spot on an otherwise serious sounding disc.

When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold - Atmosphere
The duo of Slug and Ant return to the cd racks with their latest disc of introspective beats and rhymes. From 80's styled keyboards and synthesizers to sparse beats to blues, Ant's production seems to know no boundaries as he and a live band back up Slug's rhymes. Slug (aka Sean Daley) has become a masterful story teller and instead of rocking his own tales of self doubt he spins yarns about women for hire (The Skinny), failed young love (The Dreamer), and he does have time to speak of his own fear of success (Puppets). Slug and Ant may have no choice but to deal with success as they become the biggest group on the indie rap circuit. With their boundary pushing style of hip-hop, Atmosphere have been turning the hip-hop scene to gold for quite sometime now and it looks like rap fans both over and underground are starting to take notice