Roots Manuva - Sinny Sin Sins

I was raised in a Pentecostal church of God.

Album: Run Come Save Me [2nd album]
Genre: Hip Hop, UK Hip Hop
Album Release: August 13th 2001
Length: 3:36
Producer: Roots Manuva, under the pseudonym Hylton Smythe
Vocalist: Roots Manuva [age 28]
Label: Big Dada Records

Official Audio

Charts, Streams & Sales

UK (albums): Certified gold
Spotify: 290,000 +
YouTube Music: 185,000 +
MOBO Awards 2001 Nominee: Best Hip Hop Act [losing to Missy Elliott]
Mercury Prize 2002 Nominee [losing to Ms. Dynamite]

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Details

• Roots Manuva's father was a deacon and as such he grew up in a religious household. The rapper has said his family went to church three times on Sunday and twice during the week. Seeing his father address a crowd would influence how Manuva handled the crowds of his own. He learned a lot from watching preachers, including how to use his voice, and how to tell a story as well as a joke.
  
  This mix of humour and seriousness gave Manuva's hip hop a unique charm that set it apart from the more typical fare. For example, he's the only rapper I've heard rhyme the word "begrudgingly". Hip hop is typically loud and brash, not begrudging. But somehow, he made the attitude work.
  
  Manuva is also known for his laid back, bemused delivery that can sound like he's woke up late and got on the wrong bus. He isn't mad though, he's along for the ride and recounting his observations in a rhyme. He told the Guardian in 2001 "I wish I had an invisibility machine, so I could walk into anywhere unseen and just write about what I find."
  
  It's a distinctively British way of doing hip hop, with its observational understatement and dry humour. It makes sense then that Manuva's influences are 'Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick' by The Blockheads as well as the more usual figures of Public Enemy and Run D.M.C..
  
  
• In 'Sinny Sin Sins' the rapper recounts his religious upbringing. It's introspective, autobiographical and has an observational style where he simply states an event that happened to him "I used to steal collection" and then says how he felt about it "I was just a kid trying to hustle up a quid." It details the confusion he felt as a boy when he was coming to terms with the role religion would play in his life "do I need a middle man to link with the creator?" and "why should I turn the other cheek and get beat?"
  
  A midi-controller that sounds like a modified church organ plays along in a minor chord. A preacher, who likely represents Manuva's dad, makes himself heard on the hook while the young Roots quietly questions Christianity. His father was preaching to the congregation while a rebellion was festering at home.
  
  In Genesis, there's a story of Lucifer questioning his father and rebelling only to be expelled from paradise. The story, if taken as an allusion to typical family dynamics, is recreated, at least in part, everytime a son questions his father. A son cannot understand what his father understands because he lacks the required life experience. Therefore he will question.
  
  The same story is, with different characters occupying the same roles, revisited in the Bible many times. For example, Adam & Eve, also in Genesis, don't understand why they shouldn't eat the apple, so they question why, before rebelling and being punished with expulsion from paradise. Lucifer was punished with expulsion from heaven whereas Adam & Eve were punished with expulsion from Eden. Sound familiar? Adam & Eve share the same father as Lucifer, which is to say all of us abide by the same fundamental rules.
  
  This dynamic also plays out in 'Sinny Sin Sins'. Manuva asks "why should I turn the other cheek and get beat?" while also describing his father hitting him "as soon as I said shit I felt a slap to my jaw." Just like Lucifer, the disobedient son, he rebelled, was punished and ran the risk of being banished from paradise, in this case represented by the security of the home.
  
  The moral of the story is that sons should obey their fathers whether or not they understand why. The purpose of the Bible is to pass wisdom down from one generation to the next and it seems that, by including this structure in his song, Roots Manuva was at least paying some attention in Sunday school.
  
  
• The late 90's - early 2000's was an intersting time in UK hip hop. Stalwarts MC's such as Rodney P and Blak Twang were still in their prime but a new generation of original artists would emerge to form the second golden generation of the genre.
  
  The music was fiercely independent. Partially through necessity, as there was barely any mainstream interest, but also so the artists could say what they wanted to say. BBC radio wasn't going to play music calling for the abolition of the monarchy for example. The only place to hear such things was underground. The music arose organically as a response to the lack of working-class representation in neglected urban areas in Britain. The number of ethnic minorities in such areas was higher than the national average so the music incorporated a diverse range of influences.
  
  Major labels didn't want to sign UK artists so the artists made their own labels. Independents such as Low Life Records, YNR Productions and Big Dada were formed by the artists themselves but it would take more than that for the music to succeed.
  
  An entire micro-industry of promoters, radio stations, such as Itch FM, distributors, such as suspect packages and club nights, such as Kung Fu, emerged to support the music. Without budgets for advertising, artists had to cultivate word of mouth and did so by touring relentlessly, playing in small venues up and down the country, giving much of the audience a front row seat. Without their hard work the mainstream success enjoyed by British rappers today would have been more difficult to achieve.
  
  It's also credit to the performers, such as Phi-Life Cypher, Task Force, Mystro and Skinnyman, that they managed to create so much with so little. Part of the appeal was the 'us against the industry' attitude and the lo-fi aesthetic. While American hip hop went in search of the almighty dollar its British counterparts were proudly anti-establishment and invested in keeping true hip hop culture alive. Fuck the mainstream. They didn't want to be signed.
  
  You heard things in UK hip hop you couldn't hear anywhere else. It reflected the British way of life at the time and featured elements of class warfare, racial tension, social commentary and raw lyricism that made it feel truly alive while the mainstream was completely devoid of sharp edges. The rappers weren't outlandish cartoon characters they were real people talking about everyday issues in a way that was both intelligent and relatable. 
  
  
• Manuva's parents are Jamaican immigrants and his music features a heavy bashment, ragga and dub influence.
• Manuva's songs are filled with a British sense of humour and lyrical dexterity, such as in 'Clockwork' where he says "what the frig makes you friggers want to frig with this?" The lyric is absurd as there's no real need to use the comedic frig, when fuck would do and, perhaps, be more fitting for the genre. Whilst at the same time, it's an intelligent use of language, as he uses frig as an exclamation, friggers as a noun and then frig again as a verb.
  
  Maybe frigging would be the correct verb. It appears Roots Manuva has gone over my head. He could've said "what the frig makes you frigging friggers want to frig with this?" When the kids are around I sometimes use the word frick, but that's a conversation for another time.
  
  
• 'Witness the Fitness', from Manuva's second album, was one of the most successful British hip hop singles of all time when it released in 2001, and it only reached #45 on the UK chart. Despite this, it featured heavily on MTV and achieved mainstream recognition whilst appealing not only to fans of the genre but of dance and indie music as well. People were intrigued by the deep bass groove and the good humour of the video, which featured a grown man annihilating kids in a race at a school sports day, and they couldn't help but dance along.
  
  As far as recognition goes, the exposure gave British hip hop a much-needed shot in the arm. It encouraged people to give the genre a second-look or even made them aware of its existence in the first place. To put the success of the single in perspective, at the time of writing, 'Witness the Fitness' has 23m streams on Spotify while comparable songs such as Blak Twang's 'So Rotton' has 1.9m streams and Skinnyman's 'Council Estate of Mind' isn't even listed on the platform but has 800k on YouTube. The pop-rap hit 'Dy-Na-Mi-Tee' by Ms. Dynamite has nearly 27m streams but wasn't popular with undergrounds heads.
  
  

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