Roots Manuva

Awfully Deep (Big Dada)

Disgust, weariness, self-loathing and the fear of God are not the usual themes taken up by hip hop. But then, south London MC Roots Manuva, born Rodney Smith, is not your usual rapper. The 32-year-old has been making music for a decade, boxing in the shadow of UK hip hop's heavyweight American cousin, trying to forge a style that could be both naturalistically British and as good as the records coming out of the US. No easy feat, as the dearth of UK hip hop hits for the same decade attests. For his pains, Smith was awarded a Mobo in recognition of his 1999 debut, Brand New Second Hand. A Mercury nomination followed for 2001's Run Come Save Me.

Smith has saved his best record for today. Roots's third album finds him at once deeply troubled and in top lyrical and musical form.

The timing of this album is excellent, too. The success of artists like the Streets and Dizzee Rascal has proved beyond doubt the validity of the UK's peculiar hip hop hybrid, and Roots Manuva, their predecessor, richly deserves the rewards, both honorary and financial, that the younger men have enjoyed. But listening closely to Awfully Deep, you wonder whether recompense and recognition might do him any good at all, given his delicate state.

Most of the songs on Awfully Deep deal with Smith's furious depression, how he nearly gave up rapping, his ambivalence about his chosen path, his spell in an institution at the behest of his management, his drinking, his failures as an MC and a man, his hellish visions. Remarkably, there's no self-pity here. Rather, Awfully Deep offers a roiling well of existential searching, laced with gallows humour, snipes at his own expense ('Colossal Insight' and 'Awfully Deep' are both ironic titles) and magnificently delivered British turns of phrase.

'I do my nut, man/Puke up my gut, man,' he spits on 'Too Cold', one of the many helpings of bile here that are catchy enough to become a single. He shares Dizzee's dark London universe, but Roots's wise, dejected rumble sounds biblical up against the new generation's hysterical squeaks. Indeed, Awfully Deep harks back to Tricky's most paranoid and arresting work. As with Tricky, it all might boil down to too much weed, but Roots's fear is tangible. He calls, but Jesus doesn't come. In a genre best known for its posturing and violence, Roots can rap 'Pray for me, Mummy' without worrying about saving face.

He seems not to care about face any more. 'These ain't rhymes no more, they're straight sermons,' he finally rasps on 'Chin High'. The point is, though, that Smith's songs are far more deft than that, playfully undermining his turmoil at every turn. Roots rhymes 'hallelu' with 'callaloo', twins 'how many Hail Marys' with 'cut down on the dairy'. The words are only the half of it. Roots Manuva rails against pigeonholing to a backdrop of alienated dub, haunted dancehall, live instruments and grime-derived sonic burps and whizzes; the album is as inventive as Roots's wordplay is skilful. Operatic backing vocals crop up on 'Rebel Heart', 'The Falling' has digital chirps and piano. And, perhaps most startling of all, all of it would sound terrific on the radio.

Everyone who owns a Streets album should rush out and buy this first great British album of 2005. But given the state of Roots Manuva after his last two albums earned him a little fame, would it be a kind act?

· To order Awfully Deep for £13.99 with free UK p&p, call the Observer Music Service on 0870 836 0713