Hear the Roots’ “When the People Cheer”: The First Single Off Their New Album

In between singing the Frozen soundtrack with Idina Menzel, performing “We Can’t Stop” with Miley Cyrus and completing the rest of their Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon duties, The Roots have somehow managed to make a brand-new album. The ominously titled And Then You Shoot Your Cousin is due out May 13 on Def Jam Records, as confirmed via Instagram by Questlove.

Band member Black Thought described the band’s forthcoming 11th album in an interview with XXL: “It’s conceptual; it’s another concept album in the spirit of undun, but it’s not just about just one kind of character, we create quite a few different characters in this record. It’s satire, but in that satire it’s an analysis of some of the stereotypes perpetuated in–not only the hip-hop community, but in the community.”

The first single, “When the People Cheer,” helps explain how the band is incorporating that heady concept into the albums’ tracks. The song starts out with a nursery rhyme and then quickly veers into darker territory with heavy lyrics.

Listen here:

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