With the sheer volume of music being made available to us on a daily basis, you often have to wade through mountains of trash to find the buried treasure.  It can be a tedious task that seldom reaps a reward but when it does you'll be patting yourself on the back for your persistence.  A couple of weeks ago, I happened to stumble across this self titled third album from the San Diego collective known as Deep Rooted and I was pleasantly surprised. 

The four man (actually three men and one woman) team of Mr. Brady, Johaz, D.J. Artistic and Brea make an extremely strong first impression with the spaced out funk trip known as Crazy.  The beat on this one does exactly what it says on the tin with the elastic like bass line as well as electronic blips and bleeps all making one killer track.  It sounds as though this was produced in a galaxy far, far away.  If Luke Skywalker and Han Solo ever decided to do an album together; they would probably make something like this. 

The proceedings take quite an ambitious turn on Billy Jean which is a freaked out Hip Hop version of the seminal Michael Jackson composition.  Quite frankly, they have some balls for even attempting to touch such a classic song but to my surprise, its still a decent jam to rock out to regardless.  The album remains an enjoyable ride throughout and goes on a fine run towards the end with the Killah Priest assisted X.L., Sunshine and The End closing things out nicely. 

In closing, as a whole the album is good but just not as great as it could have potentially been.  With that being said, this is nowhere near below standard and is still a solid piece of work that will have my ears and eyes open for Deep Rooted in the future.  If you're a fan of Little Brother, Fashawn or Oddisee, then I would definitely recommend checking this out.