Flo Rida
R.O.O.T.S
Release Date: Mar 31, 2009
Genre(s): Rap
Record label: Atlantic
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Album Review: R.O.O.T.S by Flo Rida
Fairly Good, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating B
There’s a slim chance you haven’t yet heard ”Right Round,” the current radio behemoth from Sunshine State rapper Flo Rida that has already hit No. 1 on three continents. Indeed, it would take a monklike level of pop cultural abstinence to avoid the swaggering, bass-heavy anthem, improbably based on the 1984 camp classic ”You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” by rouged British dance-poppers Dead or Alive.
Based on rating 6/10
Standing for "Route of Overcoming the Struggle," R.O.O.T.S. is an especially unreasonable title for Flo Rida's follow-up to Mail on Sunday, the album featuring megahit "Low." With the handful of plaintive or reflective numbers included here all being forgettable and dull, it's way too noble a title, one that points out all the album's shortcomings. The autobiographical opener, "Finally Here," seems bemused by life's journey, not in awe, and "Rewind" is a hackneyed closer with a thin "turn back time" metaphor supported by Wyclef's pathos for hire.
Based on rating 3/5
There's no stopping Flo Rida. His 2008 debut single, Low, topped charts around the world, and the Dead or Alive-referencing Right Round, the first single taken from this second LP, has repeated the trick. It doesn't seem to matterthat the 29-year-old Tramar Dillard is stylistically in thrall to other southern US rappers, or that he has little to say that's fresh.