Released	20 February 1996
Recorded	October – December 1995 at Indigo Ranch in Malibu, California
Genre	Groove metal, alternative metal
Length	72:08
Label	Roadrunner
Producer	Ross Robinson, Sepultura

Roots is the sixth studio album by Brazilian heavy metal band Sepultura. It was released in February 20, 1996 by Roadrunner Records, and was the band’s last studio album to feature founding member and vocalist Max Cavalera. Following the experimentalism of the album Chaos A.D., Roots has more influence from Brazilian musical rhythms, and features Brazilian musician Carlinhos Brown, percussionist David Silveria, turntablist DJ Lethal, and vocalists Jonathan Davis and Mike Patton. Roots sold more than 2 million copies worldwide.

The album was produced by Ross Robinson. The majority of the themes presented on Roots are centered on Brazilian politics and culture.^[1] The concept for the album was inspired by the film At Play in the Fields of the Lord. The movie inspired Max Cavalera to travel to Mato Grosso, Brazil to visit the Xavante tribe.

The inspiration for Sepultura’s new musical direction was twofold. One was the desire to further experiment with the music of Brazil, especially the percussive type played by Salvador, Bahia samba reggae group Olodum.^[3] Another innovation Rootsbrought was the inspiration taken from the sound of Deftones and Korn – especially the latter’s debut, with its heavily down-tuned guitars.^[4]

The style of Roots incorporates elements of death metal,^[5] nu metal^[6] and thrash metal.^[6]

The band incorporated these elements into almost all songs in the album, and one of them (“Itsári”) was actually recorded with members of the Xavante Indians at their ancestral home. Meeting the Xavante Indians meant a lot to Sepultura. Igor says that the band identified a lot with the natives: “In a certain way, I think that we, as a band, had a lot of things in common with the Xavante Indians. We also lived on the edge of society, and our music and lifestyle is a long way from being assimilated and respected by that society.”^[7] A spokesman of the tribe declared: “We had seen pictures of Sepultura and we knew that they were different, with their long hair and many tattoos. We also knew that they had been discriminated, like we were. Because of that we were very curious about them.”^[7]Some songs also include participation (“Ratamahatta”, “Dictatorshit” and “Endangered Species”) and co-writing (“Ratamahatta”) from Carlinhos Brown, a popular Brazilian musician. The political theme and influence of hardcore punk on the album are further reflected in the topic of “Dictatorshit”, namely the 1964 Brazilian coup d’état.^[1] The lyrics to “Attitude” were co-written by Dana Wells, Max Cavalera’s stepson, whose death (in part) lead to the events which caused Max to leave the band. Dana also came up with the concept for the video for the song, featuring Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu experts the Gracie family.

Long-time friend Mike Patton (of Faith No More) and Jonathan Davis (of Korn) provided lyrics and vocals on the song “Lookaway”. The last words in the song “Cut-Throat” are “Enslavement, Pathetic, Ignorant, Corporations”. This spells EPIC, the record company with which Sepultura had some trouble during their previous album, Chaos A.D.

Roots received worldwide critical acclaim. The mainstream press appreciated the album’s unusual rhythms. American newspapers like The New Times, the Daily News and the Los Angeles Times reviewed the Brazilian band: “The mixture of the dense metal of Sepultura and the Brazilian music has a intoxicating effect”, wrote a Los Angeles Times reviewer.^[7] The Daily News praised the album saying: “Sepultura reinvented the wheel. By mixing metal with native instruments, the band resuscitates the tired genre, reminding of Led Zeppelin times. But while Zeppelin mixed English metal with African beats, it’s still more moving to hear a band that uses elements of its own country. By extracting the sounds of the past, Sepultura determines the future direction of metal”.^[14]

Specialized heavy metal critics also reviewed the album positively. Martin Popoff, author of the book The Collector’s Guide to Heavy Metal, ranked Roots as the 11th best metal record of all time. “This is a spectacular metal and futurist hardcore LP”, wrote Popoff, “a masterpiece, accomplished by a band with an enormous heart and an even larger intellect”. Kerrang!magazine awarded Roots second place in the list of “100 records that you have to hear before dying”; just after In Utero fromNirvana.^[14] In 2001 Q magazine named Roots as one of the 50 Heaviest Albums Of All Time.^[15] Rolling Stone Brasil named it the 57th best Brazilian music album.^[16]Rolling Stone (3/21/96, p. 98) gave the album three stars out of five and said, “Sepultura play a violent game of sonic overload… the band uses its catharsis as a creative force, funneling torrents of noise into a tunnel of hate.” Music critic Piero Scaruffi includes Roots at number nine, just after Dream Theater‘s Images and Words and beforeElectric Wizard‘s Come My Fanatics…, in his classification of the best metal albums of all time.^[17] Music critic Robert Christgau gave the album a negative review. He qualified the album with a “dud” rating.

Track listing

Lyrics

1. Roots Bloody Roots

Roots Bloody Roots
Roots Bloody Roots
Roots Bloody Roots
Roots Bloody Roooaaaaaahh

I
Believe in our fate
We don’t need to fake
It’s all we wanna be
Watch me freeeaaak !!

I say
We’re growing every day
Getting stronger in every way
I’ll take you to a place
Where we shall find our

Roots Bloody Roots
Roots Bloody Roots
Roots Bloody Roots
Roots Bloody Roots

Rain
Bring me the strength
To get to another day
and all I want to see
Set us free

Why
Can’t you see
Can’t you feel
This is real
Ahhh

I pray
We don’t need to change
Our ways to be saved
That all we wanna be
Watch us freak

2. Attitude

One week of struggling
On the real world is..
So you can see !!!

Feel your soul and…
Shape your mind to warfare
It’s all for real

Live your life
Not the way they taught you
Do what you feel !

Survive the jungle
Give me blood
Give me Pain
These scars won’t heal

What were you thinking
What a wonderful world !!!
You’re full of shit

Leave it behind
They don’t care if you cry
All is left is pain

Can you take it ?
Can you take it ?
Can you take it ?
Can you take it ?

The only way
To get away
Kill your pride
Attitude

I won’t take it
I won’t take it
I won’t take it
I won’t take it

So in the end
I want to see some respect
( I said )
You better show some respect
( I said )
Attitude and respect

3. Cut-Throat

Telling lies right into your face
Grab your soul and make a disgrace
Make you believe you’re bigger than life
No one cares if you’ll live or die

Waiting for the moment to strike
To take possession to take your heart
Turn your part into a farse
Without respect, without regret

Cut-Thoat – cut-throat
Cut-Throat
Cut-Thoat – cut-throat
Cut-Throat

You promise this and promise all
Deep inside nothing at all
In a war of filth and greed
We don’t need none of this shit

All I say that will survive
We know what’s true, we know what’s right
We’re going through this till the end
And I know you’re not my friend

Cut-Thoat – cut-throat
Cut-Throat
Cut-Thoat – cut-throat
Cut-Throat
Fuck !

To give in – no fucking way
To give in – no way

So don’t tell us it can’t be done
Putting down what you don’t know
Money isn’t our god
Integrity will free our soul

Enslavement pathetic
Ignorant corporations

Cut-Thoat – cut-throat
Cut-Throat
Cut-Thoat – cut-throat
Cut-Throat

4. Ratamahatta

Biboca
Garagem
Favela

Fubanga
Maloca
Bocada

Maloca
Bocada
Fubanga

Favela
Garagem
Biboca, porra !!!

Ze Do Caixao
Zumbi
Lampiao

Hello uptown
Hello downtown
Hello midtown
Hello trenchtown

Ratamahatta !!! …

Hello uptown
Hello downtown
Hello midtown
Hello trenchtown

Ratamahatta !!! …

5. Breed Apart

Creepy crawl
On concrete and dust
Asphalt jungle
Piles of crust

Non sense thoughts
Inside the mind
What really means
What I want ?

Open up your mind
And go your own way
Open up your mind
And go your own way
Open up your mind
And go your own way
Open up your mind
And go your own way

Straight old thoughts
To force you down
Raping rape
Breed apart

Open up your mind
And go your own way
Open up your mind
And go your own way
Open up your mind
And go your own way

Open up your mind
And go your own way
Open up your mind
And go your own way
Open up your mind
And go your own way
Open up your mind

6. Straighthate

I ask myself why I’m so hateful
Maybe just part of my nature
People say I’m fucked in my mind
Feels like there’s nothing left inside

Walking now on different dirty streets
But the same old feeling still exists
Hate is like a shade that will never leave
Leave me alone I don’t need sympathy

What goes around
Comes around
You’re going down
Down

Straighthate, Straighthate
Straighthate, Straighthate

Criticize and call me negative
You never face life or reality
Separate myself from the rest
What the fuck do you expect?

What goes around
Comes around
You’re going down
Down

Straighthate, Straighthate
Straighthate, Straighthate
Straight fucking hate

What goes around
Comes around
Grow up in the ghettos
Made me real
To deal with my fears
Motherfucker you don’t understand
Pain and Hate

7. Spit

Hate them hate them
Live your farce
Same thing, same way
Your karma will come

Ask me no questions
I tell no lies
Ask me again
I spit in your eyes

Live your life
Leave me alone !!!
Live your life
Leave me alone !!!

Face me, face me
Feel the cut
Open sore
Always bleeding

Live your life
Leave me alone !!!
Live your life
Leave me alone !!!

Spit !!
Spit !!
Spit !!
Spit !!

8. Lookaway

[Lyrics: Jonathan Davis]
[Music: Sepultura and DJ Lethal]
[Vocals: Mike Patton, Jonathan Davis, Max Cavalera]

Ahhhh…

Each time I pull it apart
I get disgusted, can’t do it today
What makes it so good
That a man would kill for it
Lie just to lick a bit

Each time I pull it apart
I get disgusted, can’t do it today
What makes it so good
To lie just to lick

Fake it, you like it, just take me away.
(hold it?), just save it and I’ll be repaid

Each time I pull it apart
I get disgusted, can’t do it today
What makes it so good
That a man would kill for it
To lie just to lick a bit

Each time I pull it apart
I get disgusted, can’t do it today
What makes it so good
To lie, to lick

Take it, enlarge it, became it, before
Like it, I like it, and I’ll be (can’t tell)

Fake it, then like it, just take it tonight.
Take it

I look at you, (then) you look at me, (then) you look away…
[x14]

9. Dusted

You make me mute
Hiding the truth
Revealing a farse
Created by your mind

What do you expect
Exposing your lies
Printed in your eyes
There’s no alibi

To cooperate and not be allowed
They’re killing my name / sewing my mouth

Prospect in life
Lost in the line
To cooperate
And just be alive

You gonna fall hiding the truth
You gonna crawl finding the truth
To blame myself it’s my disgrace
To blame the world by my mistakes

Dusted [3x]

Turn around and turning around
And turning around and sinside out
Turn around and turning around
And turning around and inside out

Do not disturb !
Leave me alone
The fear within inside and beyond
The fear within inside and beyond

You make me mute
Hiding the truth
Revealing a farse
Created by your mind

What do you expect
Exposing your lies
Printed in your eyes
There’s no alibi

You gonna fall hiding the truth
You gonna crawl finding the truth
To blame myself it’s my disgrace
To blame the world by my mistakes

Dusted [6x]

10. Born Stubborn

Stubborn from the start
Obey no one no matter what ?!
Our life it’s our right
Why don’t you go away

We live without orders
We live without rules
Tearing down the wall
That try to hold us in

Born in pain
Born stubborn

I got my tribe it’s my own right
And I don’t have to tell you why
It’s been like that from the start
And you can’t break it apart
Sepultura in our hearts
Can’t take it away
These Roots will always remain

Born in pain
Born stubborn

Stubborn from the start
Obey no one no matter what ?!
Our life it’s our right
Why don’t you go away

We live without orders
We live without rules
Tearing down the wall
That try to hold us in

Born in pain
Born stubborn

I got my tribe it’s my own right
And I don’t have to tell you why
It’s been like that from the start
And you can’t break it apart
Sepultura in our hearts
Can’t take it away
These Roots will always remain

Born in pain
Born stubborn
Born in pain
Born in pain

Suffering life
Make us rise

11. Jasco

[Music: Andreas Kisser]
[Acoustic guitar: Andreas Kisser]

12. Itsari

[Music: Xavantes tribe and Sepultura]
[Acoustic guitar: Max Cavalera and Andreas Kisser]
[Timbau: Igor Cavalera]
[Timbau Grande: Paulo Jr.]
[Recorded live in the “Aldeia Pimentel Barbosa,” home of the Xavantes tribe,]
[located in Mato Grosso, Brasil, on the 5th day of November 1995.No overdubs!!]
[“Itsari” means “roots” in the Xavante language.The chant included in this]
[track is the “Datar Wawere” healing ceremony chant.Production support:]
[Nuclco de Cultura Indigena.]

13. Ambush

Screaming
For more justice
Amazonia burns
Can you hear them ?

I’ll fight
To save another day
So join us
And we’ll make them leave this land

Threatening
To kill how we feel
(but) if we stop them it’ll be worth dying for

When you go down !!!
When you go down motherfucker !
When you go down !!!
When you go down fighting !!

When you go down !!!
When you go down motherfucker !
When you go down !!!
When you go down fighting !!
Motherfucker !

[instrumental break]

When you go down !!!
When you go down motherfucker !
When you go down !!!
When you go down fighting !!

When you go down !!!
When you go down motherfucker !
When you go down !!!
When you go down fighting !!

…
Why ? Why ? WHY ? WHY? WHY ?
WHY ? WHY ? WHY ?

14. Endangered Species

Life !!
The struggle to survive
Crawling, raging
Feed the hate inside

Are we going to see another day ?
Are we going to make it all the way ?
Are we going to see the light of day ?
Are we going to make it till the end ?

Rise !!
Bad moon rise
Another war, another crime
End in sight

Bleak !!
Why & what the fuck ?!?
Shut your mouth, shut your mind, this the way
You’re just another prey

Is that what we’ve became ??

RISE ! [8x]

Are we going to see another day ?
Are we going to make it all the way ?
Are we going to see the light of day ?
Are we going to make it till the end ?

Endangered Species [3 x]
Is that what we’ve became ??

15. Dictatorshit

1964
Coup d’etat
Military force
Hundreds dead

Why did they disappear ?
Dictatorshit
Why did they disappear ?
Dictatorshit
…

1995
Spirit still alive
We still hear the cry
From the one that survived !!

Why did they disappear ?
Dictatorshit
Why did they disappear ?
Dictatorshit