The Roots, playing the first hip-hop gig at Somerset House since the Summer Series was inaugurated, come with a fearsome live reputation.

They’ve been championing the idea of a truly live hip-hop band for nearly two decades, and clearly feel they’ve arrived, with ‘The Legendary Roots Crew’ emblazoned on half the band’s clothes and repeated totemically by MC Black Thought as he strode the stage.

The first thing you notice about The Roots as a live unit, at least tonight, is the make-up of the band. They have drums, percussion, keyboards, bass and guitar behind the MC, which seems normal. But in the place of the expected turntables, is a sousaphone. Yes, a sousaphone, the late-19th Century marching band adaptation of a tuba.

That it is emphatically not there as a gimmick is clear, as The Roots are quite easily the equal of their live reputation, and immediately plow into their set with a blinding mix of MC chops and a tight, tight band behind, driving it all onwards, with the sousaphone adding an unexpected but joyfully received extra dimension. Their debt to James Brown is overtly honoured later on, but the spirit is evident throughout.

The only slip-up is a brief comedown to talk politics, before giving us a cover of Dylan’s ‘Masters of War’ set to ‘Star Spangled Banner’. The guitar solo that it folds into is as good as anything since Maggot Brain, but the concept is awkward.

After that, they wound down with a Brown-esque walkthrough of the band members, with a solo for each. With a demand to the crowd to follow onto the Jazz Café to see DJ Questlove, they left utterly owning the evening.

Richard Davie