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Don’t read too many reviews, positive or otherwise, of The Roots’ drug-dealer study undun. With its backward-is-beautiful narrative structure and its overall flintiness, it’s not built for the current hype cycle, and it’s more likely to inspire a Bill T. Jones dance treatment than a million street imitators. Sit with it. It’s more than just a flipped script. And when the hip-hop crew does two nights at the Fillmore, go for the show-band jams and the Golden-Era glow, because undun’s Sufjan Stevens suites and Black Thought exhalations probably won’t be the centerpiece. It’ll be a conscious party, like it’s always been, with ?uestlove on the kit and a big cast of characters in front of him, throbbing for at least two hours, probably more. Things do fall apart, but not this band, not right now. The Roots perform at 8 p.m. tonight and Friday at Fillmore Silver Spring. $45. (Joe Warminsky)
MORE MUSIC
No woman, no cry: The Wailers are at State Theatre tonight with Outernational. Doors at 7 p.m.; $25.
Local rockers (Stop Worrying and) Love the Bomb—-called “nihilistic pop-punk”—-headline Black Cat’s backstage with opening acts The Electricutions and Highway Cross. 8 p.m. $8.
And Fort Knox Five brings the party to U Hall with Krafty Kuts and Proxxy & Lantern. 10 p.m. $10.