Following the shift to slower tempos and Latin-tinged rhythms on the album Chaos A.D., Roots delves even further into Brazilian musical textures and features significant contributions from iconic Brazilian musician Carlinhos Brown, who guided and arranged the sections throughout the album that feature ensemble percussion playing.

Both in sound and overall aesthetic, Roots is also a conscious nod to Brazil's marginalized indigenous population and cultures.

"Lookaway" features guest appearances by Korn vocalist Jonathan Davis, then-Korn drummer David Silveria, House of Pain/Limp Bizkit turntablist DJ Lethal, and Faith No More/Mr.

[1][2] After leaving the band, Max Cavalera would continue to pursue the nu metal and "world" stylings of Roots with his solo project Soulfly.

It has also proven commercially successful; it has sold over two million copies worldwide,[3][4] and remains Sepultura's highest-charting album, peaking at 27 on the Billboard 200.

On many levels, the album reflects Sepultura's heightened focus on the music, culture, and politics of their native country.

[5] The overarching concept for the album was inspired by the film At Play in the Fields of the Lord (particularly the scene in which Tom Berenger's character parachutes onto a tribe[4]).

After convincing Roadrunner Records to support the project,[4] Cavalera contacted Angela Pappiani, at the time the communications coordinator for Brazil's Núcleo de Cultura Indígena (Indigenous Culture Center).

Well before they had any contact with white people, part of their culture has always entailed that men engage the spirit world, especially through music.

[7]A spokesman for the tribe looked back on the collaboration: "We had seen pictures of Sepultura and we knew that they were different, with their long hair and many tattoos.

Igor Cavalera remembered that it was a challenge to prevent the album from becoming "a gigantic jam that didn't turn into actual songs."

"[8] According to Korn guitarist Brian Welch, in a November 1996 interview, his "own Bigger Muff guitar pedal" that he had initially modified and then used for his band was reused to his "great dismay" for recording the Roots album.

[7][8] All of the songs on Roots draw from these styles, with the band often blending them in unconventional ways and at times super-imposing them onto one another through creative mixing and editing in post-production.

I'd been exposed to samba and the African Brazilian rhythms before I played the drums, and I'd always had a lot of caution about incorporating them in the right way, and not doing it for the sake of just having them there.

The album cover features an indigenous man of the Karajá tribe taken from a 1990 banknote of the discontinued Brazilian cruzeiro, to which artist Michael Whelan added a locket with Sepultura's "tribal S" logo and a background of red roots.

'")[7] "Ratamahatta" is "a celebration of life in Brazil's favela slums, sung all in Portuguese, which tells the stories of people like Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe) and Lampião, the leader of an early 1900s outlaw gang from north Brazil, whose head was put on public display after he was captured".

This spells EPIC, the record company with which Sepultura had some trouble during their previous album, Chaos A.D.[5]) The lyrics to "Attitude" were co-written by Dana Wells, Max Cavalera's stepson, whose death (in part) led 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.

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.

"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".

[38] Rolling Stone contributor Jon Wiederhorn 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" and called the album "a refreshing step forward in a genre full of bands that are creatively bankrupt.

[39] Looking back on the album 20 years later, PopMatters contributor Saby Reyes-Kulkarni described Roots as "inarguably one of the most radical [stylistic] departures from convention in heavy metal history," an album that "blew the doors open on our perceptions of metal and so-called 'world music,'" adding that "we haven't heard anything quite like it since.

[4] On March 25, 2021, French heavy metal band Gojira released the single "Amazonia", a song about anti-deforestation of the Amazon and the protection of Brazilian indigenous peoples' rights.

Shortly after its release on April 15, frontman Joe Duplantier in an interview with Blabbermouth.net was asked his thoughts about comparing "Amazonia" to Sepultura, to which he said: I go, "Yup."