Roots Manuva原名Rodney Smith是伦敦hip hop厂牌Big Dada旗下的一员大将。他的父母来自于加勒比海地区牙买加的一个小村子, 这些早年的生活经历也自然而然的融入到他的音乐风格里。
Roots Manuva的一些音乐被认为是开创了Grime风格的先驱, 早在1998年，他就开始在Coldcut主理的著名实验/HipHop厂牌Ninja Tune下发片. 由于他对英伦说唱音乐的影响，[时代周刊]评论他是“英国现代大都市的声音，融dub, ragga, funk和hip hop为一体，横扫街头角角落落到充满大麻的舞池…”
British rapper/producer Rodney Smith established himself as Roots Manuva in the late 90s and began releasing a series of highly regarded albums through Big Dada (which were usually distributed by Ninja Tune). Smiths work spanned the music spectrum, firmly rooted in dub and ragga but also incorporating much of the trip-hop style often associated with Ninja Tune. He debuted in 1999 with Brand New Second Hand, a promising album that garnered a sizable amount of attention from the international hip-hop crowd and won Britains coveted MOBO award. Beginning in late 1999, shortly after its release, Smith returned to the studio to begin work on Run Come Save Me, his follow-up. He completed the album and released it on Big Dada in 2001; thanks to his own production on the breakout single Witness (1 Hope), the album became a British hit and increased his worldwide recognition. It narrowly missed winning the prestigious Mercury award and spawned an excellent dub album, Dub Come Save Me, released one year later. His third album, Awfully Deep, appeared in 2005.