the roots: classic or dud?

also i know a girl who hooked up w/ black thought in his buckhead hotel room

Did Black Thought ever put out that solo album?

rahzel's album is actually pretty dope

I doubt it will make me cringe as much as "blatancy"

http://blogs.okayplayer.com/theroots/2008/04/04/exclusive-freestyle/

black thought and malik b back to back in 94!

they should never have let malik b go*. black thought is so much better with a partner.

*and get addicted to drugs

THE NEW ALBUM IS THE FUCKING BEST

new album is aite
ive been down for these dudes since illadelph & game theory is the fucking best

O_O

I WON'T APOLOGIZE

Dud now but classic before.

game theory is the fucking best

yes ^^^ their best album in a looong time.

no huge roots fan and jb-humping whatever but this is the shit

http://www.twitvid.com/62CAC

its ok. ronson+good jb pastiche+too long chorus+black thought reciting more platitudes.

sure, but it absolutely smokes in spite of all that

that chorus is the corniest.

Hearing their new album and I think it's pretty good, probably the best thing I've heard from them.

Think I might go catch them at Prospect Park next weekend. Their records never 100% do it for me but they're always pretty good and the live show is solid.

"Hearing their new album and I think it's pretty good, probably the best thing I've heard from them."

what, ever?

it is pretty good. not sure if it's the best, but it's more consistent than some of their other albums.

Really getting into this, more so than anything they've put out since Phrenology. The consistency of it; it has a great sustained mood throughout.

questo's drumming at the end of "you got me" is so o_O

pretty sure the drums at the end are programmed (although he kinda plays those beats when they do it live)

iirc he did play them, or at least has said he played them in the past.

yeah? i know he's done lots of stuff that was live but didn't sound live, just never thought that was one. nice.

'Little did we know this would win us a Grammy and that the future gods of arthritis would forever haunt me.'

http://www.moderndrummer.com/updatefull/200001881/Ahmir%20%E2%80%9CQuestlove%E2%80%9D%20Thompson

my friend keeps playing the new record. i thought the joanna newsom hook was a parody first time i heard it but no.

yeh he def plays the "you got me" outro

"long time" off game theory is so fucking sick

fuck yeah. classic peedi verse too.

so these guys are gonna be the house band for the tonight show
it's a strange world

damn, did leno put a power move on fallon or

oh i see

Made their best video about dissing bling-bling and then the rap world kept blinging while the roots sort of faded from consciousness. Poor calculation on their part

lol

http://www.youtube.com/embed/3woHfDKTjqU

Hmm, where does this go? I'll put it here. ?uestlove's essay on rap and black culture, part one:

http://www.vulture.com/2014/04/questlove-on-how-hip-hop-failed-black-america.html

"When the People Cheer: How Hip-Hop Failed Black America"

Part two is here: http://www.vulture.com/2014/04/questlove-on-money-jay-z-how-hip-hop-failed-black-america-part-2.html

"Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems: How Hip-Hop Failed Black America, Part II"

I kind of want to keep bumping this to hear some reactions, unless this was already discussed somewhere.

Yeah, I thought it was strange that no one brought this up here…

Also odd that the guy —who I interviewed once and was startled that he mentioned what Xgau thought of some rekkid or another apropos of nothing— is so concerned that hip-hop didn't end up raising consciousness to the extent that he wanted it to…or transform the world. yeah, it turns out most people like songs about primal shit like partying, fucking and material goods. Very bourgie to be disappointed that the music you identify with doesn't end up transcending human nature.

bullshit. He was becoming a man when hip hop was teeming with sociopolitical commentary, with a directness and anger that stood out from virtually all even semi-popular music before it. X hats, Africa medallions, Nation of Islam-inspired thought. It's only natural for someone that fired up by the hip hop from that era to be disappointed by its near complete abandonment of those subjects to its current fixations.

OK, I totally get that. but being that his reputation is that of a guy whose frame of reference includes popular music writ large, and not just hip-hop, you would think that he would have an awareness that someone like, say, Pete Townshend ran around in the wake of 60s rock saying "rock and roll is gonna change everything." and it didn't, and Townshend and I guess Joe strummer etc etc had to go on with their lives…hip-hop has gone through the same thing that just about every radical musical idiom to reach millions of people ever has. but then, songs about base desires don't offend me.

He has awareness of "popular music writ large" but he LOVES hip hop and it had a huge impact on him at an important time in one's life (child to teenager to adult transitions).

hip-hop has gone through the same thing that just about every radical musical idiom to reach millions of people ever has.

which is a very limited sample size! and there's no natural law that says this must be the case. plus when you are in love with an artform you are understandably somewhat blinkered in your appraisal of it. "sure those other artforms became meaningless but THIS is DIFFERENT".

maybe rap is due for its own "this is spinal tap" about now?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qzacv8dtb4

^^^readers digest version

ha

I don't understand the desire there seems to be to have everyone be as detached and jaded about things as the observer is. Particulary head-scratching when it's applied to people who are so obviously very wrapped up with and self identify with the thing or things they ought to be detached from and jaded about.

maybe rap is due for its own "this is spinal tap" about now?

― Yarli Simon (rattled), Thursday, May 1, 2014 5:06 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_a_Black_Hat

i don't understand either of those sentences xp

i thought CB4 was our 'this is spinal tap'

maybe it comes from being a writer and always analyzing things such as "pop music writ large", I dunno

Rock and Roll helped to change a lot of things imo. I think it contributed to the liberalization of certain social attitudes and probably gave consumerism and materialist individualism a big boost.

what is a roots show like these days? ive not seen them in quite a few years but am curious to know what kind of set they do now (theyre in london next month). is it just lots of jamming? lots of covers?

black thought just put out a record, anyone hear it?

RIP Malik B.

ahh man no fuckin way =(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt-K7DwrG90

fucking jam. rest in peace.

Damn, I don't listen to as much rap as a lot of people around here do, but Illadelph Halflife was a big record for me when I was about 18, and nowadays, if a random hip-hop lyric pops into my head for some reason, it's probably Malik B.

npr swipe.

just. . . man.

fuck man, always had a soft spot for him.

i trained wack emcees in camps like ex-marines

Damn he was my favorite, especially on Things Fall Apart, him and Dice Raw

best ever malik b:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnrUePtOcXA

I'm symbolic to a ballot, it's Abdul Malik
Don't approach with bullshit, I'm quick to call it invalid
Route through your district, we keep it simplistic
No need for the rapper to talk, put it on halt
Show me the vault, or the safe, cause I'm on the paper chase
Wade through route states for bout thirty down my waist
I'm tryna get it, these rain bottling thoughts become acidic
With one in the chamber, ready to aim and spit it
A girlfriend and team made million cash just splintered
I take what you got to give, cause I got to live
The last hour, I bet your ass in rack shower
Might act up, but I still can pass Da'wah
I'm using new ways to try to reach these better days
Instead of tryna take you under, I just make you wonder
I still fast, make salaat and pay zakaat
I didn't make Hajj yet, but that's my next project
Living two lives, one of turn and one with true lies
Keeping up hope, knowing he's answering to my du'as
In the quarters living modest with my nigga Trotter
I circle my foes like a tawaf around the ka'ba
I used to live life like there was no mañana
Now I'm treating every breath like it was Your Honor
I'm Mill-itill-itant with the Fifth that stand firm like a pillar
I'm I and T-L like Manilla

THIS
IS
WHAT
IT'S
ALL
ABOUT

Just dropping in to say this album Black Thought & El Michels Affair released this week is extremely fine.

Thanks for the head’s up, JF!

Black Thought is one of the if not the single most underrated MCs. That Funk Flex show where he free-styled coherently for like 10 minutes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prmQgSpV3fA

Will check that out, thanks JF. I enjoyed this podcast going back through Things Fall Apart, which still hits me as one of the best *sounding* records ever made.
https://player.fm/series/the-questions-hip-hop-trivia/making-illmatic-the-roots-things-fall-apart-w-supastition

Also I'm calling it now, based on the clips one heard, the next Roots record will be their best since TFA.

Thanks for the heads up!

Things Fall Apart sounds *sooooooo* good that I can barely listen to it anywhere but on a good stereo.

Beanie Sigel's verse on "Adrenaline!" with the "n' nem" flow is one of my favs of all time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlu0W-mHAIw

YES

THAT SONG RULES SO HARD

one time it came on at a club i was in in Chicago and my sisters and i lost our minds. others seemed bemused.

gotta listen to it right now

great getting ready music

will make you feel invulnerable

THEY USED TO TALK SHIT
BUT IMMA QUIET 'EM

Now I'm enjoying Open Mike Eagle's podcast series w/Questlove, currently going through Things Fall Apart (they already did the first three records). I'll never tire of learning tiny nerdy production details about this record.

For one I always thought this was one of the records done at Electric Lady, but it was all in Philly (drums/instruments recorded at Sigma Sound). Truly a testament to the '90s music industry funding seemingly infinite studio time.