The Roots and Jimmy Fallon Break My Heart

"The principles of true hip hop have been forsaken, its all contractual and about money making" - Black Thought


Before I begin let me start by saying that by no means am I throwing darts at The Roots! That's damn near blasphemous. However, seeing them as a late night TV house band, for a dude that has barely made me smirk in the last 8 years, pains me more than words can express. It's like watching Jordan play for the Wizards. Sure he can still hoop, but the uniform? the city? It just don't feel right. The Roots aren't just hip-hop. They are soul, they are funk, they are rock and roll, they are music. Listening to any Roots album, I don't care which one, is a mind altering experience; and as for seeing them live...well that's witnessing artistry and showmanship in their purest forms. So how did these icons wind up as a house band for a late night talk show?

Ladies and gentlemen it's simple...Money, and before you call them sell outs, you better recognize the grind they have been on for a decade plus. I've seen a lot of dope acts in concert, but I must say the roots are right up there at the top. Instead of the live instrumentation bleeding over the witty, thought provoking, verbal daggers wielded by the front man, they blend together harmoniously. Giving life to such immaculate tapestries such as "The Tipping Point", "Illadelph Halflife", and "Do You Want More" to name a few. Despite what I consider to be one of the most impressive catalogs in music history (not just hip-hop), the sales just weren't there. Constantly touring, coupled with lack of respect grows old. That grind begins to takes it's toll both mentally and physically. With all do respect, how is it that Wayne sells more than The Roots? put Black Thought in a cypher with Wayne, and it will be like watching a juiced up Barry Bonds, taking his turn at the plate at your nephew's tee ball game. Some might attribute it to "swag", I attribute it to marketing.

The music business exemplifies just what the name explicitly states, its a business, and a dirty one at that. With no real push, no real concerted effort, how can you expect even the most talented acts to do any significant numbers? Then came the deal with Def Jam, the deal that made not only the group, but their adoring, loyal fans rejoice. Finally they were going to get those oh so needed marketing dollars behind them, finally we were going to see them get the respect they deserve, bigger and brighter things we on the horizon. Unfortunately, Mr. Carter was running things, which meant unless you were singing about umbrellas, you got no love. So who can blame them for going to Jimmy Fallon's show? They get to shoot during the day, be close to home, and reportedly make more per episode than they did for a whole week of touring.

As I have stated before (unless speaking about Kanye) I will NEVER knock another man's hustle. Nevertheless, I wish things could have been different. Earlier I said I felt their catalog was complete, however as I write this I realize I am wrong. Part of what makes groups like The Roots, De La Soul, And Tribe (when they were around) so influential, is that they are timeless. People never grow old of them because they keep evolving, while simultaneously never forgetting what they are about. The Roots could make music for the next 70 years and I would never grow tired of it, and each album would present something different I had never heard from them before. While I am happy for them, I must admit I am heart broken as well. Soulja Boy said hip-hop died because Nas said so. I would argue that hip-hop isn't dead, but changed forever, when the art took a backseat to the persona. When the rhyme took a back seat to the number of diamonds in a chain. When substance took a back seat to "swag". The question is not whether or not Hip-Hop will live forever, the question is what state will it be in? As long as we the fans, don't demand that real music is made, as long as we the fans choose not to demarcate a space for acts like The Roots to not only exist, but to thrive, we will be stuck where we are now. Watching our most talented icons, working as the back drop on late night television. I don't know how that sits with you, but I simply can't stand it.

How Coachella Made Me Scared For Hip-Hop (Or, “Is hip-hop dead?” Revisited: Evolution vs. Unintelligent Design.)

This weekend I had the extraordinary experience of attending days two and three of Coachella, the premier festival on the West Coast for music.

In past years the festival has included acts as diverse as Madonna, James Brown, KRS-One, Ben Harper, Daft Punk, The Cure, and Wolfmother. This year, some think that Coachella “got back to its roots” by filling their set list with dozens of indie and alternative bands, spearheaded by a reunion performance by Rage Against the Machine. As a result, the crowd was fairly monolithic: hippies and indie kids with a dash of Rage. A lineup of The Arcade Fire, Kings of Leon, Hot Chip, Of Montreal, Bjork, and The Good, The Bad & The Queen reads more like a college radio playlist than an all-encompassing music festival.

Hip-hop got a little bit of representation. I initially circled all the hip-hop groups slated to perform, and the weekend looked pretty solid on the rap front: Brother Ali, DJ Shadow, El-P, Busdriver, Pharoahe Monch, Ghostface Killah, Lupe Fiasco, and The Coup graced the lineup, culminating in a showing by The Roots on Sunday. I didn’t make it to all of the above—after all, I was there to see new bands and styles—but I was shocked at the overall feel I got from the two predominant hip-hop shows I did see: Pharoahe Monch and The Roots.

Neither act was tainted by the usual suspects; the quality of the music was top-notch, and even the 95% rock-oriented, white crowd showed proper love. But both Pharoahe and The Roots, amidst delivering dope shows, played off of the tired ‘hip-hop is dead’ maxim, and pleaded to the audience to support their quest to ‘keep hip-hop alive.’ Each artist said almost the same exact thing, and I quote near-verbatim, “They say that hip-hop is dead. That’s what they’re saying but we’re working our hardest to keep it alive.”

Now, Nas aside, who else really thinks that hip-hop is dead or dying? Rap-loving geezers have been declaring their beloved form of hip-hop extinct since ’93 in what seems to be a trend of nostalgia for movements within hip-hop that resonated deeply for certain generations. Thirty-somethings long for the days of LL Cool J and Run DMC; others insist on keeping A Tribe Called Quest or KRS-One records on steady rotation in the Walkman; still others cling to the poetry of Tupac. All of them are justified in loving the breed of hip-hop they love. All of them, though, are also short-sighted, self-righteous and dogmatic grandpas who should give an open mind to hip-hop’s evolution.

I guess Murs said it best on the Felt 2 track “The Biggest Lie”: “The problem with hip hop? Shit nothing at all / It's an art form, it ranges, and it changes and evolves / It's not always for the better, but be patient with it ya'll, / ‘Cause our time will come and the wicked will fall." Melle Mel recently called hip-hop “stagnant,” and he does have a point. Nobody, as he argues, will ever be as influential to hip-hop as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. But does that mean that hip-hop is dead? Dying? Absolutely not. It simply means that the founders of a movement are always the most influential actors in its progression. They set the original rules and traditions for others to experiment with. But creative evolution within that original framework can’t be denied as progress.

Most upsetting about the assertion that hip-hop is dead, especially on the part of The Roots, is the effect it is bound to have on hip-hop’s public image. Remember that this crowd assembled to see indie rock acts, and is probably fairly ignorant to hip-hop. Given this demographic, how is it useful to essentially beg the audience to save rap? They gave the impression that hip-hop, which as far as I’m concerned is still healthy and well, is melting away hopelessly like the ice-caps. I felt like a volunteer at a desperate charity event.

They might as well have just accepted their own inconvenient truth, alienated all their fans and played indie rock instead of their own material. In fact, Black Thought and gang got pretty close, playing a total of three or four actual Roots songs buried in an entertaining but confusing stew of covers ranging from Mims’s “This Is Why I’m Hot” to Kool & the Gang’s “Jungle Boogie” for most of their set. I’m told they did the same thing when they performed at USC, but I’ve seen them several times at their own billings when they’ve stuck to strictly Roots material. Why do they feel the need to appropriate their shows for white audiences? It cheapens them and it cheapens hip-hop.

Props to the sound team at Coachella for making every act crystal clear and balanced. It was by far the best sound quality at any show I've attended.