The Roots
w/Kool & the Gang, Ledisi, Gato Barbieri, Black August
Rochester MusicFest
Sunday, June 22
PAETEC Park, 460 Oak St.
1 p.m. | $25-$45 | 232-1900
Known for initially forgoing samples in favor of live instrumentation, legendary rap outfit The Roots puts on a show that arguably captures the spirit of vintage soul, r&b, and rock more authentically than any of its peers. The band comes to town to headline the Rochester Music Fest hot on the heels of its eighth album, "Rising Down," a sobering, often bleak document of urban decay that drummer/mouthpiece Amir "?uestlove" Thompson describes as "probably our most political album to date, but not a downer." Even as the new songs touch on "addiction, nihilism, and hypocritical double standards in the prison system," concertgoers can expect a breezy experience fitting of the show's outdoor summer setting, and which spans The Roots' radical changes from album to album. Thompson recently spoke with City about his wide array of influences, and the need for musical variety. An edited transcript follows.
CITY: Going back to when you started on drums, when did you first have the realization that ‘OK, this is what I'm doing with my life'?
Thompson: I don't know if a two year old has those thoughts. [Laughs.]
How long after that did you start DJ'ing?
I took an interest in it when I was watching my next-door neighbor, a Philadelphia DJ named Gary Dove. His room was adjacent to my grandmother's house, so I used to look through my bedroom window into his bedroom window and watch him practice. He was the first DJ I saw with a real set-up. Not to mention that he had all the latest disco hits. That's who I sort of patterned myself after, but I didn't understand the art of DJ'ing until I heard "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel," I guess the very first demonstration of cuttin' and scratchin' on wax, a collage record that came out in 1981. I spent the entire summer learning that routine until I got it about a year and half later on my little Fisher Price turntable. Then I got my first real stereo set-up when I was like 13 or 14.
You were also listening to rock music as well, right?
My father had a 5000-plus record collection. A lot of stuff from the 60's. He loved the Beatles, Carole King, "Pet Sounds," Dylan. He also loved Natalie Cole, Stevie Wonder... he had eclectic tastes. The George Clinton, Earth Wind & Fire, and all the hit black funk stuff, that's where my mom came into play. She was a good dancer. The rock and pop, all the AM-radio 70's staple stuff, that came from my sister's influence. I guess her needing to fit into the atmosphere of the type of school she went to, she kind of had to relate to what her fellow girlfriends were into. One week it would be Bay City Rollers, next week it would Andy Gibb, next week it would be KISS. She got into the Pistols, New York Dolls, Aerosmith.
It's basically the trickle-down economics of all the residue from my sister needing to be socially accepted by her white girlfriends, my mother's post-African revolutionary side, and my father's singer/songwriter eclectic side.
That's like three rivers flowing into one place.
Absolutely - which then really, really truly made sense when I bought "Nation of Millions," "3 Feet High and Rising," and "Paul's Boutique." Between Public Enemy, De La Soul, and the Beastie Boys, you have three groups that just had a massive collage of music. Their work became a game of name-that-tune: "That's Paul Simon... that's the Eagles... that's Bob Marley... that's Stevie Wonder..."
With those three records in particular, it's not just taking a sample and basing a song on it, but making something totally fresh.
Right, but it had the opposite effect. Hearing those songs on the hip-hop records that I liked made me go back not only to those songs, but go to the entire album and study it. Then it made me go to that artist and study their whole history. Then it made me go back to the album credits to see who was playing on it to see if those particular musicians were playing on anything else. And so forth. It gets deeper and deeper and deeper.
That's one of the beautiful things about hip hop, and one of the things that really dismayed me about the fact that they were cracking down so hard on sampling. Sort of how people were frowning on Metallica for taking on Shawn Fanning of Napster. These people were taking their moral high road - "I'm against sampling; it's stealing." What they failed to understand was that that was absolutely introducing their music to a whole new generation that wouldn't have otherwise cared. Maybe I would have still listened to a group like Can or Gentle Giant. But because their music was used a lot in J Dilla's work, now I'm a big fan.
When did your interests lead to jazz?
My mother introduced me to jazz. Actually, as musical punishment, I'd be forced to listen to jazz as a kid. ‘Cuz then we went through that period where they were watching everything I listened to. You couldn't bring Prince inside the house. I wanted Mtume's "Juicy Fruit" 45 and they wouldn't let me have it, so I brought it anyway and then I was forced to listen to Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" album like all day Sunday. They would force-feed me jazz.
Then I came to high school. I think everyone has to go through this whole initiation of, what clique are you gonna roll with? I too had to go through this whole process. I could either roll with the OG jazz heads, which consisted of future lions [and schoolmates] like Christian McBride and Joey DeFrancesco - cats that, while in high school, were playing with Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis, and the like. Or I could roll with the progressive jazz cats, like Kurt Rosenwinkle. He was very much into Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return To Forever, Zappa... Or, '88 was a golden year for hip hop, so I could roll with the hip-hop heads. It was really like trying to be in three gangs and playing one gang against the other. But I wanted all three.