1987. Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, second day of school. A student named Ahmir Thompson walks into the principal’s office seeking a lunch pass. At the same time, a freshman named Tariq Trotter stumbles in, gripped by school guards who caught him engaging in “extracurricular” activities with a ballerina in the ladies bathroom…

Luckily, Thompson has designs larger than lunch, and Trotter’s game is wider than women. Thompson is a jazz drummer and Trotter is an MC, and decides to create music together. They can’t afford turntables, microphones, or DJ equipment. But then again, they are secretly glad about their dollar deficiency–their collaborations wouldn’t have that something-from-nothing spirit that built hip-hop and rock. So, Trotter rhymes over Thompson’s rented drum kit. Eventually, they call themselves the Square Roots, and Thompson adopts the name ?uestlove and Trotter takes on Black Thought. 

1999. Commercially, things come together with the release of Things Fall Apart. The album soars close to platinum, selling 900,000 copies, and included the Grammy-winning hit single “You Got Me,” featuring Eve and Erykah Badu, written by Jill Scott. 

Even as they are excelling in the stores, The Roots showcase their strength on stage with the double concert album The Roots Come Alive.

At the same time that their commercial base expands, they create one for other people. 
Along with the Jazzyfatnastees and Jaguar Wright, they organize the musical salon Black Lily which gives Beanie Sigel, Bilal and Musiq their first shine.

2000. The Roots win the Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group Grammy for “You Got Me” and back up Jay-Z for his MTV Unplugged special.

2002. The Roots release their sixth album Phrenology. 

2003. The Roots attend the Grammys, in honor of their nominated album Phrenology and to back up Eminem’s performance. Having completed several years of the Okayplayer tour and ?uestlove having produced for D’Angelo, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, Macy Gray and Joss Stone, The Roots begin work on their seventh album. Harkening back to the golden era of jazz and their method of recording The Roots’ first album, ?uestlove, Black Thought, Hub and Kamal create their latest opus through a series of jam sessions with artists that fortuitously pass through Philadelphia. The exchange of ideas, long sessions and loose vibe create unexpected results. Guest musicians – Brooklyn-based guitarist Captain Kirk (Kirk Douglas) and percussionist Frank Knuckles — collaborate as well. The band replay jam session tapes and develop songs from the cells within.

2004. The jam sessions gain momentum, catch fire and form songs. Finally, there is enough material for an album, but not too much. ?uestlove, citing that his favorite albums are under 35 minutes, limits the opus to 11 tracks. The band names it The Tipping Point, based on the Malcolm Gladwell book, expecting the sum of their good work since 1987 to finally push them to their own epidemic of success. Scott Storch returns from producing songs for Dr. Dre, Christina Aguilera and Beyonce to orchestrate the electronic first single “Don’t Say Nuthin.'” The chorus defies the rules of rhyme-along hooks: it’s largely mumbled and inaudible. Black Thought assumes multiple roles in the video, executive, old man, kid rhyming in the street, representing the myriad influences on the album as a whole. The album features Jean Grae, Martin Luther, Devin the Dude and Dave Chappelle in an appearance on “In Love with (The Mic)” and an homage to Sly and the Family Stone in a “virtual” duet on “Everybody Is a Star.”

2004 and on. This period may be more important than the rest, because if you really understand The Roots, you’ll know they are as much about what they have done as what they haven’t. The brilliance of The Roots is not that they are “real musicians” or that they make insightful literary references in their album titles, but the shifts they constantly make, which make them analogous to time–always moving. It’s the list of what the band has yet to explore that ?uestlove creates and crosses off while The Roots record an album (speed metal, electronica, drum and bass, Stones-style rock–done, done, etc.). The real secret in watching The Roots progress is in what you think they will do vs. what they do. It’s the gap, the space between things that they bridge–tried/not tried, expected/unexpected–like the silence between beats which makes music. 

Their album, “Tipping Point” get’s released in South Africa on the 13th August 2004. In stores now!

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