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Posts Tagged “The Roots”

?uestlove emulates Kanye West's superconspicous-consumptionish blogging style, only with a bit of a populist twist. Sample entry: "i realized how spoiled i've gotten in the past few years with my "one scuff and throw em out" steeze with my kicks. remember when mom and dad made you wear your sneaks until the sole could speak several languages?" [okayplayer.com via Nah Right]

who charted

Madonna Does Her Part To Save The Pop Charts

Madonna's Hard Candy was last week's top-selling album, shifting 280,000 copies in its first week of release and leaving every other commercially available offering in the dust. Candy was the only album on this week's chart to break the six-figures-sold mark; Mariah Carey's E=MC2, the runner-up to Hard Candy, sold 95,000 copies. More »

the last word

Maybe Today Should Have Been Record Store Day

More frequently these days, we like to round up the all-important, all-summarizing last sentences of the biggest new-music reviews. Under consideration today are three other notable releases hitting stores today: The Roots' Rising Down, Portishead's Third, and Santogold's self-titled debut. More »

videodrone

Roots Resurrect Hendrix (Or At Least Wyclef) On "The Colbert Report"


Ok, so "The Roots" played "The Star-Spangled Banner" on The Colbert Report last night, right? Only it was ?uestlove, a touring bassist who joined less than a year ago, and a guitarist who signed on in 2003. Call me old-fashioned, but it just ain't the Roots without Kamal playing keyboard ostinatos and somebody beatboxing on top. If you want a tribute to Woodstock, why not just let Wyclef and will.i.am (I'm sure he knows how to play bass) join ?uestlove in some sort of left-leaning rap supergroup? Call it WQW! The Black Root 'Gees! Probama! [Comedy Central]

videodrone

Rik Cordero Antagonizes Feminist Film Theory With "Birthday Girl" Video


Rik Cordero's video for the Roots' rejected Patrick Stump cameo single is confusing. While it's appropriately set at a birthday party, the logic seems to stop there. More »

reworkings

Patrick "The White Akon" Stump Yanked From Roots Album

You didn't want the worst, you didn't get the worst! The Roots have caved to public disgust and removed "Birthday Girl," their collabo with omnipresent Fall Out Boy troubadour Patrick Stump, from their upcoming album Rising Down. "Birthday Girl" is still the album's first international single, but it's been reduced to "iTunes-only" status in America. I don't really see what makes the song so heinous. It might be a little Sublime for hardcore fans of the band, but if it lacks crossover potential, it's due to the Roots' milquetoast albatross Black Thought, not Stump (ladies on YouTube seem to like the track just fine). If the vocal was credited to Cody ChesnuTT, would the Internet have been so put off? [Nah Right / Photo: AP]

leak of the day

The Roots' New Single Is A Gym Class Zero

ARTIST: The Roots ft. Patrick Stump
TITLE: "Birthday Girl"
WEB DEBUT: March 10, 2008 More »

single spin

Single Spinning Three Rappers, One Dubstepper, A Critical DJ, And Mr. I Get Wet Meeting Mr. John McLaughlin

Whether they're petroleum-based or digital downloads, singles remain pop's most fascinating format. Twice a week in Single Spin, a singles-focused twist on Second Spin, we'll take a look at a song, sound, scene, or star that we think deserves more than two lines and a Rapidshare link—whether it's CMT country, underground dance, unfriendly noise, or anything else served up one tune at a time. Today we listen to the latest grim banger from a Philadelphia hip-hop institution, a decidedly less grim groove from not-so-sunny London, a music critic delivering a mournful techno remix, and something totally, unexpectedly, ridiculously astounding: Andrew WK's new mash note to a TV roundtable legend (!), which comes complete with MP3 so you can download and boggle along. More »

And now a brief correction regarding our post about the Roots' "75 Bars (Black's Reconstruction)" below: "The 'bass' on 75 bars is actually tuba. It's played by the dude with the best name in all of music: Tuba Gooding Jr." Our apologies to Mr. Gooding Jr. for the slight and a hat tip to commenter thatsoraven. [Idolator]

videodrone

The Roots (Literally) Light It Up


With no chorus, a disorienting Black Thought verse smothered in mic fuzz, and a video where the band douses a kidnapped white dude with gasoline before lighting a match, the forbidding "75 Bars (Black's Reconstruction)" will sadly not end up toppling Flo Rida from Billboard or Chris Brown from TRL, but the band can take some comfort that their latest anti-pop offering moves to one of the nastiest combinations of bass and drum you're likely to hear on a major label record this year. Especially the bass. [OnSmash]