The roots continued

“T.” posted in the comments:

Saw the Roots down here in Shanghai – they’re right in my wheelhouse in terms of music I listen to/enjoy/demographic. And they battled through crappy speakers and muddy sound to put on a fantastic show.

And congrats to Rebecca (and the rest of the WSJ staff on the Pulitzer

Thanks t. Do I know you or are you a random lurker? Anyhow, I think he’s on to something big time.. the sound system may have been the biggest problem at the show, reducing everything to a big muddy bass roar.

Also, my main man Lang Whitaker of slam mag writes:

A few things…

1) The drummer, ?uestlove, is indeed very good. He was in SLAM 100 in the Iverson story, talking about their relationship, and in SLAM 17 there was a Roots/Iverson story.

I know all this. I have seen ?uestlove jam with various bands in NYC and always been impressed. One year at the Jammys I saw the bizarre power trio of him, Phil Lesh and Buddy Guy, later joined by John Mayer. Strangest of all, it sounded good.

I remember the Slam stories. That’s what I was thinking of when I had the urge to just hang out and shoot the sh*t with them. You don’t realize how much you miss something like endlessly discussing who should be the NBA MVP until you stop doing it. Trust me on this, Lang. I could have rapped about Iverson and Iggy with them for hours and surely Sonny Hill, Moses and toney would have come up before long.

2) The lead rapper guy is named Black Thought, which is a great rap name.
Unquestionably. But what was with the Yankees hat? Just not right for a Philly guy.

3) You’d like their lyrics. Some of their older albums are really good, like their second album which was mostly recorded live. They’ve never been wildly popular, but they’ve been around for a long time now.
Yeah, I’ve liked what I’ve heard over the years and will definitely try to check them out again. Feel free to send me some suggested tracks to download. It would have been really nice to actually hear what B.T. was saying/singing.