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Feb 22, 2023 · Love Letter Lyrics: Beneath the flickering lamp post we dance / Managing to keep the kick of the amp closer than / What some refer to as the Spirito Santos / That spanned days of Dapper Dan...
- Jason Newman
- “There’s Something Goin’ On” (1995) It spoke to the buzz that we had built with Organix and with our early European tour; just going overseas and doing those initial festivals.
- “Proceed” (1995) The chorus was some inside joke. There’s always been lots of running jokes and inside humor in what it is that we do as the Roots. “Proceed” was a chance for us to show our range as musicians.
- “Mellow My Man” (1995) It was a glimpse into how we get down and our world. There were no live hip-hop bands before us. It was very much decided ahead of time that we were going to have the same instrumentation on every song.
- “Silent Treatment” (1995) There was no Amina. This was the beginning of me becoming knowledgeable of how to work in narratives. That was like my earliest storytelling work, and being able to string a story together that makes sense and being able to sell it.
- “Universe at War” from The Roots’ Illadelph Halflife
- “Web” from The Roots’ The Tipping Point
- “Table of Contents, Pt. 1” from The Roots’ Things Fall Apart
- “I Remain Calm” from The Roots’ Do You Want More?!!!?!
- “Clones” from The Roots’ Illadelph Halflife
Over Questlove’s echoing snares and a chunky bassline, Common and Black Thought engaged in friendly competition so that “UNIverse At War” could live up to the song’s title. Black Thought doubled down on Common’s rhetoric from his 1995 classic single “I Used To Love H.E.R.” and bodied the track in his second verse with a prescient rhetoric like a sa...
Black Thought’s unrelenting cadence and technically crafted rhyme couplets sprint along with the 116 BPM instrumental of “Web,” rocking nonstop for over three minutes is like a legendary old school park jam where the scene is set for breakdancers getting sweaty on linoleum tiles. Thought annihilates the beat with lines that give fair warnings to an...
The promo campaign for The Roots fourth album Things Fall Apartcaused a fever pitch of anticipation among their fans and across the music community in late 1998. When it dropped in February 1999, it was love at first sound for fans who bought the album because of the first track “Table of Contents, Pt. 1” gave an instant feeling that the album live...
When The Roots critically acclaimed, gold-selling sophomore album Do You Want More?!!!?! was released in 1995, The Roots were dubbed as “alternative rap” or jazz rap because their sound arrived after jazz rap’s popularity waned in the mid-nineties. Neither were their live instrumental passages and scatting conventional to the gangsta rap nor East C...
As the first single from Illadelph Halflife, “Clones” personifies a true rap album’s quintessential posse cut, MCs M.A.R.S., Black Thought, Dice Raw, Malik B dropping their jewels in that order. In most posse cuts or rhyme cyphers, it’s usually the most revered MC hitting the figurative walk-off home run. It wasn’t that way in this case. To match t...
Feb 23, 1999 · [Verse 1: Black Thought] The anticipation arose as time froze. I stared off the stage with my eyes closed. And dove into the deep cosmos. The impact pushed back the first five rows. But before...
Feb 21, 2023 · With 2023 marking the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, the Roots rapper Black Thought has shared his own incredible love letter to rap music.
Feb 21, 2023 · Weeks later, Black Thought is back with another tribute to Hip-Hop upon its ceremonial 50th year. This time, the MC who professed his love for Hip-Hop in “Act Too (The Love Of My Life),”...
Jun 25, 2024 · From the early days of Sylvia Robinson becoming a hip hop mogul to the rise of iconic artists like Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, JAY-Z, and Kanye West, Black Thought pays homage to those who paved the way. But “Love Letter” goes beyond mere name-dropping.
