BEST OF THE 00's: QUESTLOVE

A couple of years ago when I was working at VH1, I had an interview with Questlove, drummer of The Roots, planned.  It was scheduled to be 15 minutes. We started talking about music and politics and next thing I knew, an hour and change had gone by. He's an artist who I could talk to for a long time, and more to the point, he's a guy who will talk for a long time if he's interested, without worrying about what his publicists or record label wants. 

Of course The Roots is his main gig - and I can't write about Quest without mentioning Black Thought, the group's MC and one of the finest in the game. Some have said that while Thought is great on the mic, he just doesn't have the charisma of a bigger star (or of Questlove). I would say that he just isn't interested in promoting her persona and doing a million interviews.  It's unfortunate for The Roots, with a more popular MC, they may have a bigger following. Then again, they're doing really well - Quest told me he was studying Phish - to figure out how to be a huge touring act without having to worry about hit singles (since hip-hop radio has never been much of a friend to The Roots, although they've backed up some very radio-friendly artists, including Eminem and Jay-Z).

Some people would argue that the '90s were The Roots' best decade, and they definitely had some great music from '90-'99, but I prefer the '00s. 2002's Phrenology was excellent (the rock-crossover-without-being-rap-metal "The Seed 2.0" (featuring Cody ChesnuTT) was one that Mick Jagger would have paid a milli for, but there were lots of other great tracks on the album. 2004's The Tipping Point is probably my favorite Roots album, I love "Star" (their remix of Sly & The Family Stone's "Everybody Is A Star"), "I Don't Care," "Don't Say Nuthin'," "Guns Are Drawn," "Stay Cool" and "Somebody's Gotta Do It" are classics, and better than most of what is dominating "Best of the Decade" charts. I also loved 2006's Game Theory. 2008's Rising Down, not so much, but it still had some great moments like "I Will Not Apologize." I can't wait to hear the next one, How I Got Over.   I think it is phenomonal that they got the gig as the band on Jimmy Fallon's TV show. From backing Black Star to Christopher Cross, they are awesome no matter who they play with.

So why am I calling out just Questlove instead of the whole group? Because Quest also produced D'Angelo's 2000 classic Voodoo and played drums on the album and in the touring band. That was one of the most ambitious R&B albums of the decade and even hit #1, but seems a bit overlooked these days, mainly because D'Angelo has been a bit M.I.A.  He also produced Common's Like Water For Chocolate (also from 2000), which included "The Light" and "6th Sense," and the followup, the more amitious (and more difficult) 2002 release, The Electric Circus. He also played drums on Fiona Apple's Extrodinary Machine, as well as on Joss Stone's cover of The White Stripes ' "Fell In Love With A Boy" (which he also did the arrangements for). And of course, he was the producer of one of my favorite albums of 2008, Al Green's Lay It Down. I definitely hope they work together again, and I'd love to see Quest work with other soul music legends. What up Stevie Wonder!
I know the guy is busy these days with the Fallon show, The Roots also do NYC shows and they have the album, but the more stuff Questlove produces or is involved with, the better shape music is in.

BEST OF '08: AL GREEN'S LAY IT DOWN

One of the disappointments of 2008 was that more people didn't notice the new Al Green album, Lay It Down, which was produced by ?uestlove from The Roots. It is a really great album, and the best R&B record of the year in my opinion (edging out Raphael Saadiq's The Way I See It). ?uest really did an amazing job with this one. With The Roots moving from being a constantly touring band to being a New York based group (since they are going to be Jimmy Fallon's band on his upcoming late-night show), I wonder if ?uest will be doing more work as a producer.

I wish this album got more mainstream Grammy nods. I think the Grammys got a lot right this year: particularly all the nods for Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, and also exposing artists like M.I.A. and Adele to bigger audiences via high profile nominations: but the dissing of Bruce Springsteen's "Girls In Their Summer Clothes" and Reverend Al's Lay It Down from the big categories was a big bummer. Anyway, you should check out this album.

Al's last two albums which reunited him with producer Willie Mitchell, were good, but this one is great, you should check it out.

THE ROOTS TO JOIN JIMMY FALLON?

No hip-hop group tours like The
Roots - they are practically a jam band at this point. I remember interviewing ?uestlove a few years ago; he said that he went to a bunch of Phish shows to study them: he wanted The Roots to be like them at some point. He wanted The Roots to be able to play large venues, play whatever they want (not just their more well known songs) and not have to worry about promoting albums.

So I was surprised to read that the band are retiring from the road next year, although for a good reason: they are going to be the house band for Jimmy Fallon's late night show. Jimmy Fallon's gain is the touring world's loss, I bet they'll be an awesome band for the show, it will be interesting to see if they back up other musical guests. They can certainly play any kind of music. I wonder what Black Thought will do though.

A GREAT ?UESTLOVE INTERVIEW

A few years ago, while working for Video Hits 1, I had the opportunity to interview ?uestlove of The Roots. I don't remember what the topic was (I don't think it was about their new album, I think it may have been about Dave Chappelle).  I think it was supposed to be a 15 minute thing, but it went on until my 90 minute tape ran out. It was one of the most fun and interesting interviews I ever had the privilege to conduct.  Not that I'm taking credit for anything, the guy is just so interesting. 

Anyway, I just read an especially great interview with him on a site called Backbeat, where he talks about everything from The Roots, to music critics and bloggers to record labels to Al Green's awesome new album which he produced (and which I need to write more about) to the possibility of producing Tom Jones' next album.  Anyway, check it out here. 

?UESTLOVE PRODUCES AL GREEN

Al Green is one of the greatest singers of all time. I just love the sound of his voice - and back in the '70s, his music was, like, perfect. He wrote great songs. He chose the perfect songs to cover. Willie Mitchell was the perfect producer for him. Check out Let's Stay Together, as well as I'm Still In Love With You, Call Me and even Al Green Gets Next To You.

I've been hearing for months that ?uestlove - the drummer for The Roots - is going to produce his next album, and "bring him back to 1974." Besides being an incredible drummer, I think ?uestlove is a solid producer, having done albums for D'Angelo and Common. He says D'Angelo will appear on this album, as will Corinne Bailey Rae and Anthony Hamilton -in short, some of the best talent in R&B today. I think that this will be a cool album.

The only thing that bugs me is ?uest's comment that he's bringing Al back to 1974. That sort of ignores the fact that Al reunited with Willie Mitchell a few years back, and they recently did two albums together - 2003's I Can't Stop and 2005's Everything's OK. But I'm a big fan of

?uestlove's, and I look forward to hearing this.