 "Photo: Samantha Emerson/UCD Advocate")
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 "Photo: All photos by Samantha Emerson")
Since the release of their debut album Organix, The Roots have been a wholly unique, innovative force in hip-hop. A live band in all senses of the word, the group's core members, Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson, Kamal, Black Thought, Leonard "Hub" Hubbard, Scratch, and Ben Kenny, put on a mind-blowing, two-hour plus set last Sunday, Feb. 16, in support of their new album, Phrenology. Prior to the show, ?uestlove sat down with the Advocate, to talk about his prize posessions, estranged emcee Malik B, the band's live show.
The new album is a step in a different direction, with more samples and a harder edge. What are the challenges of playing it live?
One of the biggest misconceptions about the group is that we are anti-sampling. We've done [sampling] every album, we just can hide it better than the average person. Probably the only song which the focal point of the drums were based on a sample is the "Thought at Work" song. But, I mean, even that, I'm playing on top of it. There's never a challenge. To me, the live show is the live show, and the recorded show is the recorded show. I was never one that thought that the recorded show had to be the same thing that we do in concert. If anything, we have to, sort of, surpass it.
One of the great things about The Roots is that the liner notes for your albums are always really extensive...
People always bitch on the website...MCA did a lot of major cutbacks this year, and one of the major cutbacks they did was they cut off 12 pages of the album. Even though those were liner notes, I would never let liner notes that small go in a Roots album, but it was either the artwork or the liner notes and the artwork was way too powerful for me. So I've been promising everybody that I will put Things Fall Apart proportioned liner notes for each song on our website and I'm only up to song three. I thought you were about to hit me with 'where's the damn liner notes at'.
Well, I was wondering more about your motivation to make them so extensive?
(Laughs) Toilet stool reading. I don't want to make it sound as blatant as that, but...I'm the factoid guy. All these DVD's, I'm the factoid guy. I'm not watching the movie, I'm watching the directors commentary. I'm more interested in the ingredients that made the product as opposed to the product itself...Anyway, I just like complete liner notes, just winding up with the product is only half the fun. I think how we got there was a much more interesting tale then what you have in your face.
What's going on with the Soulquarians? Will there be an album?
As far as I can see, there will not be a Soulquarians album. I mean, me James [Poyser] and Jay-Dee will continue to work with each other, but I just...to do this and go back and forth is just too hard. I really, really, really want to concentrate on doing The Roots and getting out there. I think I can only limit my work to maybe two or three projects a year. Before I was doing a lot of multi-tasking, The Roots album and trying to work with like 9 people. I can't do that anymore. I think for us to really go to that next level, we really got to put all our concentration and energy into one source, as opposed to spreading ourselves around. As of now, this is probably one of the first times where I can actually say there's nobody I'm working on. If this was three years ago...(laughs) OK, I got one, Jill [Scott]. I'm never going to say no to Jill.
Have you heard anything from Malik B in reaction to "Water," a song written about his struggles with drug addiction?
Believe it or not my first reaction to Malik hearing the song...I think the whole world, when he did a blurb in The Source magazine, that's typical Malik. He's still in his drowning phase, so there's pretty much nothing I can do. You want to reach out and help somebody, but at the end of the day...I don't ever want to make it seem like I can't see the board in my eye for trying to get the speck off his shoulder or whatever, because all of us have our vices, but I just think at this point, Malik is caught up in a situation in which his vices are now taking over his life, his talent, his work, that type of thing. My vice was definitely a food situation. Three years ago, three and a half years ago, I was near 400 pounds. It took a good talking to, 'Ahmir, you're going to die,' I was like, 'oh, shit,' so then I had to fix that real quick. Now, I'm definitely the best shape I've ever been in my life. That's how it was with me. I mean, many people were like, 'Ahmir, I'm concerned about your weight, da, da, da,' but it wasn't until I finally took the step and said 'OK, I got to get my life together,' and that's when it's gonna happen. So I don't think he will fully appreciate the matter until, god willing, there's an afterwards, after he's out of that storm.
You released a mix album, Babies Makin' Babies, last year. What do you get out of Deejaying?
My proudest possessions are my record collections. I'm kissing 30,000. Still, it doesn't compare, like, DJ Shadow has over 60,000, that's what I'm trying to get up to. It's not fair at all, it's a travesty, but I'm getting there, I'm the little train that could. All the time, people are always asking me to make them mix CD's and mix tapes, mix CD's and mix tapes, 'just make me something'. A lot of the time, I always get requests for...fuck CD's. Because a lot of the selections I make aren't the usual. I mean, anyone could put "Let's Get It On," on there or Teddy Pendergrass, that's easy. I thought it would be cool to make a compilation that could serve different purpose other than just to get it on with your mate. You could ride around with it Sunday in the park, it's a very chill thing, and even at the lowest common denominator, if you're just a beat-digger looking for samples, at least 8 of those songs were used, so you could play that whole, 'oh, who sampled that song, who sampled that song' that type of thing. So it was hard finding 13, 14 slow jams that were sampleable and about love, because...that was the hardest thing because at least half the slow songs in black music are about heartbreak. Depressing, you can't find nothing about love, so it was hard. And then on top of that, Warner, the WEA companies, Warner, Electra, Atlantic, doesn't license any of their material out. So any other label but Warner I had to go through. It was a pain in the ass, but I got through it.
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