Roots Still Studying “Phrenology”
Co-headlining the Smokin’ Grooves tour with OutKast and Lauryn Hill
was supposed to be a coming-out party for Philadelphia hip-hop
kings the Roots‘ new album, Phrenology. The follow-up to
1999’s multi-platinum Things Fall Apart was expected in
stores ahead of the tour, but the Roots are still not yet ready to
release the album, which is now tentatively set for October.
In fact, the band is still playing around with the songs, many
of which are two to three years old. “We’ve worked with Nelly
Furtado, Amir Baraka, James Blood Ulmer and Talib Kweli on this
record,” says Roots drummer Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson from a tour
stop in Chicago. “We did some shit with D’Angelo that I don’t know
if it’s going to wind up on the finished album. And we’re talking
to Cee-Lo about doing just one more song.”
The Roots have long been known to work at their own pace,
needing to heed the schedules and motivations of the band’s
multiple voices and personalities: ?uestlove, frontman Black
Thought, bassist Hub, keyboardist/guitarist Kamal, percussionist
Scratch and, until recently, rapper Malik B., who left the group
during the recording of Phrenology amid tense
circumstances.
?uestlove — who also has a busy career as a songwriter,
producer and session man for everyone from D’Angelo to Common to
Erykah Badu — says that for the first time the Roots are directly
addressing personal topics in their songs. The eleven-minute
“Water,” for example, is an aural walk through hell. “It’s probably
our most sprawling song to date,” he says. “If anything, that’s our
Fleetwood Mac Rumours. Our creme de la creme. Our open
letter to Malik B. It’s very painful to listen to — we’ve never
done anything that personal, ever.”
According to ?uestlove, Phrenology is also the Roots’
most aggressive album. The band has welcomed a rock guitarist, Ben
Kenney, into the fold, and ?uestlove himself has been delving
further into the realm of drum machines, searching for the elusive
perfect beat. “We’re doing shit that we haven’t done before,” he
says, “and, at the end of the day, that’s what being an artist is
all about.”