Boo Jian Wen Jeremy
Popular hip-hop group The Roots came to Singapore for the Mosaic Music Festival. They played a large variety of songs to an ecstatic audience, also doing covers on other songs, such as Justin Timberlake’s “Sexyback” and John Coltrane’s “My Favourite Things”.
According to Mosaic Mania, Jonathon Fong, 28, copywriter, said, “Amazing! They are incredibly talented musicians as individuals and collectively, they are really tight!” But who are these “talented” people really? UrbanWire talks to co-founder Fuestlove (Ahmir Khalib Thompson) to find out more about The Roots and their experiences.
Tell us more about the chemistry in The Roots.
“There are such camaraderie and chemistry that the 6 of us have on stage that when you watch the show, you’ll notice that there are 3 shows going on. There’s the show we are presenting to you, then there’s the slew of inside jokes that only the 6 of us know about. The last show is practically about me and my other percussion player handing out demerits to anyone who makes a mistake. So if you ever hear a mistake, there’s this little communication thing that we do with our drums. Whatever drum that I hit, he instantly knows, ‘Oh, the keyboard player ****ed up.’”
How do you feel about tonight’s performance?
“Because this is our first performance here, I found out that, from my 17 years of experience of having this group, I think that the best way to approach any performance is not to over-think it. There were times where if we’re in a certain country, I’ll be up all night and planning out everything from A to Z, and then your expectations are like way up here and the next thing you know you’re only gonna have what you call, diminished returns, because it didn’t meet your expectations. Even though we are excited to be here for the first time, I’m pretty much gonna act like we’re in Miami, Florida or New Jersey somewhere.”
Some have described your music as “jazz rap”. What’s your take on that?
“The reason why people associate us with that is because we came into that hybrid period of jazz rap, which were the late 1992. Being a live band, our instrumentation looks like it was jazz, and come to think about it, we did play a lot of jazz, so I guess people thought, ‘Okay, they’re a jazz group’.
The only thing that happened was that in between 1992 and 2008 is that we are sort of like survivors of a firing squad. I hate to say this, but the fact is that if there are a hundred people on the field, and they fire them all, and only one person survives, that’s The Roots. Like now, The Roots are the only black band in the United States with a major record bill.
So, we kinda have to reposition ourselves, and sort of be the competition that would have been there. In other words, for one album, we’re gonna be a pop jazz group, then the next record, we’re gonna be a rock group, then the next record, we’re gonna be an emo group, and the next group, we’re gonna be a techno group, y’know, we have to sort of to change the emperor’s clothes every album because no other competition. We have to be all those bands that aren’t there.”
How different do you think performing in an Asian country, like Singapore, will be compared to one, like the US?
“Really, it’s not all that different. If anything, I’ll say I find that the true spirit of hip-hop and the art of it has sort of changed to the point where there is not that much life in the United States. So it’s actually good to go to a place where they don’t necessarily get it that often, because they are more appreciative of it. Like when we were in Jakarta, you’d have sworn we’re The Beatles, circa 1964. That’s how excited they were, that’s how happy they were. Now, we can take that same exact show and go to Cleveland and they can be rather passé about it.
But it’s also kinda weird that anyone who come to Singapore suddenly have a whole laundry list of: ‘Look, don’t curse, don’t spit, don’t do graffiti, don’t get caned, blah blah. You would think that, to a lot of older Americans that I spoke to, Singapore is a place where all they do is cane you.”
Will that compromise your performance?
“Nah, I don’t think our level of celebrity is so above the radar that the government is like ready to report on us. A person of like Snoop Dogg’s stature, whose celebrity status is way bigger than ours, might attract attention. I know that there are places that have governments that ban him. The whole idea of one person starting a revolution and changing people’s ways of thinking is so backwards, but y’know it makes for good press so it still makes Snoop look bad edgy. It’s a fact that he’s still viewed as this dangerous gangster figure. But Snoop is in his mid-30s now so his whole persona now is more like Uncle Snoop – like your favourite loveable drunk uncle, not this gangster-murderer that people think he is.”
Given the rapport that your group has, how do you feel about bassist Leonard Hubbard leaving?
“Y’know, Hubb has given the best years of his life. He has given us 17 years of grade A work. The situation is that the nucleus of The Roots is myself and Black Thought (Tariq Trotter). We have been fortunate to have camaraderie with a slew of other musicians who have come and gone. If ever a better opportunity comes, and they have to contemplate whether or not they should take it, I say ‘go for it’. It’s not like he quit or he was fired.
Basically, he went to conservative classical music school. And it has always been his dream to be an orchestra conductor and do film scoring. So an opportunity came to him that he really couldn’t resist. Him leaving won’t affect the show and he gets to pursue his career. The new guy we have now, Owen Biddle is very, very amazing. I’m excited to be playing with him.”
What advice would you give to young people reading this who aspire to be musicians, like yourself?
“Be careful for what you ask for, because, for us, there’s a lesson we learnt. We got into this and in the beginning we thought ‘Oh man, we’re gonna blow up, we’re gonna be famous, y’know and it didn’t happen [instantly]. So then, we found out that it’s hard work.
We’re actually more grateful for the slow process that it took us finally to get us to the place that we are right now, because I think that if we’ve gotten it in the first 5 years to 6 years, we would have probably let it go to our heads and we won’t be here right now. We would have run away with the success. I actually think that it (the slow process) made us wiser and smarter. You just don’t see a band stay together for 17 years. You don’t see a band release their 10th record. We’re very focused on our goal, and I guess our goal is to release quality records. As long as we have that, nothing can stop us.”
Related Mosaic Music Festival articles:
Mosaic Music Festival: The Preview
Dinner With Saskia Laroo Band: A Personal Experience