Tipping Back with the Roots

By Mark Anthony Neal
SeeingBlack.com Music Critic

Talk about the Roots and Black music here!

It should have happened five years ago. The Puffy era was running its cycle and that bling-bling moment was about to implode. But like the parasitic entity that it is, the music industry found new markets to mine—that White boy from Detroit, the nigga that got shot nine times (as if he was more important than the nigga that got shot at 41 times) and finally the dirty, dirty South where all the madness logically ensued ("to the windows, to the wall!")

Not surprising that 'Hov got his grown-man on and left the game, but if we are to believe Kanye ("Jesus Walks") or Jada and his four verses of "Why" ("why Bush knock down them towers?") we can get back to the business at hand. And this is perhaps the broad metaphor of The Tipping Point, the new disc from The Roots. Has all of the excess of this thing called hip-hop finally given way to what made us love it in the first place?

For nearly a decade, The Roots have been celebrated by the "critigencia" and their legions of fans as the standard bearers of a hip-hop that was beyond the fray of bi-coastal battles, crass materialism (remember "What They Do") and the in vogue hustler's convention of the moment. They've never really sold all that many records, never had a "hit" like their progeny Black Eye Peas, and when they did get some real commercial shine, it was because the Neo-Soul diva of the moment (Ms. Badu) was singing the hook. And that bit of shine never would've happened if the diva in waiting's version (Ms. Jilly from Philly) had shipped first.

In a world where hip-hop's best and brightest seem to only be measured in platinum record sales, The Roots can be forgiven for self-esteem issues, especially their lead vocalist Black Thought, who has never had the media penetration of his rhythm keeper partner ?uestlove and never seems to be mentioned when talk is of the best flows of the last decade. The Roots have fought back the only way they could.When all is said and done, hip-hop is about "the love of the flow" and in this regard The Tipping Point takes hip-hop back to a point when that was all that mattered.

In this "flow"context, the opening track "Star" rings with the hyper-democratic possibilities that the "battle" in hip-hop has always embodied. A damn-near brilliant revision of Sly and the Family Stone's "Everybody is A Star," the track is a critical intervention across a landscape bling-bling clichés, finding its resonance, like the original, in Soul-era uplift (think Ms. Simone's "Young, Gifted and Black").

Throughout his tenure as Roots' frontman, Black Thought has always seemed much older than the game and perhaps his maturity is the reason he's remained so obscure in some sectors—bruh was getting his grown man on years before 'Hov jettisoned his jerseys. "Stay Cool", which gives a nod to De La Soul's "Ego Trip" (both sample Al Hirt's "Harlem Hendo") is an example of Black Thought at his best, as he admits "I got the soul of a young Sam Cooke".

The nod to Cooke is less about a celebration of the old school—and in the context of R&B and Soul singing Cooke is the original school—as much as it is a subtle commentary about artistic integrity. At 25, Sam Cooke was in the game for the long haul, which is likely why his most memorable and significant recordings were all released after his chart topping debut "You Send Me". More than 10 years into their thing, The Roots continue to make affecting music, even as the "allure" of Viacom sanctioned stardom meets them at every-turn. A telling point—when The Roots backed Jay Z during his MTV Unplugged performance, it didn't make them more commercial, it helped Jay Z to be perceived as more serious than we ever thought he was.

These were issues far beyond the concerns of mid-school hip-hop acts like Slick Rick, Dougie Fresh, Audio Two, KRS-One, Biz Markie, and Just Ice, who, unlike hip-hop progenitors like the Cold Crush or even Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, could at least dream of being signed by a major label, even if they couldn't dream of being blasted out of the sports cars and pick-up trunks of young Whites. As memories of that mid-school start to fade, Black Thought and The Roots pay tribute to two of the best flows of that generation and,, given the spirit of a track like "Star", it's only fitting. After a first listen to "Boom", it's easy to believe that Big Daddy Kane (hip-hop's first pimp-intellectual) and Kool G. Rap had joined up with Black Thought for a track. Instead Black Thought does two dead-on impressions of Kane and G-Rap, who at their peak in the late 1980s, had few peers (lyrical or otherwise) save LL and Rakim.

The Tipping Point is not likely to earn The Roots any new fans and with the most bankable track from the disc, the lead single "Don't Say Nuthin,'" already fading, they're not likely to break any personal sales records. But if we are to take The Roots at their own word, sales records were never the point.

— September 10, 2004

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