Year : 1993
Label : Remedy Records
Genre : Hip-Hop
Style : Jazz Rap
Debut self-produced album by The Roots is an American instrumental Hip-Hop band formed in 1987 in Philadelphia featuring MC Black Thought and drummer ?uestlove (Quest Love). Mostly influenced by Jazz & Soul music, the band became known to use sampling materials based on their own music and perform on stage with real instruments. Indeed, at the beginning, their approach was to perform Jazz Rap (jazz including instruments and rap verses or spoken word like Gil Scott-Heron) whose "Organix" is representative, and not pure Jazzy Hip-Hop style based on jazz samples. Titles include "Good Music", "Common Dust", "The Session" (featuring nine MCs), a live recording at the Soulshack in Slovenia (Essawhamah?), "Pass The Popcorn" & "Popcorn Revisited" with the bass line inspired by "The Weaver" of jazz saxophonist Yusef Lateef.
MUSICIANS : Tariq 'Black Thought' Trotter - rap - Joshua 'Rubberband' Abrams, Leonard 'Hub' Hubbard - bass - Chuck Treece - guitar - Ahmir '?uestlove' Thompson - keyboards & drums - Scott Storch - keyboards
