Black Thought Breaks Down The Roots' 'Things Fall Apart'

The Roots' 'Things Fall Apart' is turning 20 years old. We went through the album with Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter spoke with Complex from the set of The Tonight Show to reminisce on the creation of one of the group's best albums, the Grammy-nominated (they lost to Eminem) Things Fall Apart. ("You Got Me," with Erykah Badu, won a Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group.)

"We just figure it out as we go along," he said about moving to the new, much more high-profile time slot. "We're gonna do what feels organic."

And that's just what they've always done. Read on to find out the recording process of one of 1999's most-acclaimed hip-hop records, including which major star was supposed to appear—but didn't make it—due to traffic tickets.

As told to David Drake (@somanyshrimp)

"Act Won (Things Fall Apart)"

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"It was relatively early on in our careers. Trying to maneuver within the corporate world that was Geffen Records, Geffen/MCA. Although there are people who regard Do You Want More?!!!??! as our first major release, I think Things Fall Apart was the real arrival of The Roots, so to speak.

"Where priority lied at that label...energy was invested elsewhere, or the staff was being spread a little thin, they had a lot going on. It didn't necessarily feel like all of the energy that could have been focused upon The Roots was there. I always felt like there was some potential that the band could have reached at that label that we didn't necessarily reach.


 

It's kinda hard to remember what exactly we were thinking. It feels like 150 years ago, even though it was only 15. [laughs]


 

"The intro [with the Mo Betta Blues sample] was something we came up with—?uestlove, myself, my manager Rich Nichols. It was something we felt would be cool. We thought it spoke to where the band was. It was applicable to The Roots' actual real-life situation. It seemed to sit in with the other pieces of the mosaic of that album. It's kinda hard to remember what exactly we were thinking. It feels like 150 years ago, even though it was only 15. [laughs]

"It spoke to the dilemma or the conundrum that we were being presented with at that point in our career. Like, just do one thing, or do something totally different? That's where we were at that point in time. I don't know that very much has changed. But in using that sample was the statement we were making."

"Table of Contents (Parts 1 & 2)"

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"We recorded it in Philly. The inspiration for that song came from a group called The Alliance, K-Swift. It was a song called 'Kibbles and Bits.' We didn't sample it, but the beat that we wound up playing was kinda our take on 'Kibbles and Bits,' a record by K-Swift.

"We were being us. I guess that particular record was the first of many. We always do kinda like the bare bones representation or variation of the voice and drums, which is what we feel is the foundation or backbone of rapping and hip hop. Some of the most influential artists and songs, of all the music we do. From the Rick Rubin school of the beat machine and the dope MC, Mantronix. So that was our take on that at the time, just a voice and a drum.


 

A lot of the times we'd go into the studio and I'd freestyle a lot. A lot of our earlier material was freestyle tunes. I didn't have a definitive process.


 

"Back then I would write a lot of different ways. I'd write music independent of the band. As the track was being produced. Or as I was deciding what beat I was gonna sing a song to, I would be coming up with the music. A lot of the times we'd go into the studio and I'd freestyle a lot. A lot of our earlier material was freestyle tunes. I didn't have a definitive process.

"Earlier on, we were listening to lots of Public Enemy, when Native Tongues was starting to do music. The Jungle Brothers, Tribe, and De La. Ultramagnetic MCs, Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap, lots of Juice Crew shit. That was the bulk of it.

"Once we were out, and we were artists, my competition was the other guys from our same graduating class in 93' or 94'. 2pac, Biggie, Big L, Jay-Z, Nas. Wu-Tang, definitely. Mobb Deep. Residual Bootcamp shit. I saw that as who we were up against. We had to stand out amongst those people."

"The Next Movement" f/ DJ Jazzy Jeff & Jazzyfatnastees

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"Step Into the Realm"

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"The Spark"

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"Dynamite!"

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"I met Dilla by working in Battery Studios when Dilla was with Tribe Called Quest and Busta Rhymes. He was doing production for many of the artists that we would interact with at that studio, and we just became friends. We became huge fans of one another. And we became one of the artists he regularly collaborated with. At the end or top of each year, a lot of us would go out to Detroit and kinda shop for Dilla beats. There'd be Common, Proof, Pete Rock, The Roots, Erykah Badu, and Busta Rhymes, and Q-Tip. The list goes on and on. We'd all make our way out there to get Dilla tracks.


 

Dilla was around, and Proof, and Baatin from Slum Village; three great hip hop minds, three dope Detroit MC's. None of which are now with us.


 

"The way that 'Dynamite' came about was that one year we were all at Dilla's mom's house for New Year's Eve, trying to put together something that was gonna be on the new Roots album. And we found this loop, Dilla linked it up, I had my boy Rehani [ELO the Cosmic Eye] on that song with me. He happened to be with me in Detroit that year so we jumped right on it. We'd been drinking, so we decided to play around with a little tricky pattern and that's how we wound up with the intro.

"It was kind of like an echo style that we were kicking. We were just joking around at Dilla's mom's crib. Dilla was around, and Proof, and Baatin from Slum Village; three great hip hop minds, three dope Detroit MC's. None of which are now with us. That was a great time to be in the room. It was all those guys, like Pete Rock, Common, Questlove, and Dilla. We didn't realise how precious the moment was at the time."

"Without a Doubt" f/ Lady B

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"The relevance of that song is just as Philadelphians, Schoolly D was a hip-hop pioneer. Probably the first gangsta rapper. Around the time when Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince were just starting to do their thing, and the whole Hilltop 3XDope and Steady B and Cool C were just starting to bubble, Schoolly D was already out there rocking. He'd already put out 'P.S.K.,' and 'Gucci Time,' and that 'Saturday Night' song that we sampled. Those were Philly classics that went on to become the blueprint for what is West Coast gangsta rap, like with Ice T, the Geto Boys, and N.W.A., eventually. The pattern that they would emulate was a Schoolly D invention. So it was like paying tribute to that record and that style. While at the same time paying tribute to Lady B, who's one of the premiere disc jockeys who brought us that music.


 

We'd listen to Lady B's show every weekend, it was called 'Street Beat.' It was originally on Sundays but they moved it to Fridays. It was the kind of thing you'd have to sneak and listen to if you lived with your parents.


 

"We'd listen to Lady B's show every weekend, it was called 'Street Beat.' It was originally on Sundays but they moved it to Fridays. It was the kind of thing you'd have to sneak and listen to if you lived with your parents. The music was weird. Hip hop wasn't as universally accepted then as it is now, so it was something that had a lot of mystique involved. It was one of the first sources providing Philadelphia with that music, whereas New Yorkers had Mr. Magic and Kool DJ Red Alert. We had that too, on days that the radio signal was strong enough.

"But more than that, just locally, we had two women: we had Mimi Brown, and we had Lady B. Lady B was an MC too, in her own right, so it was dope to get her on the chorus for the Schoolly D track. And the chorus was an excerpt of a verse of hers that was old then. This shit was probably 13 years old. But we gave her a phone call, she came right down and did it, and that song wound up becoming something very distinctly Philadelphian."

"Ain't Sayin Nothin New" f/ Dice Raw

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"The kind of thing that Dice and I would always put together. A song very much like "The Lesson" or any of the other collaborative efforts between he and I. There's that underlying competitive spirit between brothers. It was an ill beat that Quest came up with and we just kinda freaked. It was one of the very first records that you hear Eve's voice on. She's doing background vocals on 'Ain't Sayin' Nothin' New,' and then she raps later on the album, on 'You Got Me.' But "Nothin' New" was the first thing we put her voice on.

"We just know Eve was from Philly, like a rapper in Philly. Small town, you gotta know anyone doing what you do. We just knew her. You had to get in where you fit in. There was no designated spaces for Philly hip-hop readily available. But if you were nice then word would get around that you were nice and rappers would become available to you based on your niceness, your appeal. We knew Eve from the Philly battle rap scene, and from being nice enough to just kinda get out and rep Philly on the road.


 

The only person I felt like I had with me to rep for the East was Eve. I don't think even Jay had been messin' with her at this point.


 

"I remember one time we all went to L.A. and I was battlin. Just going off the top with Yayo Felony and Richie Rich, a couple West Coast rappers. The only person I felt like I had with me to rep for the East was Eve. I don't think even Jay had been messin' with her at this point. There was just this girl I knew from Philly who could rap, who somehow wound up the same room as me, all the way in L.A., and we had to rep for Philly together.

"Eve has always been that kind of rapper where, you know, she could come off the top, she got plenty of writtens, she could freestyle well enough to just—to get in there with any group of guys and not feel threatened or ill-prepared."

"Double Trouble" f/ Mos Def

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"Act Too (The Love of My Life)" f/ Common

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"100% Dundee"

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"Dierdre vs. Dice" f/ Dice Raw

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"Adrenaline!" f/ Dice Raw and Beanie Sigel

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"'Adrenaline' was a track that Scott Storch had come up with in our jam sessions. Scott would go into a whole selection of beats and we would freestyle over them. Adrenaline was one the joints that when he came up with it, everyone immediately decided, 'Yo. We're going to need you to remember that so we can record it.'

"When we recorded 'Adrenaline,' it was originally with a feature of Big Pun. I was trading Pun verse for verse, I agreed with Pun to jump on 'Super Lyrical' and Pun was going to jump on 'Adrenaline.' The same night that we recorded 'The Next Movement,' the music for '100% Dundee,' we were supposed to record Pun's verse for 'Adrenaline.' And Pun was arrested for double parking outside The Tunnel nightclub that night. He had some other traffic infractions, they arrested him that night just fucking with him. So he never made it to the session, and we were under the gun for our deadline, so we had to fill the space with someone else.


 

Enter the young Beanie Sigel, who I had known since second and third grade, who was originally in my very first rap group ever.


 

"Enter the young Beanie Sigel, who I had known since second and third grade, who was originally in my very first rap group ever, I was probably eight and he was six or seven. He was in my first rap group the Crash Crew, and I hadn't seen him for most of my adult life until right before his record came out. And I heard a couple of things that he had done with Malik, that were dope demos. But he got with my man AF, who was a good friend, a brother of mine who passed away a year ago.

"He got with AF and did a demo over some Busta Rhymes instrumentals, and AF called me over to his house like, 'Yo, you're not going to believe who's rapping on these beats.' He played these demos—I think Beans was rhyming over the Busta Rhymes song, 'Rhymes Galore,' just destroying it. In the rhyme that he kicked over that beat, part of it was what he wound up rapping on 'Adrenaline.' We told him that we wanted to get that verse, told him which section we liked, and then it was just a series of sessions of Beans coming into the studio every day for four or five days until he was able to get the performance right. That wound up being his first record—this was pre-Jay Z."

"3rd Acts: ? vs. Scratch 2... Electric Boogaloo"

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"You Got Me" f/ Erykah Badu and Eve

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"Don't See Us" f/ Dice Raw

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"I've always liked that record a lot. Dice and Malik. I think everyone performed well on that. James Poyser played keyboards on that song, and that was a record we came up with just on the fly. Bobbito and DJ Rich Medina used to have a jam session at a sneaker store in Philly. They would do these jam sessions once a week there, and Jill Scott would come and do poetry and whatever musicians on deck would perform.


 

We decided to name ourselves 'Lesbian Sex Show.'


 

"Then one night, Common, myself, James Poyser, Questlove, and—someone was playing bass—we decided to name ourselves 'Lesbian Sex Show,' to add something to put on the flyer, like 'Oh, you get to see this, this, this, this, and a Lesbian Sex Show!' It was just the name of our ensemble for the week. And we came up with this freestyle off the top where the guys played music and I rapped a rap. It was that, it was 'Don't See Us.' "We got in the studio and we recorded that song, we were trying to remember the things we had come up with a couple of weeks earlier as the Lesbian Sex Act [Laughs]. That's the story behind that joint."

"The Return to Innocence Lost" by Ursula Rucker

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