A Different Drummer
But the student in Ahmir could never trade his acoustic set for a drum machine, and that devotion paid off in the early ’90s, when groups like De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest brought a boho mentality and an appreciation for live instrumentation to rap. Soon, the Roots, who once took a gig that paid them in chocolate cake, found themselves at the forefront of what was to succeed grunge and gangsta rap as the Next Big Thing — neo-soul, a style fusing hip-hop’s lyricism with the smoothed-out melodies and hooks of Marvin, Otis, Al, Sam, even Gamble & Huff. Music pulled right from the Roots’ breadbasket.
They lent their talents to singer Erykah Badu’s 1997 debut, Baduizm, an early neo-soul hit and a door-opener for a string of artists who would work with Ahmir and his mates. Locally, Philly’s neo-soul tastes flourished, thanks in large part to the Roots-created Black Lily open-mike sessions on Tuesdays in Old City, where singers Jill Scott, Musiq, Bilal and Floetry laid the groundwork for their success alongside guest stars like Alicia Keys. Badu returned the favor, singing on the Roots’ “You Got Me,” which won them a Grammy in 1999.
But the first signs that celebrity would, indeed, suck came just moments after the band won its golden gramophones. “Erykah got all the questions,” Ahmir says of the scene backstage. “We were the side factor. It didn’t change my money. Shit, a week later I came home and my electric was shut off.” Then Ahmir was offered the chance to co-produce neo-soul superstar D’Angelo’s second album, tour with him, and orchestrate his live shows, like a hip-hop Wolfgang Sawallisch. “For me, it was the modern equivalent of playing on Prince’s Purple Rain tour,” he says. “I couldn’t pass it up.”
Ahmir joined D’Angelo, and the Grammy gravy train stalled. The Roots played gigs with another drummer, but minus their figurehead, they didn’t build on their brief flirtation with the spotlight. Jill Scott’s debut was headed for double platinum, and suddenly everyone wanted to be neo-soul. Then … pop! Scott took time off from music. D’Angelo went into seclusion. Soon it seemed like everyone connected to the movement took a taste of fame and moved on without letting the Roots know. “Let’s call it our Moses era,” Ahmir says, wistfully. “We were on the train platform ushering everybody in, and the doors closed on us and it left the station.”
It’s debatable how far the train really went, considering that none of the neo-soul MVPs are nearly as hot as they once were, and equally debatable whether the Roots, never a hit-making machine, could have cashed in any more than they did. Or would have wanted to. Beginning with their first release, Ahmir says, “I realized we had to be provocateurs.” That isn’t what the four major labels are looking for, as the Roots found out when Universal’s Jimmy Iovine, a mythic hit-finder, met them after acquiring them in a merger with Geffen. First words out of his mouth: “I didn’t like your last record,” meaning Phrenology, which featured “The Seed (2.0),” and “Water,” a 12-minute meditation on the drug addiction that plagued former Roots emcee Malik Basit.
That record, more than perhaps any Roots effort, was Ahmir’s. He steered it, fighting bandmates to keep certain songs at a slower pace, to place “Water” in the middle sequentially rather than as a throwaway at the end, and to pace the record, as he says, like “Shakespeare’s pieces … a rising action, the climax.” Iovine doesn’t want Shakespeare. He wants Dr. Dre. That’s partly why, as of this printing, the Roots may end up on another label when their next release, Game Theory, touches down in February. According to Ahmir, it could be their most incendiary, and least marketable, work. “It’s very fast,” he says. “Very dark.” Translation: Don’t press the platinum just yet.
