MrScorpio's Super Bomb Group Of The Day: THE ROOTS!

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>>The Roots

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Members: ?uestlove (Ahmir Khalib Thompson - drums)
Black Thought (Tariq Trotter - emcee)
Hub (Leon Hubbard - bass)
Kamal (keyboard)

From the horse's mouth: "The Roots fan base has always been racially mixed with a wide range of ages just because of how we got our music out there - we would play on the streets and at venues that catered to all sorts of people. We would play in areas where there would be a wide variety of people, so it just sorta grew, but from the start it's been mixed." - Black Thought

The Roots started in 1987 when Black Thought and ?uestlove became friends at the Philadelphia High School for Creative Performing Arts. They had a love of hip-hop, but no money for turntables, microphone, mixer and vinyl records, so they recreated classic hip-hop tracks with ?uestlove's drum kit behind Black Thought's rhymes. Soon bassist Hub (Leon Hubbard) and rapper Malik B were added to the group

Organix came in 1993 on indie label Remedy Records and created a music-industry buzz. This put them in a position to pick and choose from among several suitors before before signing with Geffen that same year.

The Roots' first major-label album, Do You Want More?!!!??!, was released in January 1995 and featured new group member human beatbox Rahzel the Godfather of Noyze who had previously performed with the group on the road. The album also features the hits “Proceed” and “Silent Treatment.” Following the release, the group performed on the second stage at Lollapalooza and the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland

In 1996, The Roots released Illadelph Halflife and added keyboardist Kamal Gray and human turntablist Scratch to the mix.

by now, the band had built up a reputation for their amazing live shows but stioll remained an underground phenomena as far as record sales. In 1999, the band finally gets the mainstream recognition they deserved with the release of Things Fall Apart. The album soars included the Grammy-winning hit single “You Got Me,” featuring Eve and Erykah Badu, written by Jill Scott. The amazing double concert album, Roots Come Alive , followed later that year.

In 2000, they won the Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group Grammy for “You Got Me” and backed up Jay-Z for his MTV Unplugged special. Their sixth album, the Grammy-nominated album Phrenology Phrenology followed in 2002. Around this time they lost member Malik B., as well as Rahzel and Scratch, who go on to other projects.

The Tipping Point followed in 2004.<<

http://rap.about.com/od/rootsarea/p/theroots.htm

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