Black Thought talks album w/ Danger Mouse & new Roots LP, "lesser of two evils" in election
Black Thought released his excellent new solo album Streams of Thought, Vol. 3: Cane and Able last week, and yesterday (10/21) he appeared on Hot 97’s Ebro in the Morning to talk about that album and what’s next. He mentioned a new Roots album is more or less finished, and he says “2021 for a new Roots album for sure,” and also adds that he’ll put out more Streams of Thought volumes in 2021 and a collaborative album with Danger Mouse, which Black Thought says has been in the works for 13 or 14 years. “It’s a full-on album, and it’s a return for him to hip hop and for sampling in this way,” Black Thought says. “It’s a feel-good record, it’s a record for people who got into hip hop and who evolved at the same time that we did. We’re elder statesmen at this point so I feel like this record is reflective of that too.”
More recently, Danger Mouse worked on music with Karen O, Michael Kiwanuka, Broken Bells, Parquet Courts, Portugal. The Man (who are also featured heavily on Streams of Thought, Vol. 3), and others, but as Black Thought said, it’s been a while since he’s done a hip hop record.
On The Roots’ upcoming album, Black Thought said, “We have the music, but as has always been the case with The Roots, it’s just a different level of contemplation and deliberation that goes into releasing a project… It’s helped us to maintain such a high bar for all these years.” He later adds, “The new Roots album is bangin’ too. It feels familiar in the way that it needs to feel familiar. It feels like The Roots but it doesn’t feel like we’re stuck in time or anything.”
Ebro also asked Black Thought about politics and Ice Cube working with Trump. He kind of avoided the Ice Cube question, but he did give his own views on the 2020 election, saying, “I don’t agree with all the policy in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ camp, I don’t agree with everything they’ve done historically […] but I don’t agree more with the current administration and the way that they’ve been serving the people. A lot of people say it’s the ‘lesser of two evils’ but I’ll take the lesser of two evils on any given day in a concentrated effort to reach a specific goal. We’re beyond doomed if the current administration serves another term.”
Black Thought was also on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday, joined virtually by Portugal. The Man and The Last Artful, Dodger for a medley of “Quiet Trip” and “Nature of the Beast.” It was awesome. Watch that performance and the full Ebro interview:
https://youtu.be/iZQpHktq1P0
Meanwhile, Ebro also had Ice Cube on his show the same day, and Cube further discussed his decision to work with Trump. “We were contacted by the Trump campaign because they said they loved our plan and wanted to talk to us about our plan. So once we talked to them about our plan and what we had and what we were envisioning and also making sure money went exactly where it was supposed to go. They upgraded their plan. I didn’t come out of there, it was not a photo-op situation. No look what I did look what I did. I actually told them nobody is going to believe you unless you do something.”
Cube also added, “White supremacy does turn me of, but it’s everywhere, and it is on both sides of the aisle. That’s just the reality that we live in, and I’m not naive to that. We’re engulfed in white supremacy that’s just something we have to fight our way out of man. We’re going to have to fight on all fronts.”
He also said that he has “voted democratic in every election” but also that he’s “a true undecided voter because they are not doing enough.”
Watch that interview in full too:
—
25 Early 2000s Rap Albums That Hold Up Today
Ghostface Killah – Supreme Clientele (2000)
Deltron 3030 – Deltron 3030 (2000)
Lil’ Kim – The Notorious K.I.M. (2000)
OutKast – Stankonia (2000)
Ludacris – Back for the First Time (2000)
Eve – Scorpion (2001)
Cannibal Ox – The Cold Vein (2001)
Jay-Z – The Blueprint (2001)
Jay-Z made a name for himself rapping alongside Jaz-O and then Big Daddy Kane in the late '80s and early '90s, but took his time when it came to making his own album. And while he was watching and waiting, the young Queensbridge rapper Nas released his 1994 debut album Illmatic, an instant-classic that received a now-legendary score of five mics from The Source and changed rap forever. Jay took obvious notes from Illmatic (and sampled a line from it) when he finally released his own debut album, 1996's Reasonable Doubt. Gone was the fast-rapping Jay-Z of the Jaz-O days and in his place was an artist with a smoother, grittier style who told real-life stories of life on the streets in Brooklyn over some of the finest production of the era (courtesy of Ski, Clark Kent, Illmatic contributor DJ Premier, and others). Jay-Z intended for Reasonable Doubt to be a classic, and it was, but it wasn't the instantly-game-changing album that Illmatic was and it couldn't compete with the flashy, pop-crossover "Jiggy Era" that Puff Daddy started to lead after Biggie's tragic death. So Jay-Z went in an increasingly pop direction, and by the time of his 1998 single "Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)," he wasn't just competing with the "Jiggy Era," he was starting to take over.
Going pop in the late '90s and early 2000s also meant getting dissed by other rappers, among them Prodigy of Mobb Deep and Nas, whose feud with Jay-Z was about to boil over as Jay-Z geared up for his best album since Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint. Months before its release, Jay made Hot 97 Summer Jam history by debuting "Takeover," a diss track aimed at Prodigy and Nas, during his set, alongside a childhood photo of Prodigy in dance clothes on the big screen. The finished version of "Takeover" ended up on The Blueprint, and the studio version proved it to be not just a brutal diss track but also a genuinely great song, and one of many on The Blueprint. Jay-Z didn't stop being "pop" on The Blueprint -- it still had the radio-friendly "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)," the sentimental balladry of "Song Cry," and other "pop" moments -- but he figured out how to put the accessibility of the "Jiggy Era," the grit of the streets, and the album-oriented structure of Reasonable Doubt into one whole masterpiece of an album. Production came largely from Just Blaze and Kanye West (plus Bink, Timbaland, Eminem, and others), and together they established a rich, soulful production style that would dominate rap for years. There's perhaps never been a better example of the classic Kanye sound than "Heart of the City (Ain't No Love)." Jay's ear for beats on The Blueprint was matched by his most consistently great rapping since Reasonable Doubt, and still some of the very best rapping of his career. Unlike his previous guest-filled albums, Jay carried the album almost entirely by himself, and he never lost steam. The only guest appearance came from Eminem on "Renegade," and look, Nas is right, Em out-rapped Jay on the track, but Jay still packed some of his finest rhyme schemes into that song.
Aesop Rock – Labor Days (2001)
Nas – Stillmatic (2001)
El-P – Fantastic Damage (2002)
Eminem – The Eminem Show (2002)
If we're picking one album per artist, a lot of people would go with 2000's near-perfect The Marshall Mathers LP for Eminem, but if pressed, I always go with The Eminem Show because it feels like the grand finale to the classic Eminem era. The Marshall Mathers LP is just as essential, but Eminem as we came to know him doesn't exist without The Eminem Show.
An artist who almost always knew how to title an album, Marshall Mathers introduced the world to his massively offensive alter-ego Slim Shady on 1999's The Slim Shady LP, he introduced us to the man behind the madness on The Marshall Mathers LP, and he took a look at the impact Eminem the artist had on the world with The Eminem Show. (He also admitted the show was over with 2004's Encore, and then made a series of failed comeback attempts with Relapse, Recovery, The Marshall Mathers LP 2, and Revival, before finally abandoning this trend on the still-just-okay-sounding Kamikaze and Music to Be Murdered By.) Eminem catapulted to the forefront of rap because of white privilege but also became a scapegoat for everything white suburban conservatives hated about rap, and there's perhaps no better response to all of it than "White America," the first proper song on The Eminem Show. And then there's "Sing for the Moment." The Marshall Mathers LP gave us "Stan," a Dido-sampling ballad about the real-life dangers of toxic fandom and the importance of mental health, and The Eminem Show gave us "Sing for the Moment," an Aerosmith-sampling ballad about the importance of rap music to young kids amidst backlash from the media, the government, and scared parents. You might argue that song ruined white rap forever (and also unfortunately convinced Eminem he needed more and more ballads on later albums), but it also spoke directly to and validated the feelings of a lot of kids who needed to hear it. The Eminem Show also attacked George W. Bush ("Square Dance"), took on personal issues like the toll fame takes on a person ("Say Goodbye Hollywood") and fatherhood ("Hailie's Song"), and also reminded the world Eminem was still better than most people at making straight-up rap songs ("Business"). One of three songs on The Eminem Show produced by the man who made Eminem a star, Dr. Dre, "Business" found Eminem packing so many career-best punchlines over a top-tier Dre beat, reminding us that -- when you put all the baggage associated with Eminem aside -- he was truly one of the greats at the pure art of rapping.