In addition to cofounding the Roots, Ahmir Thompson (aka ?uestlove) has played alongside a list of legends that includes just about everyone imaginable. And John Mayer. recess's Bryan Sayler recently spoke with the iconic drummer about the Roots' upcoming album (Rising Down), ringtones and growing up under the tutelage of his father, doo-wop frontman Lee Andrews.
You grew up surrounded by the soul and doo-wop movements. How has that impacted you as a musician?
I spent a lot of time backstage watching groups get their harmonies together, in terms of... there's a certain incorrect way. I mean, no chord structure is correct or incorrect, but the be-all, end-all law of harmonics is this European mode of doing chords. And, of course, once jazz comes into play, then there's different ways to look at a chord. But doo-wop is sort of the stepchild of jazz in that a lot of times the incorrect chord is used to do harmonies. But it's sort of an art form to me.
So, if anything, that's what I learned from watching that era, a third way to use chord structure-the same way that, once Coltrane got hip to Indian culture, African and Egyptian culture, he learned a whole new scale, scales that they weren't using in America.
As far as the shows were concerned, I learned how to pace the show. I learned the high points and the low points of a show and how it should be paced. My father used to always say, "The two most important parts of a show are the first 15 minutes and the last 15 minutes. No one ever remembers the middle."
What do you think hip-hop as a whole owes to those movements?
It's a continual domino theory. Hip-hop-and I hate to be that guy that does the whole apartheid separation thing-really there are two definitions of it. I'm coming from the purist standpoint of what hip-hop is, not the "let's grab the remote control and see what's on TV-oh that's hip hop" definition. Hip-hop is the combination of all those cultures rolled into one, like a bowl of stew. If anything, from a record standpoint, the fact that they're taking bits and pieces of every culture and turning it into their own, I think that hip-hop owes a lot to doo-wop, especially my brand of hip -hop, which I jokingly say is the new doo-wop, i.e. the beautiful culture that no one cares about anymore (laughing)-except for the chosen few. But it's also its own world. Hip-hop owes as much to doo-wop as it does to jazz as it owes to any type of music, because that's where it comes from-other types of music.
Is there a genre, in particular, that you personally are most interested in? Or is there someone outside the Roots you most enjoy playing with?
Even though the waiting process was like pulling teeth, I'm really excited to see what this new Al Green record is going to do for my master plan. My master plan is really... when we turned in the initial demos for Game Theory to the label, I happened to be in the office the day that Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose album came out and it was sitting on the desk, so I stole it. I was listening to it on the airplane and I was jealous, I was jealous of Jack White, because he gets to work with all his favorite artists and Rick Rubin gets to.... It's a beautiful thing when you get to give the most realized work, sort of a career highlight work, to the people that you grew up on, and that never, never happens in black music. And part of that is that black music is so disposable that you're a legend after five years in the game. This is the reason why Wu-Tang Clan is seen as old school, because someone has told the lie that, somehow, after the age of 33, hip-hop is no longer the game for you, which I think is horrible. No one gave that memo to the members of the Rolling Stones or any of the members of Radiohead or U2 or R.E.M., groups that have been doing consistent work for 20 years plus.
That said, I happened to be doing an interview that day with one of the writers for Rolling Stone, Austin Scaggs, and he's like, "Ahmir, you keep talking about this Loretta Lynn record like it's the best thing since sliced bread," and I was like, "Man, I just want to do that for people that I grew up on," and he's like, "Well, why don't you just call them and say that?" and I was like, "I don't have an entryway to do it." I guess one of the A&R cats at Blue Note happened to read that interview, and he was like, "Well, I've got a challenge for you. Would you like to produce the next Al Green record?" I jumped on it immediately. We just finished a week and a half ago, and this is probably my favorite outside project that I've worked on since D'Angelo's Voodoo. It's really just an incredible record. Everybody that I've played it for is just fallin' out all over the place. This is the true follow-up to The Belle Album, which most Al Green purists claim is the quote, unquote "last" Al Green record. So you kind of have to ignore the last 30 years and see this as his follow-up record.
Sort of along those lines, you mentioned how hip hop's disposibility. You see albums being sold by singles...
S-, ringtones are sold (laughs).
Yeah, exactly. What do you think is going to happen to the hip hop record?
The funny thing is, even though I speak in the terms of an isolated member outside the circle, which basically holds true now as it did 17 years ago, I'm a part of this world, but it's not like we were allowed to play in any reindeer games back in 1992. They sort of looked at us with the "we don't know what to do with this" demeanor, as they do now. Of course, the respect is bigger because, for some strange reason, we manage to still hold interest 17 years after we came out. But I guess the future is, at least my personal approach, is a sense of urgency with every Roots album. I don't think there's ever going to be a time where we feel relaxed, or it's like, "Well, okay, we've got 19 songs, okay, label, here's the record. Where's our money?" We treat every album... I'll rephrase that. We used to treat every album like it was our debut record. Now, we treat every on of these records like it's going to be our last, which has even twice the urgency. I feel like we can't leave any stone unturned. Tariq has to rhyme like it's his last opportunity to reach the masses. The mix has to be perfect. Everything has to be perfect. That's just how we approach it. I don't know what the future holds. This is technically our last record with Def Jam. The result of this record will determine how the next Roots project gets to you, i.e. a major label, i.e. the Radiohead way. Until then, every breath is taken as if it the last.
I know it's not an easy question, but of all the Roots records, do you have a personal favorite?
Again, that's like asking me if I have a favorite breath. I will say that, if anything, I have memories of making the records. There was absolutely no more favorite memory of mine than when we were making the Do You Want More?!!!??! record, because we were fresh and new, we were in a studio environment where it was like, "Oh my god, there's Q-Tip in the hallway," or going up to studio B, putting your ear to the door and hearing Method Man work on the Tical record, or hearing the RZA blowing out all the speakers. So that was just a fun period.
There was a feeling of excitement in the air when we did the Things Fall Apart record. We felt like we were at the 3-point line and the regulation basket was the size of Texas and just every 3-pointer was going in. We could have been blindfolded, drunk on Patron, facing the other way and the ball still would have gone in the hoop. It was just the excitement of something new.
Breaking the chains on Phrenology, the fact that we had a collective meeting and just said, "Look, let's make the un-Roots album. Anything that's not the Roots, let's try it out." We made a big list of s- that we hadn't tried before. Of all the albums, Phrenology is the one where we took an approach to all the songs and all the unfinished demos, going to a record store and playing a bunch of prog rock s- and seeing how far we could push the boundaries. But I love all of my records.
Is there a particular slant you're taking on the new one?
On no. 10, there's a lot of firsts for this album. I've never seen a group in hip-hop release 10 very consistent records. And I'm not saying that there aren't fan favorites. I'm not stupid. I know that die-hard fans think "Oh, they'll never make another Things Fall Apart" and some critics think we'll never be as creative as they were with Phrenology. I feel as though we've never turned in anything less than a straight-A report card.
This particular record, it's not as much of a downer-and I don't say that as a bad thing-as Game Theory, where we wanted to make a downer record.
And it's definitely your darkest.
Hell yeah. We viewed Game Theory the same way a Sly & the Family Stone fan would see There's a Riot Goin' On, the same way Me'shell Ndegeocello's Bitter album is percieved. There's a few albums in modern rock music that are seen as dark, anti-pop records. Game Theory is one of those, I think.
This new one is the sonic polar opposite. This album is very, very aggressive-very loud, abrasive. It is the sound of the din. It's not as soft and not as cushion-y and not as cotton. Some people still have it as synonymous with their favorite Sunday-morning, clean-up record. This album is more like your Friday-night, what-the-F--is going-to-happen-this-weekend record. It's synthetic, and very mature sounding. And most importantly, it's a great 10th record.
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