One Song - The Roots' “The Next Movement”

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

One Song is continuing our celebration of Black Music Month with “The Next Movement” by The Roots. In this episode, Diallo and LUXXURY unpack how The Roots carved out an alternative lane at a time when mainstream hip-hop glorified a culture of excess. Plus, Diallo shares exclusive insights from Questlove about the unique production tricks that went into creating this iconic track.  One Song Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/40SIOpVROmrxTjOtH7Q1yw?si=0e286afa9edd4746 Songs Discussed: "The Next Movement" - The Roots "One More Chance" - The Notorious B.I.G. "What They Do" - The Roots "Hypnotize" - The Notorious B.I.G. "Proceed" - The Roots "Distortion To Static" - The Roots “Essaywhuman?!!!??!” - The Roots "Clones" - The Roots "Episodes" - The Roots "Act Won (Things Fall Apart)" - The Roots "Hollywood Swinging" - Kool & The Gang "Feel So Good" - Mase "Act Too (Love of My Life)" - The Roots feat. Common "You Got Me" - The Roots feat. Erykah Badu "Mr. Sandman" - The Chordettes "The Seed (2.0)" - The Roots feat. Cody ChesnuTT "Squabble Up" - Kendrick Lamar "Whatcha Mean" - Greentea Peng "It's Gettin' Hectic" - The Brand New Heavies feat. Gang Starr Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Y'all, I'm so excited to talk about a group that I've been a fan of for years, literally decades. In the late 90s, when mainstream hip-hop boasted a culture of excess, this group served as an anecdote. And while today's song isn't their biggest single, it certainly can be considered a thesis statement that ushered in a new era in music. With their organic approach, live instrumentation, and seamless blend of hip-hop, soul, and jazz to help pave the way for future generations of alternative musicians. And you may not realize it, but this one band really changed the game, more than you might think. So all you listeners, stop what you're doing and set it in motion. It's one song, and that song is The Next Movement by The Roots. This episode is brought to you by FedEx.

These days, the power move isn't having a big metallic credit card to drop on the check at a corporate launch. The real power move is leveling up your business with FedEx intelligence. And accessing one of the biggest data networks powered by one of the biggest delivery networks. Level up your business with FedEx, the new power move. Oh, man, we got so much to discuss. I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist luxury, aka The Guy Who Whispers, Interpolation.

And if you want to watch one song, you can watch this full episode on YouTube and Spotify. And while you're there, please like and subscribe. And today we're continuing our celebration of Black Music Month with a group, I think, has some black people in it. It's the roots. Today is the day that I have to get all my facts straight because I know for a fact that if I get anything wrong, Questlove will hit me up and be like, oh, man, come on, you got that wrong. Usually when we do the show, it's not somebody who I personally know. But I do know Kamal, I do know Tariq, and I do know Amir. I do know the roots.

These are your former co-workers. I know. James Poyser, all the guys. I just, you know, I love you guys, Mark, I love you guys. And I just want to get the story right just for the sake of history. and this is such an important song. Man, but just to go back to the beginning, it's crazy to think that the Roos have been around

for more than 30 years at this point. No, totally. I still think that what they're doing is innovative and unique, and it still feels like a new thing, but no, we're several decades into their career. And I also think they're always constantly reinventing themselves. Exactly. That's clearly what gives us this feeling of them being constantly fresh. They're constantly renewing who they are.

Yeah. Blake, what was your first exposure to the roots? The Roots are one of my bands that got away. This is another reason why I'm so excited to this episode. In the moment that this record came out, when things fall apart came out, I remember I was working on an ad agency in New York. My friend Craig Mannion, the art director, and one of the art directors came in and he bought it and he played a couple tracks from it. And in this moment, I wasn't making a lot of money. And I was like, I'm going to buy that

record. And I just kind of never got around to it. A musical taste in that moment were sort of shifting into electronic. I was listening to Chemical Brothers. It was just a bad timing thing. And then I've just never caught up to it. So I'm really excited today to learn a lot about the roots from you. And together we'll talk about, obviously we'll get to the musicology and go into the stems. But I know it's, I'm really happy to finally catch up with something that I've been missing out on for all these years. And get some context from the man himself, Diallo Riddell. All right, Diallo, tell me what the roots meant to you in the 90s. Oh, man. I mean, like, they represented like an alternative scene in hip hop. When we didn't really have one, like, I mean,

all hip hop in the beginning of the 90s is underground. By the time you get to even just the mid-90s with the blowing up of the West Coast, it feels like. It feels like. like hip-hop has two sides. And I'm not talking East versus West. I'm talking about mainstream commercial. You know, the coolios, if you will. And then sort of like the underground stuff that like, you know, the real hip-hop has was listening to everything from Mobb Deep to organize confusion.

It wasn't all even East Coast. Like there were artists like Souls and Mischief in the Hieroglyphous group on the West coast that felt more underground. Was there a feeling that you had that you could only like one group or the other group? Oh, for sure. Like there was a lot of pressure to just. And most of the, people who felt the pressure obviously chose the underground because that's where everything

interesting was happening. If you knew there even was a battle, so to speak. Exactly. And I remember when I first came across the roots, I was like, oh, this is so in my pocket. Because do you want more like it landed so hard for me and my friends? You know what I'm saying? Because they weren't gangster rap and they weren't part of this, you know, shiny suits era of hip hop led by, you know, Sean Diddy Combs and Bad Boy back when he was puffy. This was this was something different. So in an era when mainstream hip-hop videos are dominated by yachts and mansions, champagne

glasses being swung like this to those watching us on YouTube. And those weird 3D album covers were like I kind of missed the 3D album covers. It's like the Photoshop overkill thing. Dude, it was like you can see them in the meeting with like the art department like hey, I want to be sitting on a gold throw. I want

eight Rottweilers. And I want 38 fonts. I want my name I want my name spelled with jewels and dollar signs on the top. I mean, matches, but every square inch is filled. What's funny is we, if you look at those album covers then and think about what AI is capable of now, like it's, it's kind of similar, but it's drastically different. It seems like the mid to late 90s, like suddenly everything was about excess.

Yes, especially in the mainstream. But I remember the Roots dropped the what they do music video off of Ilydell Halflight. And it was kind of seen as like a shots fired moment against all that. Because in the video, it looked like, it looks shockingly like the. Biggie video for one more chance. Hey, let's play a clip of both of those music videos real quick. So we just showed, uh, we showed you some brief clips from one more chance and from the ruse, what they do. You know, there's just so many like very just subtle, like when Tarreek is rapid, Tariq, aka Black Thought, is rap. on the side of the bed.

That looks just like a scene from one more chance. These are all references that you would have everyone would know them. Yes, if you were hip hop head or even if you were just tangentially just what was

on Hot 97 at that time, you would have caught every reference. And if you're a Roots fan, you'd be like, this is not the Roots being the Roots. There's not their lifestyle. I feel like they told all the all the video vixens

as we used to call them. In the back, I feel like they told them all do your deadest eye possible. So everybody's like doing their champagne glass like this. But like nobody looks. like they're having the greatest time. Yeah. And that's going to come into play on things fall apart because you could feel like

there was this push and pull between what the roots were trying to do along with, you know, their friends, Tribe called Quest, De La Sol Common. There are so many cameos, by the way, in the what they do video. Like if you see them all in Times Square in that one shot, it's just like, holy smoke. It's like, everybody is so young and they're all just hanging out. There's that push and pull between their side and what specifically Diddy in the post, you know, Tupac's Dead, Biggie's environment. What Diddy's doing at Bad Boy where he's doing, you know, songs with Sting. Right. And everything that he does just has this like million dollar price tag in Hollywood Star, that's what I was going to ask you. Can you like, can you help me understand, put your

finger on like what are the, what are the distinctions? Like what is the thing that they're doing, that's not what we do. Is it what? What we do not do. Yeah. It's very not like us. Yeah. You know, this is again at a time when record labels have a lot of money. And there's the diamonds status that they're about to bring in just because artists like Britney Spears are able to sell 10 million more copies. Yeah. So everything is a flush with money in ways that we just can't even imagine. I think I read where like cash money at this time, because just because they looked as strong as Master P's No Limit, they got like a $100 million distribution deal in the music business to sell music. It's insane. Yeah. The amount of money. And Puffy is sort of the king of that. Yeah. And he's able to just,

you know, like I said, like his videos have motorboat chases and stuff. And that's not what the roots do. And I think that the roots, they were pushing back on that, this idea of the haves and the have-nots. So it's the content being about wealth, being about opulence. It's a lot about wealth. It's the lyrics and the videos all reflecting this aspirational. Exactly. And to those who were not there for it, it's important to point out, the roots were not attacking Biggie as a lyricist.

I think they had a lot of respect for Biggie as a lyricist. In fact, when Biggie saw the video for what they do by the Roots, he told Source Magazine that he felt basically disrespected by the Roots. And in an interview since, Quest Love has gone out of his way to say they didn't intend for their video to be a direct attack on Biggie. You know, he said, we were talking about, this is a quote from Quest himself, he said, we were talking about the impending lurking of this new, at the time it seemed like a new apartheid, this have-nots versus the haves. Right, right, right.

You know, they were making a classist argument, not your typical. like, oh, your flows are whack and we think you're a whack person. Because there's something really oppressive and sort of mindless. I mean, this is capitalism or at large, that everything about this other kind of the bad boy music seems to be only inflating the importance of wealth at any...

Of wealth over everything else. Absolutely. All right, so today's song is the next movement. It's on the roots fourth album. Things Fall Apart. Fourth album. Yeah, exactly. Where were they at that point in their career? Man, they were four albums in. Like I said, I'm one of those people. I totally missed organics.

And a lot of people forget about organics and they think that this is their third album. No, this is their fourth album, but there was the first album, Organics. So I came across the roots two albums before things fall apart. And I'd like to say a little bit about both of them because they are very different albums. 1995's Do You Want More?

Has a more jazzy feel, almost like a more street version of the brand new heavies. And it has great songs like Proceed. The first song that I ever heard by the roots with this amazing music video, Distortion to Static. Intelligently managed matter that's licking tracks fatter. Rove all around satir in like rings and bring swings. When I sings with bass, then distort up in your face like a...

And a song that I think really set them apart from anything else that was happening in hip-hop at that time because it was so live band-ish. It's called Iswa Man. Meanwhile, Ilydelf Half-Life was their attempt to make a more straight-up. East Coast hip hop album and it's grimy and gritty in the best way. I would love for you to check out tracks such as clones. Disgrace your mic to slap you in your face and erase your taste. Disgrace you gate, put your title to waste, dominant lyrical grace from a place called wow,

Illandelle Vow Pins and episodes. So, y'all, as you're following the roots with their like reinvention over these records, How are you reacting at the time? Is it surprising to you from one record to the next? Are you with it? Is there one where you're kind of like, I'm with it, man. I think we're all on this ride with them.

I think that like they are, because they're a band, they're just a little bit unconventional. They're a little bit weird and quirky. And even though they haven't really made it explicitly clear, there's like a sort of academic student nerdiness to even some of the stuff they say. One of my favorite lines from the early roots is when Black Thought says,

and like a nerd, I'll make you say, he's superb. You know, like, that was like, just a little nugget for us, nerdier fans of the group to know, like, oh, yeah, like, these are guys with a working vocabulary. Can I ask you a little bit more about Black Thought? I mean, we'll be talking about them a little more later.

Yeah. We'll get to the lyrics. But, like, what is it that he's doing as an MC that you think is so different and innovative and special? Dude, I'm telling you, I say this having, you know, in my capacity as a comedy writer, haven't worked with many rappers.

Tarik Trotter, aka Black Thought, is one of the greatest lyricists of all time. He can write for almost any other rapper. Like, he, like, studies, like, you know, how they rap and can mimic it perfectly. He can change his voice to rap in the cadence and the style of other rappers when he, he came up as a battle rapper. I mean, what people don't realize, and Quest was the first to really, like, point this out,

is that, like, to be so competitive that you would go all around Philadelphia because you heard somebody could rhyme and, like, challenge them to freestalling, it's really psychotic. But that's who he is. he is really one of the greatest emcees to ever exist. And I do feel like when we have that conversation about who's the greatest rapper of all time, if you talk to people who know, his name is always brought up right there next to, you know, Biggie and Andre 3000. Like his lyrics are so intricate and interwoven.

And he can freestyle his butt off. We actually did a sketch on Fallon called Freestyleing with the Roots, where Jimmy would give the Roots a genre of music to play like heavy metal or, you know, jazz or something. But what we didn't have to do is write anything for Black Dot. He would look at the audience member standing up and he would do 16 amazing bars just while the person was standing there calling out just what they, because it's just, it's just a talent that he has. He's just an amazing MC. And there's a reason why he and Questlove through all these years have never gone the Morrissey, Johnny Marr route. I think there's just such a level of mutual respect that they have for one another

at their jobs within the band. So getting back to the roots, his career trajectory. By the time they're working on things fall apart, a lot has happened in hip hop. I mean, like, you can make the case that the Roots and the Fugis in 1995 are very similar groups. But after the success of Killam Soffley and the score album, the Fugis are on a different level. Lauren Hill's solo album is huge. Wyclef is solo album. The Carnival is huge. They've had a lot of success within hip-hop, but the Roos haven't had a big charting single yet. And there are a lot of reasons why this might be the case. We've been talking a lot to Quest this week, and he said their first three LPs were all, you know, they worked with Bob Power. And that was a dream come true for them because they loved

Bob Power. Bob Power was this guy who worked with all of their heroes, specifically a tribe called Quest. Yes, please go back and listen to that episode. We give this gentleman, the engineer on those records, a lot of flowers for some innovations in hip-hop and in sampling technique and just with bringing at some of the best in the bands he works with. Absolutely. Going into things fall apart, they have a lot of creative ideas. Somebody says that they had 145 songs that they were potentially putting. Maybe some of these were like little snippets, maybe just a bar here or there for Black

Thought to Rap. But like, they had 145 song ideas and they somehow had to narrow it down to what was in a more typical 14 or 15 songs. And we'll put it up on the screen right now, but there's this really special. The Smithsonian has some of Questlove's notes from the record. where you can see him with his scrawl on all these like, you know, note pads, like what song goes where. And there's chapters one, two, three, and four of the album. So he's really, it's a big process to get this record to where it ended up.

Absolutely. And by the way, at this point, they're on Geffen. And they have said in interviews that, like, they felt like they were pretty low down on the priority list at their record label. So they felt like this was their do or die moment to break through into the mainstream. Well, and as you kind of alluded to, it comes down, it really does come down to the hit. you need a song. They felt like they need a hit. And then comes one of the unsung heroes of the story of the roots,

which is their old manager, may he rest in peace, Rich Nichols. Richard Nichols was sort of like this Rastafarian wise man who I feel like they were able to bounce ideas off of. He was always able to give them advice, especially when personnel changes like the departure of Scott Storch or Dice Raw. Like when people would leave the group, Rich would be the main one saying, you know, I think you should pick up this person over here. Rich was that guy.

Yeah. And Rich felt like at the end of the 90s that we were approaching a period where hip hop was at a crossroads. Not just the group, the roots, but hip hop was at a crossroads. And he felt like things were changing, not just in hip hop, but in black culture writ large. Rich was speaking to Questlove about the absolutely classic novel, Things Fall Apart by Nigerian author Chinway Acebe. And that book was about the chaos that ensued. as Nigeria tried to throw off British colonialism. But in that book, there is this warrior

who sees that Nigeria will never be the same and that in some ways that the brain has been colonized. And that's what Rich felt had happened to hip-hop. He felt like hip-hop itself by 1999 had been colonized and that default hip-hop was never going to be a tribe call quest anymore. In 1999, he said default hip-hop is going to be what Puffy is doing. And to that point, Rich made the case.

that Dr. Dre's albums in that era did not sound as good as bad boys' albums in that era. So he said, we have to change what we're doing in the studio to address the moment. We have to meet the culture and black people where they are. This is the reason why the album begins with the intro. It's called Act 1, and they use this clip from Spike Leaves film Mo Better Blues.

Let's play. Everything and you just say this is bullshit. What are you complaining about? I'm talking about people. That's right. The people don't come because you grandiose motherfuckers don't play shit that they like. If you played the shit that they like, then the people will come. Simple as that. Definitely, hip-hop records are treated as though they are disposable.

They're not maximized as product even. That's so interesting because the balancing act that he's trying to help as their manager. He's protecting them, encouraging them, and getting them to succeed. There's a lot going on in that role. And I thought this quote, which summed it up perfectly, Questlove in his book writes, The last thing Rich said to me before he died in 2014 was, my goal was never to take you guys or include you guys in the winning circle. I don't want you guys to win,

but I definitely want to guarantee that you're going to be the last people to lose. It's so interesting. He doesn't want to mold them into being what the winners are doing, but he's going to ensure that some of what that is, as you mentioned, the sound of bad boy. Let's incorporate some of that where we don't lose what the essence of the world. Yeah, whether it's that quote from Mo Better Blues or, sort of just, I think what all of us who had been into hip hop since the early 90s were feeling by the end of the 90s, there was a lot of animosity towards what Puffy had done in terms of sampling.

Like he wasn't doing the Pete Rock premiere style sampling of like changing the song very much. Songs like, you know, Mace's bad, bad, bad, bad boys feel so good. He literally just lifted Hollywood swinging and just wrapped over it. There were a lot of people who felt like hip hop was being spoiled. and mutilated, and it was really going in the wrong direction. And I think that what's interesting about that Mo Better Blues quote and about what a lot of us were feeling was this idea that, like, you can't win if you just stay pure.

You know, you can't just go off into a corner and say, hey, we made the most pure hip-hop album that we could make. He was like, no, let's meet the people where they're at. Let's give them something that can dance to and have fun with, but can also seek to elevate. This is such a 90s dialogue, too. it's so familiar to me having lived in that era, having been making, you know, this is what, this was the Nirvana conversation. This was, this was happening across all genres,

this kind of split, this new division of like big versus integrity, like as though the two things couldn't possibly have any middle ground to them. It's so interesting to kind of think about. Well, I think timewise, we were a lot closer to an earlier era where these things did seem more black and white. Now we absolutely are in the 2020s when all, when shades of gray are all we get. We don't even think about, But there was a moment where to have your song be in a commercial was forget about it. I heard of. It's worth pointing out that while the roots were working on this album, Questlove was also working on DeAngelo's upcoming album Voodoo. This is a very important period in, I would argue, black music in general, because this is a period where there's sort of a music collective being formed called Soul Quarians.

It's Jay Dilla. It's James Poyser. It's also everybody from DiAngelo to Bilal, everyone, everyone, from Common to the Roots themselves. And these artists would go into each other's sessions and starts, you know, basically jamming together and collaborating. Some of these artists ended up on things fall apart,

like Most Deaf and Common and Eric Abadu. In fact, why don't we take a second and listen to the track that the Roots did with Common? This is the song, one of the best, most beautiful hip-hop songs of all time. This is Act 2, The Love of My Life. To my God Reekin, I see with desperately sick to organize enough confusion, using,

no protection, total on resurrection, Caught in the hype Williams And lost our direction And I want to play one more song From Things Fall Apart Part. Things Fall Apart has a distinction of having Erica Badu and also Eve, the rapper Eve,

on her very first song. A lot of people don't realize that, you know, Eve being from Philadelphia, used to end up in Cyphers with Black Thought and he was just like, yo, this girl holds her own. This is before she's even, you know, messing around with Dre or Jay or anybody else.

Like, you know, Black Thought was the first to be like, yo, she's got something special. So Eve and Erica Badu, both show up on the track, You Got Me, which was co-written by Joe Scott. It's a lot of people who are about to be really big and famous working on one track. And Joe was actually supposed to sing on the track, but MCA wanted a higher profile artist, so they had Erica do it instead. It's a great song.

It ended up winning them the Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo in a group in 2000. It's the Roots First Grammy. Here's a clip of You Got Me. And this is the part where I knew that the roots were going to be, you know how Beatles fans from that era would be like, yeah, after that, One song came out. We knew they were never going to be our favorite band playing at the cavern again. We had to share them with other people.

Yeah, we had to share them with other people. When I heard Questlove do this at the end of You Got Me, I was like, oh, the roots are about to storm the world. Play us a little bit of the end of You Got Me. Double Time, D&B. That's awesome. But it was more than double time. It was specifically drum and bass. Like if you had your ears open in 1999, you knew about drum and bass.

You knew that you liked the general sound. But the fact that the drummer from. the Roots was now playing his drums in a drum and bass style. You were just like, oh, this guy's got his ears open to the globe. And you just felt like they're going to be so much bigger now that he's sort of given a wink and a knot to a brand new art from literally pushing the music forward. I just, I remember when that came out. Everybody was like, yo, did you hear Quest?

He's playing drum and bass. Like, you know. That's so cool. Some of your more animated friends, of course. Yeah, that's super awesome that he threw that in there. Also, you know, Questlove being Questlove, he's thinking not only is his, a new genre, but it's a new genre predicated on the think break, right? The Lynn Collins, it takes two break, break beat, which formed its new genre. So he's throwing that in there with a

couple of layers already. So I love that there are bringing that in. And on this song, there's a bunch of layers like that little references, little homages that are built in to the music. That's awesome. I love that. So we're going to take a break. But when we get back, not only we're going to hear the stems of the next movement, we're going to find out how Questlove ended up in the studio with his shirt off. It's a crazy story. We'll be right. right back. All right. So for this episode, we had some very special intel from Questlove himself, who is a friend

of the pod and good friends and former colleagues with Diallo right over here. So Diallo, what did Questlove tell you about how this song started that he's never told anyone before? Breaking news. Well, listen, he said that this song started originally, it as a jam, that they would do at Soundcheck while they were on their very first around the world tour. They started a sound check in Maui. And when they got back, they ended up recording it at Battery Studios with Engineer Bob

Power. Very cool. Real quick, let us know. I mean, like, obviously, if you haven't already listened to it, please listen to our episode about a Tribe Call Quest. Bob Power has been name-checked on many albums. He's sort of a hip-hop legend. And they obviously really like working with him on their previous albums because they were always, you know, not chasing, but like they liked being a part of that sort of Tribe Call Quest, you know, East Coast Underground Sound. But a little bit of a different story on this album. Yeah, no, it's interesting because Bob Power did the original mix. Let's have a listen to that. Wow, that does sound different. Yeah.

That does sound different. It sounds a little bit more muted. Yeah. If I may, like it sounds a little bit more like early 90s as opposed to like late 90s. And I hear a lot more separation. It's a lot cleaner. I think that's the word I would use. If you go back to our Tripaw Quest episodes, that was something that Bob Power brought to scenario. Yeah. And then for electric relaxation, the Tribe Called Quest said, can you make it a little less clean than you've been doing? Wow. So there's an interesting interplay between the, like, because hip hop has obviously at its source sampling, which has the grit of the old record. So there's a little bit of that texture that you can sort of play with, having it, not having it, et cetera.

And as we just said, like it seems like the roots were at a point in 1999 where they're like, look, hip hop is changing. We want to change with it. We don't want to be, you know, stuck in the amber. But it's a balancing act where there's scratching on the track. So they're still balancing some of the texture of classic, so to speak, hip hop with old records. But also they want clean sounds of instrumentation. Because again, they want to meet the people where they're at. They want to meet the culture where it's at.

But that's hard to put your finger on. And that's part of the process of making a record, making a recording. And you can make music with people that you really, really like. But at some point you might be like, you know what? They don't know where this thing is headed. We got to go somewhere else to get, well, the sound we want. It's at this point they bring in a new mixer. His name is Axel Niehaus.

And he'd actually been working in the bad boy camp. He literally was the engineer on hypnotize, on Biggie's hypnotize. and more money more problems. Yeah, huge hits. Huge, huge hits. This plays right into what we were talking about earlier about how unsung hero Rich Nichols, the manager at the time,

was talking about how the lane he was looking for for the roots included some of that magic sauce. And this might be a way to get that. Get their engineer in, see what that does to the sound. And I do remember as a DJ at the time, like the first time I put on hypnotize at a party, like a big college hall with like about, you know, 500 kids dancing like I was one of the kids.

I remember putting that record on. I was like, oh, this sounds great through the big speakers. Biggie, biggie, biggie, can't you see? Sometimes the words is hypnotism. So, like, he definitely Axel knew how to achieve, like, that big dance floor sound. Yeah, so in particular, one thing that Questlove told us that Axel brought with him is a specific trick, quote, that the bad boys producers do to make women dance. This is so interesting.

We'll be getting into that in just a second. And that's a big part of the change from Mix 1 that we just heard the power mix into the final mix, the final version. Yes. So before we get into the Sims lecture, I know you wanted to set up the song structure because this song has an unconventional structure. Am I right? Yeah, I mean, it took me a minute. I went back and forth as I investigated. There's two ideas in the song.

The A section and the B section. I'll play them for you in a moment and I'll differentiate them. The A section is seven bars and the B section is four bars. That means that you have an 11 bar pattern, but Black Thoughts, top line isn't 11 bars. And the way things come and go and match and don't match is really part of what makes the song unique. I love that. You're a little bit disoriented. This is what we're calling the A section for the purposes of discussion.

And here's the B section. And here's the B section. It's the bum, bum, bum, bum is the most distinctive part of it probably. So just to be clear, the stop what you're doing. Always is the B. But the hot, hot music is always the A. But when you're in the verse, you get a little bit of each. And they kind of come and go.

and you're always a little bit wonderfully disorient. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the pattern slash not pattern situation going on with the song structure. It's not traditional verse, chorus verse bridge, in other words. Quest actually thought that this was going to throw people off. We should just say right now that Kamal Gray gets a writer credit on this song because he basically crafted it. And then Quest came in and was like, well, I like it.

But, you know, like, I think it's going to throw people off. It didn't. Thank God they kept this unusual structure. Exactly. So the A section is a seven bar section. The way you can tell you're in this section is because the background vocals are doing the ooh.

The syncopated roads and bass are lockstep with each other and every A section starts with a crash. So that's how you know you're in the A. The B by contrast is where the backing vocals do the bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, the ticking clock. Exactly. And then there's the arpeggio in the roads. Again, we'll get

in detail when we're in the stems, but just wanted to make sure people understood what those two things were. All right, now we're into the stems. Who plays drums on this song. I just see if I can pronounce this guy's name. It's Amir, Questlove Thompson. Oh, did not know what he did in the band.

I usually just see him talking in it. You know, it's funny. We all, like, Questlove is such a big part of culture. I was going to say pop culture, but he's such a big part of the culture. This is sort of, I feel like, when he's really coming into his own, so to speak, because you got to remember, like hip-hop is so MC-driven. Like, I feel like it took a lot of us a couple of those early albums to, you know, really recognize it's not just Black Thought.

But it's also Questlove, this dude with, you know, an interesting name and a more, you know, anachrodistic haircut, who is also clearly like really big in the mix. Oh, hugely. And as we mentioned a moment ago, he's the Smithsonian notes about how the album was structured. You could tell, it's, I love documents like this because you can see somebody sitting in a cafe or in the corner of the studio for hours on end, just trying to get it all together. Which song goes where? Which ones are we going to use?

Which ones won't? What should the titles be? And what's interesting also about this record is, that some of the songs are sequenced. So the song begins with a pickup, a drum pickup, which is kind of the end of the previous song. So it kind of flows seamlessly into it. I love that.

So one thing, we're in the A section, and that's another distinctive thing about this section, is that kick drum is syncopated. There's a lot going on, just that little bit of the drums that we hear. Yeah, I mean, one thing that makes this section distinctive, the A section is that kick drum is boom, boom, boom, it's syncopated.

Yeah. And it's lockstep with the bass and the keyboards. And not to give too much away, That's all instrumentally that's going on, which is really cool. Wow. Just those three instruments going on. And you have this really unusual. I want to call attention to this very unusual snare clap merged sound.

Let's isolate that and just notice how unusual this is. Almost sounds like a drip of water almost. I mean, to my ears, that sounds like a snare layered with a clap that's been affected, maybe with an even-tied harmonizer. I'm not sure what it would be. but I'm hearing a merged a layered sound. Yeah, right, with some effects on it. And I think part of what they did was they took this clap

and we have a fun story to tell about the clap. I'll play the clap isolated and then I'll play it together with the snare and you'll hear what I mean. Quick question for you, Diallo. Are these people clapping their hands together or is it something else? To hear Questlo is saying,

it is not his hand claps. He says his hand claps lacks something. Yeah. He would clap his hands. Axel was like, no, that's not quite it. And then they get this idea. idea that they're going to basically, it starts off with his shirt. They're like, just slap your shirt.

But then it just got, it went further and further. And then he, at some point, Questlove takes off his shirt and starts slapping his stomach. So you can just imagine Questlove with no shirt on, slapping his stomach in time to the beat. And it sounds like this. Questlove slapping his own stomach. With no shirt off. But it goes even deeper than this. that because there's also this bit of percussion that we're calling the shuffle.

Right. So Questlove talks about, we mentioned before, he wasn't satisfied with that first initial mix. They went through a few of them. And finally, he realized that what he felt was missing was, quote from a quote from him. I realized a shuffle was missing. So this brings us back to the engineer Axel Neathouse who had worked on some of these huge 90s dance floor stormers. And apparently one of the things he brings from the bad boy camp to the roots camp is this

trick on how to quote subliminally move things. the shuffle trick that the bad boy producers do to make women dance, quote, the shuffle controls the spine. So they decided to add this shuffle. What that means is in this case, sort of a 16th note. Yeah, it's like a shush. A little shaker thing, a little percussion. I'll play it for you and then I'll tell you where it came from. I'm like doing, it's controlling my spine.

I'm like doing it here in the studio. Listen, when I first heard this, I assumed before we got clarification from Westlap, I thought that this was either literally a shaker, some kind of Latin percussion instrument. Or maybe like some paint brushes on the snare or something. have been, or knowing that Jazzy Jeff was on it, I was like, oh, maybe he did something clever with the record and sort of scratching, like he found a record where the scratch mark, you know, percussively did that in a perfect way. But it turns out he was rubbing his palms together because they wanted to make it sound like Herbie Hancock's rocket. Yes. Which would have been the turntableness thing. Doesn't work. So he says, I don't know why, but this is Questlove's

saying this. I don't know why, but I decided to take my shirt off and I rub my stomach for six minutes. So once again, Questlove's torso for the wind. So here's Questlove's torso rubbing with Questlove's stomach clapping with the rest of Questlove's body playing the beat. Human beatbox, but without the mouth, actually. But not using the mouth. Without using the mouth. Listen, I love it because it just shows that sometimes when you're in the studio,

the best ideas come from pure improvisation. Totally. Imagination plus improvisation equals something, a sound that you couldn't get anywhere. And in all the perfect, like, ways because it's another yes and. Axel Nehouse was like, try this. And he's like, wait, I've got, I'm going to build on that by taking off the press chive shirt. That's just the A section.

What's happening in the B section? In the B, he drops some of that syncopated kick stuff, and it sounds like this. So picture of the. Yep. And then that crash means we're back to the A. Which is interesting. It reminds me a little on Parliament episode. We talked about how there is kind of the crash as an indicator of where you are in the song.

I think it's a long groove. So it kind of gives your brain a little signal that some little thing is changing a little bit. So in this song, that crash means we're back to the A. section. Absolutely. Yeah, every single time. Let's move on to the base.

Leonard Hubbard, aka Hubb. He's the guy, for those wondering, who usually see in videos like playing the guitar with the stick in his mouth. May he also rest in peace. He passed away a few years ago. So I want to hear what Leonard Hubbard, AKA Hub, is doing on the base.

But I think you also want to layer it with what's going on with the keyboards, am I right? Yeah, because there's, playing the same part and it's locked together. It's also locked with the drums. And who's on keyboards? Jimmy Kamal Gray. My man. Yeah, who came up. I believe came up with the original riff on this song. Yes. Yes, exactly. I believe Questlove told us that Kamal basically came to him with the song and then they started like, you know, working it out during their sound checks. Exactly. Jammy during sound checks. All right, here, here it is. It's fun hearing it like this because

I can just picture them playing this out of soundcheck in Maui. and then Hub comes in and doubles the line on bass. Yeah. And it's such an interesting choice. I'll let it play through because they drop a bar. You'd expect it to keep going with one more repeat. But no, they go to the B section there. So that's what I was mentioning before about.

That's what I was alluding to before about the A section, only having seven bars, that surprise that they dropped the last repeat. I mean, it's just funny because usually I don't know the people who are playing these stems. Yeah. But I know Kamal. And I think it's so interesting, like when you meet Kamal, he's just this Philly dude. You know what I'm saying?

Like he's just this rough and tumble Philly dude, you know, got some streets in him. And then I hear these beautiful Rose Keys coming out of. I'm just like, man, it's like it's that wonderful dichotomy of like the streets and yet classically trained, you know, pianist. You know what I mean? It's just, to me, that's one of the things that makes, you know, the roots and the best of black culture possible sometimes. You know what I'm saying? Exactly. Yeah, that's perfectly sad.

So the bass is doubling it up there. That's really cool. And what's happening with Kamal during the B section? Right. So when they get to the B, so in the A section, that's just C minor with a D-flat major. It's like a tritone substitution. Dun, don't, don't, done. Kind of a jazz thing.

We talked to that. That's one of the jazz influences is choosing that tritone substitution, that chord, 100%. D-flat major. And then in the B section, we have this sort of arpeggiated. It almost sounds like a classical piece. There's kind of like a Bach influence. And here's what it sounds like.

I'm telling you, it's just, it's crazy to me because it's like, I know Kamal is just that dude, you know, from Philly, and yet he's played these beautiful arpeggios, which I love to see, man, I love to see it. He's obviously either classily trained or jazz trained or both, and it's fun that he's bringing that into the mix here and sprinkling it out of the Zabla track. Yeah, given, yeah, his influences, his teachings,

Kamal's just gifted. All right, well, I hear a lot of different voices on this track. The background vocals, The Jazzy Fat Nasty is one of my favorite, you know, sort of like groups from this period. That's Tracy Moore and Mercedes Martinez. Can we hear a little bit of the vocals from maybe we started the B section? Because I always call it the ticking time clock. So as you mentioned, Tracy Moore and Mercedes Martinez, Jazzy Fat Nasty's,

are harmonizing here. And they have a couple of different parts that are layered. Let's hear the first one. I love that. And they're giving their own kind of harmonized. Yeah. And there's also they have their own, the second repeat was slightly different

to the way it was harmonized. And it could have made a great Christmas song. Well, it definitely sounds Christmassy. It's very Christmassy sounding. I absolutely agree. I hear that too. There's something about,

there's a very 50s kind of, it's not barbershop, but it's a little bit barbershop, maybe as interpreted through like a white, group, like a cordedets, like Mr. Sandman kind of vibe, right? It sort of feels that way, right? Yeah, Mr. Samman. It's just Christmas. And then they have another layer underneath where they're doing this, ooze and ums. So beautiful. I hear one ooh and one, um. Beautiful counterpoint. And then together, it sounds like this. I mean, it really makes the song. Many things make the song,

but like that we certainly know where we are in the song. Thanks to what they're. contributing here. Let's see what Miss Moore and Miss Martinez are doing in the A section. So this one, they do more of a call and response. So here's the call. Response. I love that sigh. That last sigh there is so expressive. And what a great hook. And they have two great hooks between the bum, bum, bum, bum, and this. You know, they've just contributed these incredibly crucial pieces. And listen, we're going to talk about the splits when we're done with the vocal section. But the good news, as I can tell you, is that they were cut in as deservedly so. I was really glad to see that they were included in the songwriting splits for those contributions. Yeah.

Yeah. So they do that throughout the song pretty consistently throughout the A and B sections. Okay, I'm talking about vocals without talking about Black Thought, one of the greatest emcees to ever live. And let's hear his isolated vocals. Can you play us a bit, my man? Yes, I can. Let's start with the, it's the next movement that leads us into the first first. So this is actually a couple of layers together. In different parts of the song, there are layers that kind of make what I think to our, to my ears the whole time, I always thought was just a single thing being said by one person at one time. But he's kind of mixing and matching different takes, as we'll hear.

It's really cool how they do. Here's one of the two takes sounds like this. It's just hot music, hot music. It's just hot music, hot music. And the other one goes. We got the hot, hot music, the hot music. Hot hot music. It's a really subtle thing, but when you merge them together, it gives it a little different

that echo effect. A little echo effect and bounce a little energy. We got the hot, hot music, ha, hot music. The ha ha music. It's really cool how to do that. One thing I love about Black Thoughts verse is that they're always like so intricate. And yet, if you're really listening, you can learn every single line. Can we hear a little bit of the first verse?

Yeah, one, two, one, two, one, two. usually start. Once again, it's the thought. The Dalai Lama of the mic, the prime minister thought, this directed to whoever enlisted range. You're the whole state of things in the world about to change. I mean, I got to listen to all the verses just when nothing's stripped out. Because, like, there's so much intricacy.

There's so much wordplay. And, you know, to hear him tell it, like, this all started verse-wise with him working with Kamal in the studio. They've enjoyed some shrooms. And I don't mean the kind of go on pizza. And he's playing around with this, you know, this unusual. usual arrangement, as we've called it. Even goes so far as to say, like, some beats are more rhyme-friendly than others.

But even with this strange arrangement, the tempo, the BPM is perfect for what he wants to do. So he's able to get as many thoughts into one verse. Yeah. The Dalai Lama thought, like, you know, he's able to get all his thoughts in without sort of sacrificing anything. I think he's probably reacting also to the unusual, the seven instead of the eight. You're expecting that dropped eighth bar of what would have been a repeated loop. Which you hear.

Yes, you can kind of hear it when we hear it even isolate because you're just like, oh, there should be one more bar. No, there shouldn't. Because now we've gone into the B section. Right. That's something really special to the interplay between the vocal and the track because of that. Mind-blowing versus luxury. What can you tell us about the splits on this song?

I love it when I see splits like this where it definitely reflects everything that we just heard. Somebody got cut in. So Jimmy Kamal Gray, we know is the originator of that riff, which is at the heart of the song, gets 45%. Oh, good for him. BlockDot gets 39%. There you go. Seems pretty reasonable.

Yeah. And then Questlove gets 5%. Hub gets 5%. Wow. And Tracy Moore and Mercedes Martinez get 3% each. Well, there you go. That's really cool. I mean, like this one of the things that keeps bands and groups together is when the splits, you know, are fair.

So, Diela, what do you think the legacy of the next movement is? You know, I mean, this song is called the next movement. And I do think that this song and this album ushered in a new movement, not just in hip-hop, but in the black culture. After this album came out, there were a number of now super iconic albums that were released between, like I'd say, the summer of 99 and, you know,

the mid-2000s. So you've got everything from most deaths, black on both sides, commons like Water for Chocolate, Erica Budu's Mama's Gun, and so many more. I mean, like, don't forget that the only reason why a lot of Gen Z people know the ruse is because, you know,

obviously if they're listening to good music, they know the music. But a lot of them were introduced to the roots via Jimmy Fallon. And Jimmy Fallon was introduced to them via Neil Brennan, who was the headwriter for Dave Chappelle. And one of the reasons why Dave Chappelle was able to do the block party, that pretty, you know, seminal movie from him, was because he had the roots. He had Erica. He had so many people in this collective. It was just a special time.

You know, we've left out names like Dead Prez. I would argue Dead Prez in their song, hip-hop, you know, classic song. like, again, this was like all alternative hip hop at the time, Slum Village, Jay Dilla, this was the underground scene. This was like, oh yeah, you guys can go off and you can listen to, you know, Puffy's No Way Out album, but this is what the heads are listening to. Albums like things fall apart. And I think that, you know, the roots help set the stage for Neo-Soul and everything that took over that was not in a shiny suit for the years to come. I mean, that's just my take. What do you think is the legacy of the next movement?

I mean, I guess I'm just struck by how in the 90s we have a handful of artists that are kind of finding recombinations of hip hop elements, right? First of all, there's obviously rapping and singing and in various combinations across various groups and across various albums. And Lauren Hill really opens the door for a lot of singing on rap albums. But one thing I'm really thinking about is how the use of like the specific choice of live drums versus not. Yeah, totally. Live drums versus not live drums. Yeah. On top of it, you might have samples, you might not.

You might have live bass. You might have something coming from the synth, whatever it is. I'm thinking about the Neptunes. I'm thinking about Farrell and how he's using a lot of... Now, first of all, it's live percussion that gets chopped up in the computer. But still, those sounds, essentially that kick drum sound maybe and the bucket drums or whatever else he's doing, that is a binary choice that with the roots, they're also using a live drum kit. It's a question with the live drum kit.

Sure, he's using his chest and his tummy and various combinations. of tummy and hands and rubbing. But I'm just struck by how that's a very binary choice that so many, most, almost all other producers aren't doing. They're getting their beats from 808s, from samples, some combinations, some layering. And it seems like a small thing. And I guess what I'm trying to pinpoint,

I need your, maybe you could get your take on it too or your input is I notice that with Farrell's version of it, it's a 10x version success wise, sales wise. versus what the roots were doing. Of course, there's so much playing into it. There's a million other doctors. It's, you know, right? I mean, let's put it like this.

It's not just the drums, is my point. It's not just the drums. And also, if the roots had stayed in this lane and the things fall apart lane for the rest of their career, it might have been a different 2000. The roots have never stayed in the same lane for too long. In fact, when talking about their very next album,

phrenology, which actually does contain the biggest single of their career, they said, we tried, we intended to go in to the studio and record an anti-roots album, almost like a rock album, and that gave us the seed part two. I mean, so by never staying the same group and we love them for it, they've always reinvented it. They've always tried to go for something that they hadn't gone for before. And, you know, that's both encouraging from an artistic point of view, but that can sometimes

be challenging in terms of, you know, the art. And in the same way that I think that Lauren Hill and the Miseducation album sort of cleared a path for things fall apart and all of this wonderful soul music that came about in its wake, I think that ironically, the artist from Dave Chappelle's block party that ended up taking sort of this Neil's soul sound and carrying it into the next decade, ironically, is Kanye. Because as was told to me a long time ago by Quest, he was like, I never would have thought that that funny little little. guy running around with the bear costumes that the backpack on was going to be the guy who ended up blowing up, you know, but he was able to take, as he famously said himself, you know, songs with Jay-Z and put him

on songs with Talib Kuali. That is sort of like, you know, irony of this moment in music. I think another part of the song's legacy is the music video. Yeah, totally. In the room. Which is in the room. It's really fun to watch. Like, sometimes you see like some of the like newfangled techniques that

video directors are doing of an era and they're super dated, but it's really cool that they're like moving around How did they get on the ceiling? Like, that's still cool to me. Absolutely. And if you're watching this on YouTube or anywhere else where you're watching the visual, you'll see the similarity between the room that they're standing in here. Right.

And the room that Kendrick Lamar stands in in Squabble up. I choke my crown, dinkle down a dime kiss. You need to buy a CD and stop Rewan. And that's all the finalist. Shined like a rocket emphasis. Yeah, that seems like an intentional homage. What do you think? Yeah, I think that Quest saw, and he was like, I think that's very cool.

He woke up with a dozen messages from, you know, everybody. And his first thought was, oh, man, he dissed us. And then he was kind of, he watched it himself, and he felt like he was basically honored. He thought it was a homage. I think it comes across that way, too. I think at the end of the day, the roots came in, they were a different kind of group because they were truly a hip-hop band. and every album they continue to just reinvent their sound, reinvent how they were coming.

At some point, they became parts of, you know, the Tonight Show. And I think that, you know, what has made them different from the beginning continues to make them relevant to this day. Like, to this day, they can come out with an album, whereas some of their contemporaries, you know, sadly, you know, are not in that same position. By the way, let's not bury the lead in some ways.

Like, the fact that they are the house band, one of the coolest gigs in the world is to be the house band on a TV show, at least from the outside. From the outside. I mean, like I will say, you know, maybe this will be my final anecdote,

but I will say that when the offer was first brought to them, there was some concern in the band because, you know, they had actually been the house band, so to speak, in the Spike Lee movie bamboozled. And so when they became in real life the house band for a late night show,

you know, there were some, you know, fans who were like, is this really the way? But, you know, Rich, once again, unsung hero, their manager was basically like, look, guys, at some point, every hip hop act finds themselves playing, you know, a small club in Paris, you know, a club for the heads in Japan.

This through no fault of their own. Like nobody, nobody's going to stay on top for the rest of their lives. He was like something like this where you get to create new music with someone like Jimmy, who isn't part of that Carson generation. He's not part of the Letterman generation. Like, you know, in their eyes, Jimmy is somebody who grew up with hip hop. He can quote, you know, biggie back and forth with him. He has respect for the genre in some ways is the best scenario because the same way you guys are comedy, comedy heads.

Yeah. He's a music head. And it's not a mistake that they make music every single night. In some ways, it's the perfect place for them to continue to have a salon, a laboratory to keep experimenting with new sounds and new comedy. Yeah. When I was growing up and I would watch Letterman, I would be like, I wish Anton Figg had the coolest job in the world to be the drummer behind a TV show. Yeah, yeah. It's so interesting to hear that insider's perspective.

Absolutely. Okay, luxury, it's time for one more song. This is the segment where we share a deep cut or a hidden gem that we've just discovered with you, the one song nation and with each other. I usually say, why don't you go first? This week, I'm going to go first. Oh, my goodness. Wow. I'm calling an audible. Grab the talking stick then, why don't you?

My song is going to be What Chameen by Green Tea Peng. We're doing double-time beats today. Yeah, I will say that, you know, I was out and a DJ put this on. And I really liked it. It took me back to the early 2000s when artists like Reese, who did the song Golden Boy, like, you know,

there's another one of those times when I'm hearing experimental music through a very cool lens. There's a little bit of that double-time drum and bass sound to it. And because I heard this song, I was able to listen to the album. Again, Green Tea Pang,

I think I'm pronouncing that right. Really big fan of the sound. Yeah, I feel like this is pushing the music forward. Very cool stuff. Dig it. What's your song this week? Well, I went the other direction. I was inspired by just talking about this era and talking about live hip hop. And we've mentioned them twice on the episode. So let's play some brand new heavies from their

seminal collaborative record with American. This is a British band of jazz influence, sort of that Moax acid jazz band from the early 90s. Another genre that I think was journalist created. But also had some great music that was 70s influenced with kind of a post hip hop flare. Yeah. And they got together with a bunch of American rapper. including on this track. This is the brand new heavies with Gangstar. Oh, this is my favorite author of that album. And this is, it's getting hectic from heavy rhyme experience.

This is from 1991. Yeah. All right. I'll set it off by letting you know that I can flow to many beats. Similar to fluid so freely. And you could say I'm getting kind of greedy, but so what? Because I'm supplying the needy. It's so funny because like the idea of a live band with an MC, like a live, you know, hip-hop band, so to speak.

It is, it's still an anomaly. You have more of them than you used to. but it's still to my ears. It's a cool sound that's unique. Here's something you cannot know. There are so many times I've walked down the street, I go, do do, do do do do like the beginning of that thing does play on a loop in my head.

Let me play it. This is Diallo's brain. Watch this. I don't know why that one has that intro, that intro, because it was so like not to the beat of that do do do do. But is it like a comedy punctuation mark? Like something like a wah-w-w-w-w-aw. No, I generally feel like, I'm grooving, man.

I'm grooving. As always, if you have an idea for one more song, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok. You can find me on Instagram at Dialla, D-A-L-L-O, and on TikTok at Dialla-R-L-O-R-W. And you can find me on Instagram at L-U-X-U-X-U-Y and on TikTok at Luxury-X. And, hey, go follow one song on Instagram and TikTok.

Go follow at One-Song podcast for exclusive content. You can also watch episodes of one song on YouTube and Spotify. Just search for One Song Podcasts. We love it if you like and subscribe. Also be sure to check out the One Song Spotify playlist for all the songs we discuss in the episodes. You find the link in our episode description.

And if you've made it this far, we think that means you like the podcast. So please don't forget to give us five stars. Leave a review and share us with someone you think would like it. It really helps keep the show going. All right, luxury, help me in this thing. I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and musicologist luxury. And I'm after writer-director and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddell. And this is one song.

We'll see you next time. This episode is produced by Melissa Duanyas. Our video editor is Casey Simonson. Our associate producer is Jeremy Bimbo, mixing by Michael Hartman, and engineering by Eric Kix. Production supervision by Razak Boykin. Additional production support from Z. Taylor. The show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Eddings, Eric Waddings, Eric Wael, and Leslie Guam.