things fall apart

The Roots stepped into the realm and found their greatest success with the organic neo soul hip hop jazz hybridization of this ambitious artistic statement. Ahmir ‘Questlove/?uestlove’ Thompson and Tariq ‘Black Thought’ Trotter met at the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts and began performing on street corners with Black Thought rapping while Questlove drummed on buckets.  They originally called themselves "Radio Activity" and then "Black to the Future" before becoming the Square Roots.  They dropped the Square because another group in Philadelphia was using the name and released their first album 'Organix' in 1992 on the independent Remedy label.  'Do You Want More?' and 'Illadelph Half-Life' followed on DGC Records. 

 'Things Fall Apart' was recorded at Electric Lady Studios in New York and credits The Roots as composer and primary artist;  with ?uestlove as assistant engineer, composer, mixing, mixing assistant, and producer; Scott Spencer Storch as composer, engineer, keyboardist, and producer;  Anthony Tidd as composer and guitarist;  James Poyser as composer, keyboardist, and producer;  Smart Abdul-Basit as composer; Erykah Badu as guest artist and on vocals;  Byron Berline, Black Thought, and Larry Brown as composers;  Bob Powers on synthesizer;  Mos Def as guest artist and on vocals;  Jazzyfatnastees as guest artist;  Chaos assistant engineer and producer;  Common as guest artist and on vocals;    D'Angelo as guest artist and on keyboards;  Marie Daulne on background vocals;  Eve Of Destruction as guest artist;  Todd Fairall as engineer;  Larry Gold on viola; Kenny J. Gravillis and Russell A. Robinson on artwork and design;  Igor Szwec on violin;  Ursula Rucker as composer and on poetry;  Buster Williams, Jill Scott, E. Smith, Kamiah "Little Klang" Gray, Leonard Hubbard, Karl Jenkins, and Doc Pomus as composers;  Kamal as producer; and Francesca Spero and Richard Nichols as executive producers. 

The album takes its title from the novel by Chinua Achebe which quotes the phrase from William Butler Yeats's poem 'The Second Coming'. Black Thought would reveal at the time: "The sound hasn't really changed as much as it has broadened. It's become more refined, and it's more universal...When I say organic, and when I say jazz, I just mean music, like hip-hop music, in its rawest form: no additives, no preservatives, grown from the foundation naturally...We have used sampling on every record. But no record that we put out has been predominantly samples. Most of the time we are sampling ourselves. We will come up with an original move, play it, sample it and then loop it. The fact that we are able to play our own music brings a different flavor into the mix, kind of like the Beastie Boys do their shit, you know what I mean?...When we do samples, we are sampling ourselves. That's how we are still able to say we are 100% live...Things Fall Apart represents the state of music in general right now and how things are stagnant. No, I take that back, I wouldn't say things are stagnant. Things are moving swiftly, but it's in the wrong direction...Let's just deal with hip‑hop: that's my demographic. I make hip‑hop first and foremost. The shit that's coming out that people are calling hip‑hop, music purists wouldn't consider hip‑hop music at all, because a lot of it goes against all ethics of the original art form. First and foremost, hip-hop is about being original. Ninety percent of this shit that I hear on the radio, or at a club, or thumping out of people's cars is some unoriginal shit: formulated, and just recycled and recycled. Nobody is making any more original music, to the point where we are exhausting all of our resources. Everything you hear, you immediately know who originally made the music, you immediately realize that the original record that the music came from was far better. It's a step down, and that's not adding on, that's not bringing shit to the table. The principles of hip‑hop mean adding on like this: I got this dope style that nobody ever used before, or I thought of this shit and I thought of this rhyme, or I thought of how to break the syllables down this way. That is what hip‑hop is about, and that has long been lost. It's about motherfuckers bringing that shit back. So that is what I'm talking about."

'Things Fall Apart' went to ninety-two in the Netherlands, eighty-four in the UK, sixty-four in Germany, forty-one in France, forty in Switzerland, seven in Canada, four on the US billboard 200, and number two on the US R&B album chart.   The album was originally released with five different covers.   Fourteen years later, 'Things Fall Apart' was certified platinum. 






http://theroots.com/





'You Got Me'  features vocals by Erykah Badu and Eve (of Destruction) and was co-written by Jill Scott, who originally did the guest vocals.   MCA Records made the band re-record the vocals with the more well known singers to give it a wider appeal as a single.  The song won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group.  The single went to number forty-six in the Netherlands, thirty-nine on the US pop chart, thirty-seven in New Zealand, thirty-one in the UK, twenty-eight in France, twenty-five in Germany, nineteen on the US rap chart, fifteen in Switzerland, and number eleven on the US R&B chart. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJCHeEQV454

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQm5gNo-5Vo










 'Things Fall Apart' 
full album:

https://myspace.com/theroots/music/album/things-fall-apart-8134786‎



01 Act Won (Things Fall Apart) 00:00
02 Table of Contents (Parts 1 & 2) 00:54
03 The Next Movement 04:31
04 Step Into the Realm 08:41
05 The Spark 11:30
06 Dynamite! 15:23
07 Without a Doubt 20:09
08 Ain't Sayin' Nothin' New 24:24
09 Double Trouble 28:58
10 Act Too (The Love of My Life) 34:48
11 100% Dundee 39:43
12 Diedre vs. Dice 43:36
13 Adrenaline! 44:23
14 3rd Acts. vs. Scratch 2...Electric Boogaloo 48:51
15 'You Got Me' 49:42
16 Don't See Us 54:02
17 The Return to Innocence Lost 58:32