How a TV gig turned Black Thought and the Roots into hip-hop icons

When the Roots return to Australia in January for their first tour in over a decade, it’s likely their audience will feature the now rudimentary mix: in one section, the original heads, expertly versed in the hip-hop group’s jazz-inflected jams; in another, the Jimmy Fallon set.

“There’s folks at this point, that’s all they know us as, the house band on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show,” Tariq Trotter, better known as the band’s emcee Black Thought, says from his home in New Jersey.

The Roots’ Black Thought (left) and Questlove. The hip-hop band is touring Australia for the first time since 2013.

For the self-described “Dalai Lama of the mic” – at 53, the picture of hip-hop wisdom, grey beard and all – it’s a welcome development. Miraculous, even.

“We acquired a whole new audience. That’s fun for us. There’s this whole demo that gets to do a deep dive into what the Roots were before late-night TV. It’s all win-win.”

It was during the Roots’ last tour to Australia, amid the heatwave of 2013, that they cemented their decision to continue as the house band for Fallon, who at the time was transitioning from Late Night to the primetime institution that is the Tonight Show.

“I remember we were still trying to figure out the theme song,” Trotter recalls. “That whole time in Australia, at every sound check when we arrived at the venues, we would go over what the possible new theme could be for the Tonight Show.”

Black Thought, with the Roots, onstage at Falls Festival in 2013.Credit: Rachel Murdolo

Those pre-show noodlings morphed into their now ubiquitous opener, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey. Just don’t go requesting it at the band’s shows in January. Their Tonight Show gig is one thing, their Roots shows another. “And never the two shall meet,” Trotter laughs.

Embracing new fans has become a regular exercise in what’s now the Roots’ fourth decade. Formed in Philadelphia in 1987, by Trotter and his high school friend Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, the band became underground darlings in the mid-’90s due to their exuberant live shows and anti-commercial defiance.

Ironically, it was their single What They Do, off their third album, 1996’s Illadelph Halflife – buoyed by a music video that parodied MTV rap cliches – that became their mainstream breakout, a beacon of idiosyncratic integrity in the genre’s sellout era.

Across subsequent albums, including their Grammy-winning Things Fall Apart (2000), Trotter earned a reputation as one of rap’s greatest ever emcees (“hip-hop’s Dostoevsky”, The New York Times called him), a powerhouse of lyrical ingenuity, limitless flows, and socially conscious thought.

In 2017, his 10-minute freestyle on Funkmaster Flex’s Hot 97 radio show went viral, boggling the minds of a generation who only knew him as Fallon’s sometimes foil on TV. The clip has since earned around 20 million views, not including the countless fan-made videos where users colour-code his intricate internal rhymes like they’re doing an English assignment.

It’s the type of video that gets constantly discovered and shared. As one recent commenter posted about Trotter’s performance: “I think he spat more wisdom in 10 minutes than I have in 35 years”.

“But, man, I always do, you know?” Trotter says. “That’s the funny thing; it was a great performance, but it was nothing different than how I’ve always done it. It’s the cloth I’m cut from. Anyone from my graduating class, that’s what we do.”

Last year, Trotter published his memoir, The Upcycled Self, which explored his rough upbringing in South Philly, the murders of both his father and mother, and his Nation of Islam faith.

“It’s my story, the origin story of Tariq Trotter,” he says. “My mother is a huge character in it, the city of Philadelphia is just as big. It starts when I’m about six years old, and it ends when the Roots signed our record deal... I hadn’t really told my story in the music, so this was my opportunity to give some insight into what makes me tick.”

The book also detailed Trotter’s lifelong, and at times strained, bond with Questlove, that other Roots mainstay. Besides the band, the pair also share the production company, Two One Five, which made the Oscar-winning documentary Summer of Soul. They’re currently working on a live-action reboot of Disney’s The Aristocats and a documentary on the influential late producer J Dilla.

They also have a new Roots album on the way, the band’s first since 2014’s heady …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin.

“Music is where it all began, so there’s definitely new music coming, hopefully in 2025,” says Trotter. “It sounds like an evolution. It has a certain level of maturity. We’ve found a new level of sophistication.”

And, no doubt, a new audience ready to receive it.

The Roots, with special guests Talib Kweli and Nai Palm (Hiatus Kaiyote), will perform at Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl on January 1; Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion on January 2; and Brisbane’s Eatons Hill Outdoors on January 3.