AVC: How did you end up on Def Jam?
?: This was initially going to be the last album of our contract, and in February, I told my manager, "Yo, do you think Geffen is hip to the fact that we most likely won't be renewing the contract once we release this last record?" And he said "Why do you ask?" And I said "Well, okay, if you were Geffen and this album that we were about to turn in was going to be very hard to swallow for some, do you think that they would sort of stall it and let it fail?" And that caused major concern for us, and we talked like, "What if they just let it sink because it's the last album, and they know that we're not going to renegotiate, so they just kill this project?" We didn't want that risk, especially in light of what happened with The Tipping Point—we really couldn't afford two missteps in a row. Coincidentally, our very good friend Sean Carter [Jay-Z] assumed the presidency of another Universal-based label, Def Jam, so we asked and we were able to hook up with him.
AVC: Now that you're on a hip-hop label, do you feel like you have more creative freedom?
?: Def Jam was the logical place to go. For starters, the president is in the same age bracket that I'm in, and he's only an hour and 15 minutes away from me so, if we were upset about something, then we could just drive over there and curse him out in person. It was a very thin line, because it's the Universal label system, and one Universal label head is not allowed to look at the stable of another Universal label head and move the other artists away from whatever situation they're in. We had to approach it with kid gloves, and we felt like if we left out the middleman, then no one was going to miss him. Three months later, we got a deal.
AVC: Doesn't the critical acclaim The Roots have won count for something when dealing with labels?
?: I don't count on that, and I do count on a changing of tides. All too often, what could be a critics' darling today becomes tomorrow's target. I don't want to be too blasé about it. I just wanted to be in a place where we could create and not have to worry about "Is he going to get this reference?" or "Is he going to drop us?" When we played "Star" for Jimmy Iovine, he had never heard Sly Stone's version, he thought it was some new guy.
AVC: You've played a role in breaking acts like Little Brother. Because you have that reputation as a tastemaker, do you have people slipping you demos all the time?
?: All the time. They just want that one quote, but I won't give that quote unless I can't live without that record for even a single hour. When Little Brother came out, that album really, really got me in a good place. It was something that I hadn't heard in a really long time. Those guys are so damn zany. They should be the Animaniacs.
AVC: You were the musical director as well as the drummer for Dave Chappelle's Block Party. When you're doing a show like that, are you able to enjoy the music, or are you too wrapped up in performing to enjoy it as it's happening?
?: I'm able to enjoy it as a spectator. I wouldn't agree to it if it weren't going to be a fun situation. I got to organize the band that I used. Their name is the Illadelphonics, and they're a combination of various session musicians from the Philadelphia area. It wasn't that hard putting it all together, because we'd worked with almost all those artists. It was just fun putting it all together. We just did a project with Jay-Z for the 10th anniversary of Reasonable Doubt, his debut record. He went to Radio City Music Hall and had a 50-piece orchestra play with us. That was more challenging. It was beautiful, but it was definitely more challenging, simply because that's a situation in which you have a brass leader and a string leader and the rhythm-section leader, all having to communicate with each other like a triangle, and then tell their respective teams.
AVC: Do you feel like you're negotiating between two worlds when you do something like that, when you have an orchestra and you have Jay-Z?
?: Absolutely. I love being in between Jay-Z and LP [the London Philharmonic].
AVC: When you do a huge show like Block Party or the Jay-Z Reasonable Doubt concert, do you still get nervous?
?: No, not when you do it 200 times a year. I get nervous more or less for them more than me. For Jay-Z, I was more or less worried that he was going to forget his lyrics, as opposed to me messing up. For the Dave Chappelle thing, I think the real fear was like, "Okay, is Kanye going to slip and bust his ass on the water, or are they going to come in and dry it out afterwards?" It's the miniscule things that you worry about.
AVC: Do you ever get tired of touring 200 days a year?
?: I love traveling the States no matter what. I love traveling abroad, going to Japan and Australia. I love it. I never get tired of it, it's definitely another season of life. It's not like the first time I've been there. However, it would be nice to slow down the activity a little bit.
AVC: You had a public falling-out with D'Angelo. Have you guys reconciled? Do you think you might work together in the future?
?: We've been quietly working on songs for the never-ending album. I think Boston had the record for longest stretch between albums, with nine years. I think this is going to beat that.
AVC: What about Bilal? He hasn't put out an album in a long, long time.
?: There's something about the class of 2000 that's very scary: Erykah, D'Angelo, Bilal, Lauryn [Hill], Dre.
AVC: Why do you think follow-ups have taken so long for them?
?: I think it's just fear, the fear of failure. I think that's all it really is. There's nothing else. What they have to realize is that there's no one else who's going to get these albums released. There's no real reason for artists like Lauryn to hold their albums hostage.
AVC: You talked a little about the commercial pressures of being on Interscope. Is it important for you personally to have another big hit?
?: It's important for our survival, literally. I don't know of any labels that will spend all this money and have diminished returns.
AVC: Have you thought about going the independent route, putting something out on Koch?
?: I have, but this operation is way too big for that.
AVC: Are you at all surprised at how big former Roots keyboardist Scott Storch has become as a producer?
?: That's funny that you say that. My manager had to go to Miami today because Scott called him and said, "Yo, I really need help with this Brooke Hogan project." I was like, "Scott, how did we get from MC Hammer to Brooke Hogan?" I don't know. I think the thing is, it's like Field Of Dreams: If you organize it, they will come. I think this is more or less the difference between Field of Dreams and the Moses story. We built this field, everyone comes to it, but we didn't all get to make it to the promised land, we being the initial proprietors of the field of dreams. I'm not shocked at all. The thing is, Scott has been waiting for his close-up for 10 years, so getting to this level took a lot of practice. And he's building nine hours a day, making music, making music, making music, that's just how he operates.
AVC: Last year, you were in a Motorola commercial with Madonna, Iggy Pop, and Little Richard. Did you film that together, or separately?
?: We shot it on two different stages. Me, Madonna, and Iggy Pop shot ours in London. Everyone else shot theirs a week before that in Los Angeles. Yeah, I was there with Madonna and Iggy Pop.
AVC: How surreal was that?
?: Um… I don't know if I want that much power. When I was walking away, I was like, "Is this what I'm working for, am I busting my ass for this?" It's like, the second Madonna walked in, you could hear a pin drop. Do I want that much power? I don't know. Is that what I want? But you also see the other side of it. I see the, "She's going to be here in half an hour. Everyone get ready!" Everyone's scrambling, scrambling, saying, "Don't look her in the eye!" My girl compared it to The Devil Wears Prada. It was like that. I'm sure that helps her stay in her career, but whew, I don't know if I could handle such fear coming from everybody. It'd kill me. But Iggy, on the other hand, that guy is… He doesn't stop, man. That guy is an incredible cat. Actually, that is the third or fourth time I've got to talk or work with Iggy, so by that point, we sort of knew each other as far as physical features. We'd bonded.
AVC: Is there a collaboration in the works?
?: I wouldn't mind that all. He's an incredible showman.
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