| Song Listing |  |
(P) 2002 Geffen Records
(C) 2002 Geffen Records
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| | Album Notes and Credits |
Notes & Personnel Info |  | The Roots: Black Thought, ?uestlove, Leonard Hubbard, Kamal The Klanger, Scratch, Ben Kenney. | | Additional personnel includes: Musiq, Nelly Furtado, Cody Chestnutt, Jill Scott, Talib Kweli (vocals); James "Blood" Ulmer, Jeff Lee Johnson (guitar); Sarah Chun, Nuah Vi, Ken Golder, Michelle Golder (cello); James Poyser (Moog synthesizer); Knuckles (percussion); Tracey Moore (background vocals); Alicia Keys. | | Producers include: The Grand Wizzards, Kamiah Gray, Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson, Cody Chesnutt, Tahir. | | PHRENOLOGY was nominated for the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Rap Album. | | Includes DVD disc. | | The Roots: Black Thought, ?uestlove, Leonard Hubbard, Kamal The Klanger, Scratch, Ben Kenney. | | Additional personnel includes: Musiq, Nelly Furtado, Cody Chestnutt, Jill Scott, Talib Kweli (vocals); James "Blood" Ulmer, Jeff Lee Johnson (guitar); Sarah Chun, Nuah Vi, Ken Golder, Michelle Golder (cello); James Poyser (Moog synthesizer); Knuckles (percussion); Tracey Moore (background vocals); Alicia Keys. | | Producers include: The Grand Wizzards, Kamiah Gray, Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson, Cody Chesnutt, Tahir. | | PHRENOLOGY was nominated for the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Rap Album. | | Personnel: Jill Scott, Talib Kweli, Black Thought (vocals); James Blood Ulmer, Jef Lee Johnson (guitar); Nuah Vi, Sarah Chun, Michelle Golder (cello); James Poyser (strings, Moog synthesizer); Kamiah "Little Klang" Gray (keyboards); Omar Edwards (ARP synthesizer); Ahmir Khalib Thompson, Rahzel (drums); Nelly Furtado (background vocals). | | Audio Mixers: Jason Goldstein; Tom Coyne; Jeff Chestek; Ahmir Khalib Thompson; Richard Nichols; Ben Kenney; Bob Power. | | Recording information: ?uest's Fruits And Berry Ranch (06/2000-09/2002); A House Called Quest, Illadelph, PA (06/2000-09/2002); Battery Studio, NY, NY (06/2000-09/2002); Electric Lady Studios, NY, NY (06/2000-09/2002); Encore Studios, Los Angeles, CA (06/2000-09/2002); Enterprise studios, Burbank, CA (06/2000-09/2002); Motive Studios, The Studio (06/2000-09/2002); Sony Studios, NY, NY (06/2000-09/2002); The Studio, Illadelph, PA (06/2000-09/2002). | | Illustrator: Tom "Evil Prints" Huck. | | Unknown Contributor Roles: Ahmir Khalib Thompson; Malik B.; Alicia Keys; Mos Def; Ursula Rucker; Omar Edwards. | | The easy-flowing Things Fall Apart made the Roots one of the most popular artists of alternative rap's second wave. Anticipated nearly as much as it was delayed, the proper studio follow-up, Phrenology, finally appeared in late 2002, after much perfectionist tinkering by the band -- so much that the liner notes include recording dates (covering a span of two years) and, sometimes, histories for the individual tracks. Coffeehouse music programmers beware: Phrenology is not Things Fall Apart redux; it's a challenging, hugely ambitious opus that's by turns brilliant and bewildering, as it strains to push the very sound of hip-hop into the future. Despite a few gentler tracks (like the Nelly Furtado and Jill Scott guest spots), Phrenology is the hardest-hitting Roots album to date, partly because it's their most successful attempt to re-create their concert punch in the studio. ?uestlove's drums positively boom out of the speakers on the Talib Kweli duet "Rolling With Heat"; the fantastic, lean guitar groover "The Seed (2.0)" (with neo-soul auteur Cody ChesnuTT); and the opening section of "Water." The ten-minute "Water" is the album's centerpiece, a powerful look at former Roots MC Malik B.'s drug problems that morphs into a downright avant-garde sound collage. Similarly, lead single "Break You Off," a neo-soul duet with Musiq, winds up in a melange of drum'n'bass programming and live strings. If moves like those, or the speed-blur Bad Brains punk of "!!!!!!!," or the drum'n'bass backdrop of poet Amiri Baraka's "Something in the Way of Things (In Town)" can seem self-consciously eclectic, it's also true that Phrenology is one of those albums where the indulgences and far-out experiments make it that much more fascinating, whether they work or not. Plus, slamming grooves like "Rock You," "Thought @ Work," and the aforementioned "The Seed (2.0)" keep things exciting and vital. If this really is the future of hip-hop, then the sky is the limit. [The two hidden bonus tracks are "Rhymes and Ammo," the Talib Kweli collaboration that appeared on Soundbombing, Vol. 3, and "Something to See," another techno-inflected jam.] ~ Steve Huey | | Beloved by both the critical intelligentsia and hardcore hip-hop fans, the Roots have made their mark straddling the worlds of rap and soul while being one of the few acts to mine beats and rhymes with the aid of live instrumentation. The three-year gap between 1999's studio effort THINGS FALL APART and 2002's PHRENOLOGY is ended with a platter's worth of hip-hop manna spiced up by guest appearances that lean more toward organic collaboration versus cynical marketing manipulation. Head MC Black Thought leads the charge as he manages to wax poetic about the drug problems of running buddy Malik B on the irresistibly funky "Water" (featuring riffs by guitar great James "Blood" Ulmer). Among the guests who meet this creative high water mark are Talib Kweli (the crisply delivered "Rolling With Heat"), Nelly Furtado (the sweet and sharp "Sacrifice"), and fellow Philly fanatic Jill Scott (the soulful "Complexity"). Lucky fans who pick up the limited edition version of PHRENOLOGY get treated to a bonus DVD featuring live footage of "The Ultimate" and "Double Trouble" taken from the MTV2 $2Bill Show. |
Engineer: Jim Bottari; Steve Mandel; Robert "LB" Dorsey; Carlos "Storm" Martinez; Jeff Chestek; Jon Smeltz |
Musical Guests | | Musiq Soulchild | | Cody Chesnutt | | Jill Scott | | James Blood Ulmer | | Amiri Baraka | | Nelly Furtado | | Talib Kweli |
| | Compilation Appearances |
| | Associated Artists and Works |
| | Technical Info | | Release Date : 11/26/2002 | | Original Release Date : 2002 | | Catalog ID : 112996 | | Label : MCA Records (USA) | | Number of Discs : 1 | | Studio/Live : Studio | | Mono/Stereo : Stereo | | SPAR Code : n/a | | UPC : 00008811299620 |
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| | Professional Reviews | | Rolling Stone (12/26/02, p.108)
- Included in Rolling Stone's "50 Best Albums of 2002"Rolling Stone (12/12/02, p.94)
- "...Strikes a very funky balance between righteousness and humor, between headbanging grooves and truth-telling..." Spin (1/03, p.71)
- Ranked #16 on Spin's list of 2002's "Albums of the Year" - "...This fast, funky, fuming album bears as much relation to 'jazz rap' as a Hyundai Elantra does to a muscle car..." Spin (p.102)
- "[T]he band play furious, funky, and abstract with aplomb." Q (01/01/04, p.80)
- Ranked #19 in Q's "The 50 Best Albums of 2003" - "[A] widescreen vision that suggested the Beastie Boys at their most eclectic..." Q (01/01/04, p.80)
- Ranked #19 in Q's "The 50 Best Albums of 2003" - "[A] widescreen vision that suggested the Beastie Boys at their Uncut (2/03, p.86)
- 3 stars out of 5 - "...[They have] a willingness to push the envelope of their organic jazz rap that leaves the competition standing..." CMJ (12/9/02)
- "...The group adds yet another genre to a growing list of covered sonic territory that already includes Jazz, Soul, Funk and Blues: the blazing first full track, 'Rock You,' says it all..." Mojo (Publisher)
(1/03, p.73)
- Ranked #6 in Mojo's "Best Urban Albums of 2002" |
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| | Bio | | | The Roots Come Alive
by Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson, The Roots
So here it is folks. In all its flawed glory. The album you’ve been begging us for. We don’t like to see this as a “Greatest Hits” package nor as the definitive “Live Record” (yes, there will be Vol. 2, 3, 4, etc.) actually quite the opposite. When listening to the final tapes, we found out that the best songs were actually the ones with flaws in ‘em: Scott Storch (who filled in for a dormant Kamal in Paris) forgetting his cue on the 2nd verse of “Proceed”, or the tomfoolery of a very ancient “Esaywhuman?!??!!!”, Rahzel’s singing on “Silent Treatment” (“y’all sound drunk” quipped Black Thought), or BT’s sudden James Brown outburst that threw us all for a loop on “Adrenaline”. Those are the highlights that stuck out during the past year of recording.
As you know by now, touring is our bread and butter. And since we do it so much (250 nights a year are spent devoted to the road), I think that’s what gives us an advantage when performing. Well actually it’s not, even though the combined age experience for all 7 of us (Rahzel is still a Root) is 90 years. I think when it comes to elevating Hip-Hop, all should be required to start in the Hip-Hop equivalent of the mailroom which is.......the streets?
Well, not quite......see, the reason we opened this record with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5, Live at the T-Connection, 1979 is because when you hear these tapes they are an abundance of education. Because back then you had to work harder. There were no videos, no press, and no radio for these artists. Skill was the name of the game and back then you had to do everything: dance routines, wardrobe, freestyling, the dozens, cut, scratch, and most importantly, MC. Today’s star has it quite easy. All it takes is a cameo, a hit single, and a half hour (shame on y’all). Believe it or not, we paid the same dues as the greats we emulate.
Even though we were a group, in name only, back in ‘87, by the time ‘92 rolled around we were seeking a higher level for which we could stand out and get noticed. Enter South Street, the cultural melting pot of illadelph. It’s there we learned how to rock crowds. It wasn’t enough to just do the routines that we jammed the night before. We had to go above and beyond the call of duty. That meant: freestyling (as in off the top of the head last minute look ma no notebook) in which Tariq might occasionally show off by lining people up in a row and freestyle about their hair, shoes, and the color of the shirt they had on. Sometimes it almost got rowdy, when rival crews would try to heckle you in the crowd, only to get served off the top of the dome and embarrassed in the process. That’s the schooling we got that allowed us to go to that next level: clubs.
Now it’s at clubs in which we learned to read the audience. As in there are some things you learn to do for one particular crowd that you don’t do for another crowd. Some club owners who might be frightened off by the Hip-Hop title might ease up since they know that we are serious musicians. Not saying this is right. (I actually hate the fact that we did shows with local rock bands that would destroy their equipment, throw shit around, etc., and we couldn’t get hired unless our manager tagged us as an “alternative/jazz group”. Of course once on stage we would show our true colors.) Yet and still it was the summer of ‘92 that prepared us life as we know it now.
The last element of the show is the sonic delivery. I’m proud to say that we have the prime “sound designers” in the business. Before Richard “Dix” Nichols and Kenyatta “Kelo” Williams our sound was dry and nondescript. Simply because sound men didn’t view their job as an art (well except maybe Pink Floyd’s sound guy and Mario C., who hooks the Beastie Boys sound lovely). The aim here is to give the crowd a complete sound experience. As in make the drums sound as crisp and close to the original sound source as possible, have the bass vibrate the room to the ppppoint in which everyone in the room holds their stomachs, and flying keyboards in 3-D. So yeah, there is no standard for live show mixing in Hip-Hop......well ‘til now. And the document is in your hands.
-Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson, The Roots
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