Black Thought Masterpiece Theater Album Download Roots' Black Thought Busy with Album, Movies
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black thought masterpiece theater album download Roots' Black Thought Busy With Album, Movies. Rapper, who's starring in 'Brooklyn Babylon' and 'Perfume,' is recording solo debut with stable of top producers. Rapper Black Thought of the Roots is in the studio recording his debut solo album, Masterpiece Theatre, which is scheduled for an early summer release on MCA Records. Black Thought (born Tariq Trotter) is working with a number of hip-hop's top producers on the album, which will come from a more conventional hip-hop perspective than the live-instrument approach the Roots have pioneered. ?uestlove, the band's drummer, produced two songs for the album, and is the only member who will appear. "The difference between a Black Thought album and a Roots album is the texture, the instrumentation," the rapper said recently. "The Roots albums are completely live instruments; the Black Thought album is different [types of] production." Among other producers cutting tracks for Masterpiece Theatre — which will feature no live instruments — are Pete Rock; Slum Village's Jay Dee; Japanese trip-hop master DJ Krush, who produced the "teaser" single "Hardware," which came out in November; and Scott Storch, the Roots' original keyboardist, who provided the riff on Dr. Dre's 2000 hit "Still D.R.E." Also behind the boards are Hedrush, who produced several tracks on Dead Prez's Let's Get Free; Rockwilder, who produced the Mos Def-Pharoahe Monch-Nate Dogg collaboration "Oh No," from the various- artists album Lyricist Lounge 2; and Philly's Chaos. Following Roots human beatbox Rahzel's 1999 LP Make the Music 2000, Masterpiece Theatre will be the second solo effort from the Philadelphia crew, which released its fourth album, Things Fall Apart, in '99. (?uestlove recently completed a jazz album titled Philadelphia Experiment with acclaimed bassist and fellow Philadelphian Christian McBride that will be out this spring.) Black Thought is also starting to make moves on the silver screen with his first lead role in "Brooklyn Babylon," directed by Marc Levin, whose highly acclaimed 1998 film "Slam" starred poet/rapper Saul Williams. "Brooklyn Babylon," co-written by Levin and veteran hip-hop journalist Bonz Malone, follows the story of a rapper who falls in love with a young Jewish woman. It was recently screened at the Slamdance Film Festival in Utah, and will be released in theaters later this year, according to a Roots spokesperson. "That’s my demo. I'm tryin' to get some acting credibility, get some other work," Black Thought said. "Right now, it's like a hobby; [rapping] is my day job." The performer will also appear alongside Omar Epps and Paul Sorvino in director Michael Rymer's "Perfume," also due later this year, and had a small part in Spike Lee's 2000 film, "Bamboozled." Black Thought. Tariq Luqmaan Trotter (born 3 October 1971), better known by his stage name Black Thought , is an American rapper who is the lead rapper of the Philadelphia-based hip hop band The Roots. Black Thought who co-founded The Roots with drummer Questlove, is widely lauded for his live performance skills and his complex and politically aware lyrical content. He has starred in films such as Bamboozled , Perfume and Brooklyn Babylon . He recorded a solo album, Masterpiece Theatre , but the project was scrapped when he learned that the album would not count toward The Roots' contractual commitments. However, most of the vocals appeared on The Roots' 2002 album Phrenology . In 2006, he began working on a collaborative project with producer Danger Mouse entitled Dangerous Thoughts , but it is yet to be released. In early 2013, he announced he was working on a solo album entitled The Talented Mr. Trotter , which is yet to be released. He also began work on a memoir with journalist and music critic Jeff Chang. In 2018, he released a solo EP, Streams of Thought, Vol. 1 . Black Thought. As the MC for the hip-hop act the Roots, Black Thought has been unconventional even by the standards of that iconoclastic group. Where most rappers seek out publicity, Black Thought has avoided it and has rarely even been interviewed over the group's 20-year existence. "Some people —they like to talk, they like to interview…," Black Thought pointed out to Paul Farber of Philadelphia Weekly. "I come from a household where it's like, ‘Close that door.’ As soon as the sun goes down and the street lights come on, you close the curtains so people can't be lookin' up into your s-t. I'm that way in life." Despite his reticence, however, Black Thought's creative contributions were central to the success of the Roots and became even more important as the group set hip-hop longevity records in the 2000s and approached their third decade of existence. Black Thought was born Tariq Luqmaan Trotter on October 3, 1972. He grew up in the Point Breeze neighborhood in south Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although he concealed them from public view for many years, the facts of his childhood were grim. His father, a member of the Nation of Islam's Fruit of Islam policing arm, was killed while he was a baby, and his mother was also killed when he was in the 11th grade. Black Thought's brother Keith amassed a long criminal record. Black Thought himself, however, seems to have channeled his reactions into creativity. He started rapping at age nine and won admission to Philadelphia's prestigious High School for the Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA). At first he studied visual arts and thought about becoming an architect. He had an instinct for commercial success from the start—he made African medallions and sold them for ten dollars each to his fellow students. Black Thought had disciplinary run-ins at CAPA, starting on his first day with an incident in which he was said to have been caught in a bathroom with a senior girl dance student, and he was eventually expelled. He graduated from Germantown High School and went on to study at Millersville University and to take journalism courses at Temple University in Philadelphia. By that time he was already a star with a local reputation. "What set Tariq apart was that he had an amazing talent to play the dozens [competitive impro- vised insult rhyming]," fellow Roots member Ahmir-Kalib "Questlove" Thompson told Farber. In 1987 the pair formed a duo called the Square Roots and took their drum-and-rap act to clubs and talent shows. Not needing electronics, they were also free to take their act to the corner of Fifth Street at Passyunk Avenue in downtown Philadelphia, and in the summer of 1992 they earned some $4,000 in tips. The Square Roots became the Roots, took on additional members (bassist Hub [Leonard Nelson Hubbard], rapper Malik B. [Malik-Abdul Basit], and "beat boxer" human percussionist Rahzel), and gained a regional reputation for its live, non-electronic take on hip-hop music. Around 1993 things started to happen quickly for the Roots. They were invited to play at a German festival, recorded an album, Organix, and parlayed the original appearance into a European tour. Word filtered back to the United States, and the Roots were signed to the DGC/Geffen label and released the album Do You Want More. in 1995. The group gained attention for its use of live instruments and limited recourse to such staples of hip-hop language as digital sampling (sometimes they sampled and looped their own rhythmic patterns, but the collage-like aspect of many hip-hop recordings was absent from their music). The Roots won fans among both urban and modern rock audiences. Although the loquacious Questlove was often seen as the group's public face, it was Black Thought (after the departure of Malik B.) who provided most of the text content. His boasting raps reflected his early background in street and club "battle" performance, but there was also an element of social critique in his music. Some of his raps attacked the materialistic and misogynistic qualities of other hip-hop acts. After the Roots continued to gain popularity with the albums Illadelph Halflife (1996), The Roots Come Alive (1999), and Things Fall Apart (1999), Black Thought planned to release a solo album of his own, tentatively entitled Masterpiece Theater. The album was eventually shelved because of disagreements between the Roots and their label (at the time) MCA; a solo Black Thought album would not have counted toward the group's contractual obligation toward the label. Much of the material Black Thought had written, however, showed up on the next Roots album, Phrenology (2002). Black Thought also contributed raps and background vocals to recordings by other artists including the Pharcyde ( Plain Rap ), Common ( Like Water for Chocolate, which also featured several other members of the Roots), and Jill Scott ( Who Is Jill Scott? ). Indeed, Black Thought's continuing development as a wordsmith was partly responsible for the ongoing success of the Roots, long after most of their hip-hop contemporaries had disappeared from the scene. The Roots returned with The Tipping Point (2004) and Game Theory (2006), ranging ever more widely in their subject matter. Black Thought's more serious attitude, Questlove told Peter Rubin of XXL magazine, was the key to Game Theory: " Mostly, this is Tariq's ongoing evolution," he said. "Once you've mastered battling about your MC prowess, what do you do? I think Tariq has come to grips with his life. I slowly see him starting to open himself more and more and more." Partly Questlove was referring to the unreleased but widely circulated track "Pity the Child," on which Black Thought, for the first time, addressed the tragedies of his childhood.