After 28 years of relentless jamming, touring and recording, hip hop collective The Roots were been inducted into the Philadelphia Music Alliance Hall of Fame at a ceremony earlier this week.
With a back catalog spanning ten albums, not to mention the huge legacy they’ve left as an important, culturally aware and musically brilliant group (including casually picking up the #7 slot in About.com’s top 25 Hip-Hop groups of all time), all we can say is… IT’S ABOUT TIME.
The Roots have remained one of the most prominent and relevant hip-hop groups in the world since their breakthrough record Things Fall Apart in 1999, then cemented by the sprawling, political Illadelph Halflife. More recently, the group have achieved a far wider spread of recognition when they signed on as the house band for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
It was therefore fitting for Fallon himself to make an appearance, trekking down from New York to induct the band.
Fallon paid tribute to the band, remarking how, “they defy genre, and they can play any kind of music.” He went on to state that, “they are such an amazing band for the show. There is no other band on TV or in the world for that matter that comes close to them, and they can do anything.”
Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Thompson and Tarip ‘Black Thought’ Trotter also spoke, on behalf of the band. Trotter noted that “…what better place to be immortalized…than on Broad Street, Philadelphia’s main artery. Our equator. Our Mason-Dixon Line, so to speak. It’s from these streets that we came, and now back to these streets that we return.” Watch both speeches courtesy of Rolling Stone.
The band were inducted alongside Billy Holiday, The Tramps, Andrea McArdle, Harvey Holiday and Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel.
The Roots will play a one off concert in Dublin on November 7th before returning to the States for a short run of shows to close out the year.