New Music: The Roots ft. Wale & Chrisette Michele – Rising Up
Hip-hop super-blogger Eskay over at NahRight.com is linking to a leaked track from the forthcoming album by The Roots featuring up and coming R&B star Chrisette Michele and D.C.’s Wale over a crankin’ go-go via Philly backbeat courtesy of QuestLove. (Looks like all those shows in DC finally rubbed off on him!)
In the past, Wale has credited the Roots’ Black Thought as one of his influences as an MC, and the admiration is definitely mutual–Black Thought has stated that “Wale is the only new artist he is feeling.” The execs at Def Jam are lining this up to be the lead single for the new Roots album and Wale’s buzz may give them the boost they need. Not to mention that go-go influenced songs by non-DC artists have a great track record. (See Jill Scott, Beyonce, Jay-Z, Salt N Pepa, Heavy-D, LL Cool J…)
Wale layers his in-the-pocket flow about nothing to Quest’s go-go influenced drumming with a tight 16 bar verse that compliments the vocal work of Black Thought and Ms. Michele. Like many a great song by the Roots, Rising Up seems to lament the mainstream hip hop media’s refusal to support their brand of good music and their efforts to correct that.
Here’s to the Roots finally achieving the multi-platinum records sales and radio success that they have been angling for their whole career. Only time will tell, but they may have just lucked up on one of this summer’s D.C. anthems – at least once it gets covered by a real go-go band or two.
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11:20 am
I see the Roots have dropped the song with Fall Out Boy’s singer from the album. It’s just at I-tunes
1:31 am
Ain’t the first time they messed with go-go. Last time I saw them in town, they rocked with RE. They known what’s up.
11:43 am
The roots used to come down to DC in the early 90s and take lessons in show rocking from 3LG. Dont get it twisted. Ask anyone who remembers.
7:43 am
Forreal they only need onne band to hit it and it’ll blow up and I could see RE hittin that joint perfectly but that’ll mostly be for the oldheads, for that song to be rockin for the youngins somebody like BYB or TCB gotta hit that joint cuz no crank band will be able to pull that off right they’ll be to hype.
And It really wasn’t all those shows in DC that got him known, it was when he linked up with Mark Ronson and toured in Europe, doin shows in da city aint shit cuz labels wont look at you regardless but hopefully this will open up the label’s eyes so they can see we got real talent from hip-hop to gogo we aint just a bunch of hood niggas.