Jay-Z and the Roots go way, way back. In 2001, when Jay-Z taped his MTV Unplugged special, and he tapped the Roots to serve as his backing band. The result was awesome. When the Roots switched over the the “NY State Of Mind” beat during “Takeover“? Come on. Incredible. It was a striking connection between rap’s highest level and its Soulquarian edge back when those two worlds rarely overlapped. A couple of years later, Jay gave the Roots a kind of backhanded compliment on a mixtape track: “You gotta believe, I think like a artist/ But my bills through the roof, can’t do numbers like the Roots.” Questlove has written that he wasn’t sure how to take that.
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