Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Ears
Okay, fair comments. I definitely liked The Roots track.
I have never heard of them before.
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They're a good band and sort of the go-to group when people are looking to recommend hip-hop to people who think the entire genre is all about sampling. I think they're fairly approachable from the outside because they have a very noticeable traditional band configuration. It's true that that kind of configuration is rare in hip hop but that doesn't mean the people involved can't, or don't, write and play their own music. It's a genre that's full to the brim with keyboardists for one thing, but there are a lot of multi-instrumentalists out there as well. Take Andre 3000 from Outkast or Tendai 'Baba' Maraire from Shabazz Palaces for example—these are extremely talented multi-instrumentalists who do more writing and playing on their albums than most individual musicians of traditional rock bands. The thing is people involved in this type of music tend to downplay the amount of work that goes into it. It's ironic for a genre that's so often accused of being all about self-promotion, but hip hop musicians pretty consistently work very hard behind the scenes to conceal how much hard work and crafting goes into their compositions.