This past Saturday, The Roots brought the best parts of their annual festival, Roots Picnic, to the Hollywood Bowl for a special concert, Love Of My Life. Named after a song from the Philadelphia band’s 1999 fourth studio album Things Fall Apart (which was itself inspired by Common’s metaphorical 1994 storytelling track “I Used to Love H.E.R.”), the concert was dedicated to celebrating the group’s 30-year love affair with this thing called hip-hop. To that end, they recruited a slew of guests from the genre’s Golden Era to join them onstage to perform some of their greatest hits.
Arrested Development, Black Sheep, Common, Digable Planets, The Pharcyde, and Queen Latifah were all billed as performers, but throughout the evening, surprise guests ranging from Black Eyed Peas’ Will.I.Am to an all-star roster of pioneer women in rap, including The Lady Of Rage, MC Lyte, Monie Love, and Yo-Yo, all joined The Roots on the legendary stage. And, as befits any live performance played the Philadelphian ensemble (the most recent of which I have to compare it to was their New Year’s Eve show at the Wiltern in LA just seven months ago), those hits were reinterpreted, remixed, and transformed by the addition of the live band.
When the crew launched Roots Picnic back in 2008, I felt so left out, living on the West Coast. While endless sunshine and pretty people never really gets stale, it did feel a bit like I was missing out on all the best bits of culture taking place in the northeast. As social media became more commonplace, allowed more footage from the festival to enter the public consciousness, that feeling was only intensified. For someone who counts The Roots among his most formative acts, watching Black Thought freestyle for 15 minutes on a phone screen was as exciting as it was disheartening that I couldn’t see it live.
On Saturday, I did. It was glorious. I’ve seen LeBron James play basketball in person in a high school gym in the hood (another of those perks of growing up in LA). I got the same, transformative feeling watching Tariq Trotter, a master of his craft in the same respect, do things very few other earthly powers have ever been able to come close to reproducing. When Common came out to perform “I Used To Love H.E.R.,” to see nearly 17,500 other people rap EVERY. SINGLE. WORD. was akin to a spiritual experience.
The biggest pops, though, were reserved for Queen Latifah and the cadre of hip-hop sistren who joined her for a mini-set that proved that women have always run hip-hop — and always should. Not expecting Lyte, Rage, or Yo-Yo to put in appearances, I was genuinely surprised by the surprise guest appearances. And I was awed. These women, all well into their 50s, hit every bar. The mics were ON. I get why younger artists often look like deer in the headlights at these festivals, but I’m going to recommend that you festival organizers start sending out media packages for study with the booking contracts. This is what it’s supposed to look like.
The night ended, somewhat fascinatingly, with a singalong of Black Sheep’s “The Choice Is Yours.” It was a high point, but there were so many singalong moments that could have been the finale: Thought and Com running through the title track of the evening. Arrested Development crooning “People Everyday,” Will sitting in with Pharcyde for a rendition of “Passin’ Me By,” or the Native Tongues posse cut “Buddy” with more than a few of the original artists in attendance.
The best part of the show was the best part of the Roots Picnic as an event. Getting to see all these pillars of hip-hop together, not just on the same stage performing their own sets, but as a group, playing off each other, enjoying each other’s company and vibing together. That’s the one-of-a-kind experience that makes Roots Picnic one of the premiere festivals throughout the year. Even getting to sample it at an iconic venue like Hollywood Bowl? You can’t beat that with a bat.
