Years after The Roots had established themselves as a Hip Hop force of nature, their label MCA folded, leaving them fledging in a shark-infested music industry. During a recent interview for FADER’s Uncovered Podcast, Roots drummer Questlove talked about that uncertain period of their careers and revealed Dr. Dre played a pivotal role in helping them through it.
At the time, Interscope Records founder Jimmy Iovine tasked Dre with deciding which acts would be transferred to Geffen-Interscope. Dre, who later went on to become Iovine’s Beats By Dre business partner, decided to keep just eight acts — including The Roots.
“As promised, MCA imploded and we were kinda left without an island,” Questlove said around the 53-minute mark. “The way that I heard the story went down was Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine had a breakfast meeting. Jimmy basically let Dre control the MCA guillotine. OK, who do we save? Who don’t we save? I remember, eight of us got saved: Mary [J. Blige], Common. I remember our name being last on that list. The way that the email came to us is like that high school musical, you look to see if you made the part.”
But The Roots’ time on Geffen-Interscope wouldn’t last long and Questlove, Black Thought and the rest of the band hopped over to Def Jam Recordings in the mid-200s. With the help of JAY-Z, who was then the president of the iconic label, Roots wound up releasing multiple albums with Def Jam, including 2006’s Game Theory, 2008’s Rising Down and 2010’s How I Got Over.
In the same interview, Questlove talked about being hesitant to work with JAY-Z for fear of being labeled a sellout.
“It’s so weird,” he said. “In 2001, there was still this Hip Hop apartheid, church and state separation thing between artists. Backpackers didn’t take kindly to commercial rappers. Commercial rappers looked at us like broke haters.”
Dr. Dre Returns To The Studio With A 'Detox' Album Update Following Brain Aneurysm
He continued, “What’s weird is for a lot of people, September 11 is the day where a lot of us just self-soothed to The Blueprint by just listening to it over and over and over again, just to get our minds off of what was happening. I hit up dream hampton. I was like, ‘Yo, don’t tell nobody, but I think this Blueprint record… but don’t tell no one.’
“She’s like, ‘Ahmir, you got to let me tell Jay this.’ I said, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ Because to my mind, he’s like, ‘Oh, he’s the devil, commercial rapper.’ It’s like, ‘No, no, no, no, don’t do that.’ She’s like, “Ahmir, I got to get you out your own way. I’m telling Jay this, and you’re going to accept it.”
Dre is currently in the middle of a contentious divorce from his wife of 24 years, Nicole Young, but has been in the studio working on new music since his reported brain aneurysm in January.
Every article that mentions anything about Dr. Dre has to include his pending divorce. Hiphop heads really don’t care about his divorce we just want great stories.
The number of people reading about his divorce beg to differ.
So, Dre once held Venus Lux’s balls in his hands too when he was still married, that doesn’t change the fact that he’s a male and shemale womanizer.
Is this a new dictionary we are writing ? I did not know shemale was a word but I’m going to check because that is interesting . What about girls that want to be men? What would you call that ? And also balls is actually as uncomfortable as saying the word titties. So please be mindful , or do you like Hershey’s chocolate? Because it almost looks like you and the owner of that chocolate have the same idea on compound names for that . Urban dictionary is looking for new words and don’t let anyone else take your credit away. Turn nice to a price that is priceless. By the way I am not being mean just I would expect more positive things on a page especially when we need that right now . Unless you are licensed to talk smack , we shouldn’t do it. And don’t let me a “nobody” say it. Just wanted to put it out there that media literacy is also doing it’s own shadow work and even if it’s a joke , those little jokes seem personal when written and hurt other people you think are nosy and have no business answering well this is what u wanted people to reply right ? I guess I’m the first one . And whoever is the editor to let this happen, should not allow things to get …. messy . Unless they like drama which is why half of the world including talented people suffer because media literacy needs more education. Let’s start turning negatives into positives #correctingliteracyinmedia
Ain’t nobody gonna read that bullshit regardless of what you type. Irrelevant. Especially when you’re trying to it to sound smart. It’s a blog site, we came to read, post, and clown. Deal with it.
Make it
Didn’t he pass away? Why is everyone disrespecting a man who is not here to defend himself . Just saying , I only saw these three comments but ….. if he’s not here and his spirit is alive then…. don’t be scared of ghost writers because if they are writing then of course it’s not a ghost . Love and light
Actually, I don’t read into anyone’s personal life . I will now read more to see about more the lives of artists and the journey they had to overcome . I am not taking sides , however , I do see that negative comments are the only things people can judge and I don’t know again anyone’s personal life, however , the idea of life itself and messages we try to explain and show to others in the best ways doesn’t always come out the way we plan but , people should be talking about ideas and not other people . Also, everyone at one point was the wind underneath someone’s wing and nothing from the heart is ever wrong but malicious things for no reason is something that natural laws of nature, time and space will collect anything it let us borrow , including good things and bad things too because we belong to what created us . Debt is something that we are born with until we leave this earth it’s paid .
WTF does Dre’s divorce have anything to do with this article. You have this whole article about the roots, questlove, DR, Dre, Jimmy Iovine and then at the end; you say…” Dre is currently in the middle of a contentious divorce from his wife of 24 years, Nicole Young, but has been in the studio working on new music since his reported brain aneurysm in January.” Just dumb. Who is the editor?
Thank you. I just wondered the same thing.
DETOX!? So when is it dropping now??
Its funny cos so many Roots fans hate Dre and Jay, even Roots weren’t sure and were stuck in that mindset at that time for a while. Fans are funny lol
After this beautiful story, why end it on a note about divorce?
The guy who wrote this about drebnust have had brain surgery also.