One of hip-hop’s hardest working rap groups, The Roots found a new recording home in the Jay Z run Def Jam Records, drummer ?uest Love announced Wednesday.

The signing fulfilled a long running dream of ?uest and front man Black Thought.

“You know, back in high school in Philadelphia, when the Roots first started, me and Black Thought just used sit in lunch making our album covers, what they would look like,”?uest said while rehearsing for the VH1Hip Hop Honors awards show. “We would put the Def Jam logo on the bottom. That was pipe dream. Now, some 12, 13 years later, nine albums later, we’re putting out an album and there is gonna be a Def Jam logo imprint on the bottom of it.”

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While the name behind the music is changing, ?uest wants the fans to rest assured that the band will continue to put out music of good quality.

“Of course, for the Roots, the most important thing for us is providing grade-quality, hip-hop connoisseur music.”

Game Theory, the group’s freshmen effort with Def Jam will hit store shelves during the first quarter of next year. Look for guest appearances from Black Star (Mos Def and Talib Kweli) and Saigon.

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”[Game Theory is] gonna be our darkest, craziest record since [2002’s] Phrenology, [1996’s] Illadelph Halflife. This is a dirty, dirty record — a raw-sounding record.”