This is my favorite song by the Roots, and one of my favorite songs by anyone ever.
I got curious about it the last time it came up in iTunes shuffle, and did some searching. I was surprised to find out that, so far as I can tell, no one has ever written anything about this song, not in the blogosphere, and not in academic sources.
Here’s my transcription of the first verse and hook. The pitches of Black Thought’s rap are very approximate.
It’s more enlightening to look at a MIDI visualization of the verse:
Here’s a MIDI visualization of the first chorus:
And a MIDI visualization of the whole song:
The track has a modular construction typical of hip-hop, but it sounds like it was (mostly) played live. The piano, bass and strings form a six-bar loop.
- 2 bars: Ebm-Bb resolution in the strings, repeated B-flat in the piano
- 2 bars: repeated B-flat/A-flat cluster in the piano, alternating A-flat and B-flat in the bass
- 2 bars: repeated B-flat/A-flat/G-flat cluster in the piano, alternating A-flat and B-flat in the bass
This six-bar loop cycles in and out of phase with the structure of the song, across Black Thought’s twenty-bar verse, Jaguar Wright’s eight-bar hook, Dice Raw’s sixteen-bar verse, another eight-bar hook, Malik B’s sixteen-bar verse, and then three more eight-bar hooks interspersed with four-bar breaks.
The album credits say that Scratch did “additional vocals,” meaning that the “turntable scratching” was actually done with his mouth. The bass is by Leonard “Hub” Hubbard, drums are by Questlove, keyboards (presumably the strings) are by Kamal Gray, and the piano is by James Poyser.
If you had to write chord symbols on my chart, what would you write? I am stumped. On my first casual listen, I thought I heard an Andalusian cadence: Bbm, Ab7, Gbmaj7, Bbm. But on closer inspection, that progression doesn’t fit all the chords, or the bassline. And there are plenty of other plausible progressions.
If the tune is based on a mode, then it would contain B-flat, D-flat, D natural, E-flat, F, G-flat, A-flat, and A natural. (I also can’t help hearing C-flat, even though there isn’t one anywhere in the tune.) So maybe it’s going back and forth between B-flat harmonic minor and B-flat Phrygian dominant? Or B-flat natural minor and B-flat harmonic minor with a Picardy third? It’s a mystery. In the chorus, on the line “We’ve got it locked,” the vocal harmony has D-flat in it, and the bass and keys are playing D natural. That is hip!
A few years back I tried improvising over some loops of the ending through Auto-Tune, which I set to Phrygian dominant mode with an added minor third. You can listen to the result here. The trumpet samples are by Jesse Selengut.
Here’s a creative take on the harmony from Benjamin Stein: E-flat minor is the tonal center, and most of the tune is on the dominant chord. So when there’s D natural in the bass and D-flat in the vocals, it’s really Bb7#9. I appreciate the creativity of this reading, but in groove-based music, metrical placement and emphasis are king, and those factors make it pretty clear to me that B-flat is home base.
I have so many questions about how this tune came together. It doesn’t sound like it was assembled in a DAW from samples; there are enough subtle performance variations in the piano, bass and drums to indicate that they played it live from top to bottom. But then, are all the cuts and breaks improvised, or were they arranged ahead of time, or created through audio editing? If the tune was written out, what did the charts look like? The album credits say that Questlove played drums and was the “sequencer”, which I assume means organizing things in Pro Tools? If you know somebody in the Roots, connect me to them so I can find out.
Thank you Ethan for this detailed analysis which is very informative, though its way over my head
you mentioned the absence of any pitch-class C-flat
My ears cannot perform the task, but if as you say
the mode includes B-flat, D-flat, D natural, E-flat, F, G-flat, A-flat, A natural
and excludes C-flat then (before we consider the idea of home tonality)
what other pitch-classes are not used in this realization of the piece?
So far, I have not recognised C natural, E natural, G natural (and C-flat)
That is, the eight note scale used excludes the C major seventh notes C – E – G -B
So I would include F-flat, A-flat, C-flat(!) and E-flat as possible key-centres (spells F-flat major seventh)
AS I say, this is before consideration of
—-that in groove-based music, metrical placement and emphasis are king, and those factors make it pretty clear to me that B-flat is home base
The insistent B-flat piano note, then shades to B-flat 7 tones really suggests B-flat as the tonic, myxolydian flavouring, if I can say it that way
Just to state the obvious, the obvious B-flat myxolydian mode which it seems The Roots are grooving in, requires the same pitches as E-flat major, as is suggested by the absence of C-flat
I always assumed the credit for “sequencing,” because it’s for the entire album, is for arranging the order of the tracks on the album. On that track, he’s just credited for drums and keys.
This is also one of my favorite tracks by them, but to be honest they have so many deeply interesting tracks, musically and sonically – e.g. Table of Contents Part 1 & 2 on Things Fall Apart, which sounds shambolic and incredibly precise at the same time. Such talent in that band! I feel so lucky to have seen them live several times.