Music & Culture

Black Thought Made You A James Brown Mixtape

8:21pm May 09, 2015

by NPR Staff

Black Thought never met James Brown, but he did play Brown's saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis in the movie Get On Up last year. Courtesy of the artist

Play Pause

There was an error loading the media player.

Right before the 2014 release of the James Brown biopic Get On Up, producer J. Period and The Roots rapper Black Thought recorded an entire mixtape in one take. It functions like a documentary about the Godfather of Soul.

The performance focuses on the importance of Brown's breakbeats and samples to the history of hip-hop. "Had it not been for all of the breaks, I wouldn't be here where I am today — nor would The Roots," Black Thought (a.k.a. Tariq Trotter) tells NPR's Arun Rath.

Hear more of the conversation at the audio link.

Transcript

ARUN RATH, HOST:

Last summer, in New York City, at a rap battle in a club in the Village, a voice from the past came booming through.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE LIVE MIXTAPE, JB EDITION")

JAMES BROWN: Right about here, ladies and gentlemen, it's the moment that all of you've been waiting for. So are you ready for star time?

RATH: That remixed announcement from an old James Brown show came from J. Period. He's a DJ famous for these amazing remixes of classic musicians - basically, musical documentaries that tell you a story about artists like James Brown. But this night, J. Period was performing live with Tariq Trotter, better known as Black Thought of The Roots. As Black Thought rapped, J. Period scratched turntables and played and looped samples, all from James Brown songs.

>>J. PERIOD & BLACK THOUGHT: Look if there's a rapper that can test me alive, James Brown and Elvis Presley alive. Look, I'm the best. I'm from SP, and I know TMI like espionage. Look...

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE LIVE MIXTAPE, JB EDITION")

RATH: "The Live Mixtape (James Brown Edition)" is now available for download. Yesterday, I spoke with Black Thought from our studios in New York.

So do I understand right? This was all done in one take?

TARIQ TROTTER: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

RATH: Wow.

TROTTER: This was one take.

RATH: I should say one 35-minute take because that's - that's a long...

TROTTER: Right.

RATH: ...Untypical take. That's a whole...

TROTTER: Right, yeah. I mean, that's kind of what we do. You know, we come out and we have a loose idea of, you know, where we want to go in the performance. And...

RATH: So had you run through it before? Was this performance that we hear - is this the only time you guys have performed this?

TROTTER: Yeah, this performance, we ran through it loosely right before we did it kind of backstage, which is what we do. Also, you know, I mean, that's what makes our performances together fun and unique. It's something different than what I do when I'm with my band.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE LIVE MIXTAPE, JB EDITION")

BROWN: (Singing) Yet our best-trained, best-educated, best-equipped, best-prepared troops...

RATH: So how did you guys settle on the idea to do a James Brown mixtape?

TROTTER: This particular show took place on the eve of the release of the James Brown biopic "Get On Up."

RATH: And you're in that. You played Brown's saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis, right?

TROTTER: Yeah, yeah. So - yeah, I was one of the actors in that film. It was a no-brainer. You know, as an MC, any excuse to kind of take it all the way back to the foundation of hip-hop, you know, these classic funk and beats and breaks, which many of are James Brown derivative anyway - you know, I just take advantage of that. So I don't really need that much of an excuse. If I'm able to rock over the music that kind of made me want to do what it is that I do in the first place, you know, it's like a heavy - the burden of how the performance is going to go, you know, having to be there in the moment mentally is like a weight lifted off my shoulders. And I know, you know, rocking over some of these breaks, there's kind of no way that I could go wrong.

>>J. PERIOD & BLACK THOUGHT: (Rapping) Gather 'round, gather 'round, clap your hands...

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE LIVE MIXTAPE, JB EDITION")

TROTTER: Breakbeats period are, you know, the soundtrack of my life and so many others artists like myself who came of age in the '80s - late '70s, early '80s - at the same time that hip-hop was coming of age, so to speak. You know, we were familiar with lots of these records when they were just being played in the discotheques or, you know, music that we would hear our parents or older siblings play. And then it kind of became more ours. We began to take more ownership of it when we started - not necessarily even sampling it, but when DJs began to just go back and forth on the funkiest part of the song, like the drum brakes, so that folks could dance, so that, you know, the MC could - I wouldn't even call it rap at that stage of the game - but just so that the MC had a space within which to - to kind of promote the DJ, so to speak. So had it not been for all those breaks, I wouldn't be where I am today, nor would The Roots.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE LIVE MIXTAPE, JB EDITION")

J. PERIOD: (Rapping) Ready?