Black Thought

Rapper Black Thought – born Tariq Trotter on October 3, 1971, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – is best known as the lead MC and c o-founder of R&B / hip-hop group The Roots. His early years were tragic – his father was murdered when he was a toddler, and his mother was murdered when he was in high school – and spent some of his youth tagging and dealing crack cocaine. He was adopted by a family in Detroit, Michigan for a short time before returning to his hometown and attending the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts. He then studied journalism at Millersville University. In 1987, he befriended drummer Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Thompson and began performing as a drummer / MC duo. This collaboration grew into a group called The Square Roots, eventually changing their name to The Roots. The Roots released their debut album, Organix, in 1993. The album’s minor success led to 1995’s Do You Want More?!!!??! (1995) and a successful string of albums – Illadelph Halflife (1996), Things Fall Apart (1999), Phrenology (2002), The Tipping Point (2004), Game Theory (2006), Rising Down (2008), How I Got Over (2010), Undone (2011), and …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin (2014). They also recorded collaboration albums with John Legend, Betty Wright, and Elvis Costello. In 2009, The Roots became the house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and moved to The Tonight Show with Fallon in 2014. Black Thought also collaborated with many artists during his career, appearing on records by Common, The Pharcyde, Dilated People, Soulive, Damian Marley, J Dilla, Raekwon, Fall Out Boy, Michael Bublé, Eminem, Public Enemy, and others. In 2018, Black Thought released the EPs Streams of Thought, Vol. 1 and Streams of Thought, Vol. 2, and followed those up in 2020 with the album Streams of Thought, Vol. 3: Cane & Able. Two years later, he released the album Cheat Codes, a collaboration with Danger Mouse. The album featured appearances from MF Doom, Michael Kiwanuka, Raekwon, Joey Bada$$, Conway the Machine, A$AP Rocky and Run the Jewels. The album only reached Number 43 in the US but climbed to the top of the R&B / Hip-Hop charts in the UK.