Stay Connected
Atlanta Black Star/Local
LocalMusic

The Roots Will Rock Philadelphia This Weekend with Their Annual ‘Roots Picnic’

Posted byBy ABS Contributor | Published on: | Updated on January 3, 2013 CommentsComments (0)

The legendary Roots crew will rock their hometown not once but twice this summer.

The annual Roots Picnic has expanded to two days — June 2nd and 3rd — at Festival Pier on Delaware Avenue.

Now in its fifth year, the picnic is a one-of-a-kind, genre-bending festival that showcases eclectic collaborations from the latest and greatest of today’s music scene.  This year’s two-day festival will feature Wale, Kid Cudi, St. Vincent, Danny Brown, James Murphy, West Philly rapper Chill Moody, hip-hop legends De La Soul, and many more.

The Roots are one of the busiest bands around, and when they are not in the studio or playing shows, they can be seen weeknights as the house band on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.”  They are also Philly 360° “creative ambassadors.”

The Roots were formed in Philadelphia in 1987 by Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter and Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson.  This multiple Grammy-winning hip-hop neo-soul group was once underground, performing on the streets and clubs in Philly and NYC.

Since the band’s first independent album release, they’ve released 10 studio albums.  But commercial success eluded The Roots until their fourth album, “Things Fall Apart,” broke the top ten of the Billboard 200, peaking at #4.

In 2003, The Roots were named one of the “twenty greatest live acts in the world” by Rolling Stone magazine.

Many members of the band have come and gone, but today the Roots consists of Black Thought (MC), ?uestlove (drums), Kamal Gray (keyboardist), F. Knuckles (percussionist), Captain Kirk Douglas (guitarist), Owen Biddle (bassist), and James Poyser (keyboardist).

They have collaborated with a variety of artists like John Legend, Roy Ayers, Marsha Ambrosious, Jill Scott, Cody Chestnut and Erykah Badu.

Previous performers at the Roots Picnic have included Nas, Wiz Khalifa, Esperanza Spaulding, Mac Miller, Little Dragon, John Legend, the Wu Tang Clan, Santigold, Mayer Hawthorne, Elevator Fight, Das Racist, Public Enemy, TV on the Radio, Kid Cudi, The Black Keys, and Vampire Weekend.

To read more, go to Philly CBS

Independent journalism still matters.

We hope this story was worth your time. For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed Black-owned and independently run. We didn't get here by waiting on ad budgets that were never built to prioritize us. Our readers did that.

Corporate support for Black media has always been thin. Outlets like ours get roughly 1% of the $170 billion spent on U.S. advertising each year, and that margin is shrinking further as advertisers walk back the DEI-linked commitments they made in 2020. That's the backdrop. It's not why we're asking.

The wider picture isn't any steadier. Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under, it's rarely the ones built to center a Black perspective from the ground up that get to stick around.

We know a request for support isn't why you came here. But without readers choosing to fund this work directly, the depth of reporting we can do at home and abroad shrinks along with everyone else's. If you're not in a position to give, that doesn't change how much we value you as a reader.

If you are able to, a recurring contribution does more for us than a single one-time gift, because it lets us plan the next investigation instead of just the next invoice. It takes about 30 seconds, no long form, no account. Thank you for continuing to support independent journalism and freedom of the press.

Give once Give monthly Support another way

Related Stories

Back to top