plain and simple. The Roots are grown men. They should've known playing Nas songs in the middle of Unplugged when Jay was dissing Nas would come back to bite them in the ass. Cats here are acting like that did not happen. They chose to insert themselves into the beef. It would've been a whole nother story if they had just played the music like it appears on the album. They had to put extras on it.

Thought should not have addressed Unplugged the way he did. He sounded defensive / sensitive and trying to downplay the heat the band is taking for what many of their fans perceived as selling out. To say he wasn't there was irrelevant. Success has many fathers, blame none.

Accountablitity as an artist. It is irrelevant if the Roots did the video 7 years ago or 20. Its like Gil-Scott Heron's poem being used in a Nike commercial. Does it matter that the "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" had been done 20 years before? Did that prevent the criticism?

Regardless of the intent of "What They Do" video, which you can see as satire or a diss, A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words. Not everyone even hears the lyrics to a song, but they're going to interpret the images. And its not like the Roots didn't get to see it before it aired. Music videos are the property of the Record Label and they can do whatever they want with the footage, re-edit it, scrap the whole thing. Charles Stone is not Stanley Kubrick and does not get final cut. So to me, for Thought to speak on that sounded like backpedalling too.

Yes, Thought nailed Nas on the Africa thing and that if he had beef with Unplugged he shoulda said, and nobody is blameless. Just keep it real, Roots lovers and haters alike.

peace

Iz