I can understand the want, and the drive to be on top, but its not in the cards, nor should it be. The roots is far to refined to hold top place on the hiphop charts, its been proven to us over and over only the shittiest catch phrases and poorley assembled personalities can hold down those reigns, for a few months then there gone.

I don't know why you would be concerned or surprised that 95% percent of ppl havn't clicked with the roots, that should be expected, most good music is thrown to the wayside, and if its lucky remember 20 years later for being ahead of its time.

I'm not a hiphop head, im a rocker, i've always been a rocker but the pharcyde and the roots opened me up to hiphop (and i always liked listening to dre in the 90s). Maybe we look at things different, because we were NEVER depressed when one of our favorite bands wasn't in the top 5 or even top 200, as long as they were living (and i believe the roots are living well) I am happy.

Infact to be perfectly honest I think your looking at this the wrong way, the roots are an oddity, the saying "the brightest bulbs burn fastest" is very true, but the roots have found a loophole. Do you think if they had found radio success from their second album they would have put out all the subsequent albums that made them LEGENDARY, i doubt it. They have had something in my oppinion (im not in their shoes so maybe its different)better, longevity.

So to sum it up, longevity>relevance to a SHITTY mainstream community of artist who can to me seem to only find time to rap about how fucking great they are at rapping. You think ppl are going to remember guys like little john as a tallented musician, no they're going to remember him because he was a joke, funny to laugh at. The roots, they will be remembered as musicians, take me to the bank on that.