before they were always the band that you thought was gonna blow up big time. back in the Illadelph Halflife/Things Fall Apart days they had maybe a bigger buzz about them from outside their close circles. but i think when they dropped Phrenology they kind of wrote their ticket to become a group that was content playing their kind of music to their fans. which is fine. i think the relavence you talk about has more to do with the mindstate of the fans than anything a band could do.

Relavence is relative to some idea that music progresses or evolves, becomes more efficient or 'better' as time moves on. but you could also argue that music simply expresses the state of mind that the people are at collectively. like ?uest has said many a times, 'the industry sells image, not music'.

look at outkast. they literally went diamond last time, and yes they've had some internal conflict creatively, but it looks like people have moved on. they're not as interested in outkast no matter how good the music or how compelling their backstory. in american music culture, people move on very rapidly. you're literaly only as good as your last single.

the only act with a similar aesthetic to The Roots that does well commercially is Kanye and he's more known for being a pecuilar person and an anomaly amoungst the regular hip-hop crowd. if you took Kanye's music and put J Dilla's persona to it, he'd probably sell as much as Dilla does.


I guess the disappointment that you allude to in your post is that you thought that ?uest was smart enough to stay ahead of the game. In a sense he has. Has anyone in hip-hop had as much relavence by just sticking to the actual craft of making music as they have had? you might be able to claim the greats, people like Rakim and Nas. And I'll give you that Nas probably sold more albums total, but look at supposed greats like Rakim or even Biggie Smalls. I bet The Roots have sold more albums than Rakim over the life span of their careers. Plus The Roots are still selling out venues across the world. It's like Chuck D says at the intro at the beginning of IH, "will The Roots hit commercial success or will they remain an enigma?" i think they'll always remain an enigma, but there's always a segment of the population that prefers mystery to bluntness. and they'll always have a spot playing shows if nothing else just because of their skill and reputation.