Wake Up! - The Roots and John Legend

The Roots in the last few years have cemented their place in musical greatness, they continue to to evolve their music and appeal to wider audiences. Also, if you've never seen a Roots show live, it is one of the best live bands to see in the world. While some might have thought that deciding to be Jimmy Fallon's late night band would constitute "selling out" they have been a main draw to the show and maintained their spot tastefully. Their last album, How I Got Over, critically acclaimed, probably did not produce those "hitters" from their previous album, Game Theory.


My favorite songs from the album, though, were their forays with indie musicians. Dear God 2.0 is essentially Black Thought rapping over Indie super-group (project) Monsters of Folk's (Jim James, M Ward, etc) hit from last year. Right On is their song with Joanna Newsom (a favorite of Lincoln). They actually recorded a song "The fire" with John Legend.

I remember being introduced to John Legend as a part of Kanye's back-up band in his first College Dropout tour right after his album dropped in the spring of 2004. The various songs that the two of them covered ranged from Milkshake to Doo Wop (That Thing). As fresh and inspiring Kanye was that spring, John Legend almost stole the show. Since then, he's a known strong and soulful voice, but he hasn't put out an album actually since 2008.

But his isn't a review of the Roots' album or all about John Legend (and you can't get away without writing about their individual greatness... I want to focus more on their collaboration.

Together, the Roots and John Legend have decided to make a positive album "Wake Up!" to echo their feelings of a new political reality and are currently touring the United States. This may not be my favorite album of 2010, but I think it stands in the category of "How Did We Overlook this album for so long"

Here's their single "Wake Up Everybody" inspired by Arcade Fire's Wake Up



Some other good tracks:
Little Ghetto Boy
It seems like nothing is forced in trying to modernize old school soul music on this song, which you have to credit the Roots in adapting to John Legend's strengths.

Shine
John Legend's original composition is a great way to end the album.


More John Legend and Roots here. Thoughts?