Black Thought

“It felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders the day I finally finished both verses for 'My Shot.'”

“When I was coming up, a freestyle wasn't a freestyle unless everything was completely improvised, in-the-moment and right there, and you had to incorporate various elements of what was going on in the room on the day.”

“I definitely enjoy performing on stage with The Roots.”

“I feel like Black Thought is a name that has so much meaning and depth, not only to me but to my fans, that it's something that I wanted to hold onto a little bit tighter.”

“I'll read a book. I'll watch a documentary or a film or whatever. I'll go to an art exhibit and just try and open myself to influence.”

“Questlove and I - we were in high school with artists like Boyz II Men and Amel Larrieux.”

“I'm not driven by the spotlight and I'm not that outgoing.”

“I like that the hard-core ruffians, the street thugs come up to me and say, 'Man, you killed it with Adele.'”

“What we do every day onstage, there's lights, there's lots of other musicians, there's an audience, there's a microphone and mic stands - layers of the onion we have to kind of hide behind.”

“I started as a visual artist and I've always dealt with music in that same sort of way.”

“I grew up in the neighborhood where 'Rocky' came from.”

“Everything we've ever done has been for artistry's sake, and for the greater good and paying homage to those who came before us and paving the way for those who come after us.”

“I made the mistake of going to a barber who was not from Philly, and let's just say, I would never do that again.”

“We always do kinda like the bare bones representation or variation of the voice and drums, which is what we feel is the foundation or backbone of rapping and hip hop.”

“The first rhymes I wrote, I was 9. It was Kool Moe Dee-style.”

“The thing that's carried over from my visual-art education into what I do musically is my openness.”

“'Rise Up' is very necessary. Point blank.”

“I think poor folks are the only people who cannot afford - financially and otherwise - to be sick.”

“Something that is funny, that I use sometimes if I'm doing comedy, is the fact that I'm now often mistaken for the rapper Rick Ross. And I don't know that I've ever corrected anyone - like I've never said, 'No no, I'm not Rick Ross, I'm Black Thought from The Roots.'”

“Although there are people who regard 'Do You Want More?!!!??!' as our first major release, I think 'Things Fall Apart' was the real arrival of The Roots, so to speak.”