The first show was rocky, though less so than the practice one. The second show was less rocky than the first. But I still wasn’t convinced that we belonged on a late-night TV show. When you’re in a new situation, there’s always a flash of recognition. Sometimes it’s the flash that you can’t handle it. Sometimes it’s the flash that you can. And

And because it didn’t sell as well as either Phrenology or Things Fall Apart, we felt like we had been deceived. Here we were, selling our souls for greater commercial success, except that it wasn’t greater at all.25

It confirmed one of my pet theories about very famous people. If you want to get to know them, don’t bother talking to them; instead, talk to the five people who know them the best. That way, you get a picture of them without having to deal with their overdeveloped defenses.

Quest Loves Records, Part I “When you live your life through records, the records are a record of your life.”™ 1971: Stevie Wonder, Music of My Mind

mention this because we’re at the point in the book where Ahmir is dealing more with the recent past, and while that’s not pitched quite as high as the future, it’s not as low as the distant past either. There’s less perspective and sometimes more of an almost physical discomfort. Losses are felt more painfully, failures still sting, confusion may

realize at the same time how you’ve been defined almost entirely by this tapestry you’ve been woven into for twenty years, and how grateful you should be for that tapestry. It’s a sentimental thing to say that I wouldn’t exist without the band, but sometimes sentimental things are true. I spent years looking for this commune or that one, the jam

I thought it was the best gospel song I had heard in what seemed like forever, but it also sounded like an emo song that was crying out for a Ghostface Killah rhyme. I walked right up to Jim and told him that I loved it and wanted to find some way for the Roots to record it.

a pause that almost refreshes but doesn’t give you quite enough time to answer anything before the drum returns and the flood of questions with it. That’s sort of how life operates.

Game Theory was an illustration of what happened when we planted our feet again. The tour that followed was augmented with a miniature brass band, a reminder of the collaboration with the TBC Brass Band we had envisioned and a kind of memorial to the fact that it was no longer possible.