The Roots – “Stomp/Lighthouse”

I have a special relationship with The Roots that I don’t have with very many artists, much less of the hip-hop variety.  They were the first “rap” that I ever listened to on my own.  Purchasing Game Theory from F.Y.E. when I was in high school is still fresh in my memory; I can remember how excited I was to get my hands on it with my friends who were more interested in the new Seether, or something else pretty terrible.  I jammed out to The Roots in a way that I’d never done before with this particular genre – they were essentially my gateway.  It also helps that they’re from my hometown, and I’ve not only seen them perform live, but also just walking around the streets of Philadelphia.  They’ve always been super down-to-earth; one with the neighborhood and people.

College would come and go, and I eventually found myself swept with the overwhelmingly positive message of How I Got Over, an album that helped me relate to – and in some small senses, help – teens in a juvenile correction facility while I taught there.  The band followed me from the classroom to the professional workplace, so their work was always a cause for excitement.  They’re as much a part of my life as Brand New, mewithoutYou, Manchester Orchestra, and all my other favorite “indie-rock” bands.

So when The Roots turned around only one year after How I Got Over with undun – my favorite album of theirs, and arguably among my top 5 hip-hop records ever – I was downright ecstatic.  The duo of ‘Stomp’ and ‘Lighthouse’ always went hand-in-hand; in fact I always felt that they should have simply been combined into one epic song.  ‘Stomp’ delivers upon its name: it’s a guns-blazing, straight fire rap track the features an incredibly motivating spoken intro: “It is your time / It is your hour / It is your moment / Go take it!”  The beat of the song alone is enough to make you want to charge into battle, and then Greg Porn’s added verses in the second half of the song only pour fuel on the fire, with clever one-liners like “Daddy should’ve let me be a stain on the bed sheets” and “I’m an evil genius when it comes to this dumb shit.”  At just over 2 minutes long it’s not much of a standalone decade moment, which is why I elected the song that it seamlessly bleeds into as well.

‘Lighthouse’ – for all intents and purposes a continuation of ‘Stomp’ – grapples with the death of the narrator’s friend as well as his own suicidal thoughts, combining those themes with the catchiest hook on undun.  Dice Raw infuses the track with a beautifully melodic, forlorn chorus of “no one’s in the lighthouse / you’re face down in the ocean”, and while the lyrics certainly get a lot better than that, it’s hard not to hum along as it replays in your head.

On the heels of an album as forward-looking as How I Got Over, “Lighthouse” bears a jolting contrast.  It’s frustrated (Only one person gets hurt when throwing the punches / Me /And the man behind the glass just laughs ), tired (The waters carried me so far you can’t reach ‘em / And it feels like there’s no one), and overtly bleak (What it do is done till you dead and gone / The grim reaper telling me to swim deeper / Where the people go to — lo and behold, the soul keeper).  The thing about The Roots has always been that no matter the hopeless depiction – whether it’s violence, poverty, or in this case death/suicide – they always present a sliver of hope.  My favorite line has to be when Dice Raw raps, “A feeling comes into my heart I start believing that / I actually might survive through the evening.”

The Roots are often overlooked in the hip-hop scene, and perhaps rightfully so (they’re 11 albums into their career, not exactly new or exciting at this point), but they remain steady producers of excellent albums, a model on how to age gracefully for some of the young guns out there.  The Roots shouldn’t – and won’t – be forgotten on my watch.

Read more from this decade at my homepage for Sowing’s Songs of the Decade.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5JjmQsvmmmOBFnUjP7FLu4