The Roots

The Roots is as fluid and amorphous as the hip hop culture that spawned it, ever-shifting and ever-changing. The influential and critically acclaimed septet has won numerous accolades for its jazz-influenced, eclectic approach to hip-hop, including two Grammys and a 2007 NAACP Image Award, and its audiences are as diverse as its music, playing everywhere from Lollapalooza to the Montreux Jazz Festival, from Lincoln Center to The Apollo Theater.

The group is known for its complex and politically aware lyrical content ranging from violence and its consequences to the crime, poverty, guns and drug culture plaguing its hometown of Philadelphia.