To this day, I still attest that the jam sessions The Roots held for 32 weeks at Highline Ballroom in NYC were the best string of concerts the band has done in their entire career.  For further proof, here’s our exclusive audio recording of The Roots jammin and tearing through incredible renditions of Table of Contents and 75 Bars, with some help from Vernon Reid (from Living Colour), Truck North and Yoshi Takemasa (from Antibalas).  We’ve also embedded some great footage below of the performance courtest of Okayplayer and Noisemaker Media.

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Questlove and Tony Allen drumming on stage together?  Talk about a dream concert… then add in the rest of the incredibly talented ensemble that comprised the Afro-Picks Big Band and you have something truly special.  Described as “a journey through African funk: past, present & future”, Questlove teamed up with the Red Bull Music Academy to co-curate a special concert dedicated to the immense impact of African funk and soul on modern music.  The unique show was a selection of tracks played by the Afro-Picks Big Band, which featured Tony Allen & Questlove on drums, Macy Gray, Black Thought, Mamani Keita, Amp Fiddler, members of Antibalas, the David Murray Big Band, Damon Bryson (of The Roots), cast members from Fela! the Broadway musical and more.  Needless to say, if you like good music, say Yeah, Yeah and listen to this epic show.

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Order in the court!  “Indictment” is easily my favorite Antibalas song, and this is the best live version of it I have heard.  Stu Boogie goes bonkers and eventually stage dives into the crowd, all while special guest DJ Rich Medina is choppin it up on the 1s and 2s.  Check out more from this amazing night of The Roots vs. Antibalas as we previously posted here.

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Armageddon has been in effect, go get a late pass…. step!  This time around the revolution will not be televised.

You ready to go back to ’88?  The Roots held their 2nd annual festival, aptly titled The Roots Picnic, at Festival Pier in their hometown of Philadelphia this weekend.  There was a lot of buzz leading up the event, mainly surrounding Public Enemy’s performance of It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back in its entirety backed by The Roots and brooklyn-based afrobeat legends, Antibalas.  After their incredible performance of “Bring Da Noise” on the Jimmy Fallon show backed by the same bands, we knew this was going to be a special performance…. and that it was.  Since we’re still not ready to relaunch TheRootsLive.com just yet, we’ll unveil some exclusive audio of the performance right here at All The Way Live.  Here are the performances of “Terminator X To The Edge of Panic“, “Don’t Believe The Hype” and “Night of The Living Baseheads“.

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Yo, Black Thought, why don’t you show ‘em what kind of rhymes you got, money!  The Roots continue to absolutely destroy shit at NYC’s Highline Ballroom at their weekly residency.  This past week was the 10th installment of The Jam (aka The $10 Bill Show or my personal favorite, The Dimebag Show) and The Legendary jumped into a cover of Kool G Rap’s classic “Road To The Riches” and killed it.  How many other emcees are out there covering classic hip-hop like this and not missing a beat?  Other guest musicians on this performance are Maurice Brown on trumpet, Dave Fiuczynski on double-neck guitar, Ray Angry joining James Poyser on keys, and Yoshi Takemasa & Marcus Farrar of Antibalas holding down the percussion.

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While we continue to prep the relaunch of www.therootslive.com we have been given the blessing from Okayplayer to start posting up some highlights from The Roots’ weekly jam sessions right here, exclusively on AllTheWayLive (we’ll flesh out the content a bit more over at TheRootsLive when we relaunch later this year).  In the meantime, at the 4th installment of the jam series, the legendary kicked off one of the most ridiculous versions of Men @ Work ever performed.  The afrobeat was out in full force as Yoshi Takemasa and Luke O’Malley of the almighty Antibalas squad joined the mix, as well as ‘Moist’ Paula Henderson on baritone sax and Vernon Reid on guitar to lay down the vibe while Jaleel Bunton (TV On The Radio) and James Poyser joined Questlove on the drums (yes, 3 dudes on 1 drum kit) to bang out a ridiculous groove.  Kool G Rap has to be smiling somewhere right now.

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