Black Thought has been considered by many to be among the best emcees of all time, but after his incredible ‘freestyles’ on the Shade 45 Dilla tribute recently, many hip-hop heads bowed down and gave him the crown as THE greatest.  Even Q-Tip was at a loss for words when it came his time to grab the mic.  While this has been floating around the net for a bit, here’s our exclusive mix of the session, with some of the levels raised (including bass) and mastered properly.  I edited out Tony Toca (sorry pal) and everything flows perfectly.  Enjoy raw emceeing at its finest over Dilla beats.

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No one else celebrates the holidays and brings in the new year quite like the good folks at Okayplayer and The Roots crew.  B.B. King’s was home to the 3rd Annual OKP Holiday Jammy last month, which featured sets from the cast of Fela! The Musical, Blitz The Ambassador, Bajah + The Dry Eye Crew and of course, The Roots.  Special guests packed the venue and as usual, the show was phenomenal.  The highlights of the night were guest performances by Mos Def and Brother Ali, who rocked with The Legendary.  Here is our exclusive audio of Mos Def performing Umi Says with The Roots, and even going into some bars of 100% Dundee and Adrenaline (!!).  Next up we have Brother Ali taking the stage to do The Trap, The Travelers and freestyle with Black Thought while The Roots play The Preacher beat.  Robert Glasper, Casey Benjamin and a few other usual suspects help round out the band.

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The Roots & Common made the final stop on their Hennessy Artistry tour in New York City at Terminal 5 last week.  With special guests joining them in each city of the tour, the crowd knew we were in for something special being in the Mecca of hip-hop.  Among the many surprise guests, legendary emcees were in the house as Q-Tip joined The Roots on stage, followed by Queen Latifah to close out the show.  Here’s some fantastic soundboard audio of these moments.

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The Roots and Common continue their limited nationwide, Hennessy Artisrty tour and recently stopped by The Velvet Room in Atlanta.  While much of the ATL hype was centered around the Goodie Mobb reunion show, which was going on the same night across town, The Roots and Common put on hell of a show themselves that was not to be missed.  Boyz II Men made a rare appearance, backed by their old high school classmates, The Roots, as did Amerie and Anjulie.  Check out soundboard audio of Boyz II Men’s brief set as well as some highlights of Amerie and Common’s performances with The Legendary.

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Common hosted a benefit concert in Los Angeles this weekend with an all-star line up featuring tons of incredible special guests.  This was like an unofficial sequel to Dave Chappelle’s Block Party as the line-up of artists was boasted by Common, The Roots, De La Soul, Ludacris, Nas, Kanye West, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, MF Doom, Queen Latifah, Heavy D and more.  If that wasn’t good enough, a mixture of The Roots and Common’s band backed everyone throughout the night.  Our newest addition to the staff, AudioMuse, was in the building to record the event exclusively for ATWL.  You’ll be hearing a lot more from her in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, check out more than a dozen of our exclusive recordings from this incredible event, as well as some video footage from the evening.

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Jay Electronica was one of the featured surprise guests at last nights installment of The Roots’ Jam session.  This is one collab I’ve been anxiously waiting to come to fruition and it did not disappoint.  He shredded the mic off the dome before obliging Questlove’s request to kick some of his rhymes.  Jay is definitely one of the best new emcees to come out in the past decade and stay tuned for highlights of his set from the New York stop on the Ecstatic Tour from this past weekend.

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