Between The World And Black Thought
Black Thought rarely unmasks.
Not even in our in-depth interview, which lasted more than an hour, did he remove the shades that enable him to observe the world — and reflect a bit of its pain – while concealing his own. Yet the story he shared of personal trauma and transcendence reveals so much more.
His moniker, Black Thought, has always been a double-entendre that felt like it belonged to all of us for the way it communicates a collective angst and rage, darkness and genius. For the South Philly-bred co-founder of The Roots, born Tariq Trotter, that nuance is equally reflected in his life and rhymes. It's lent him a depth and duality rare in this age. To find his equal, one almost must look beyond the confines of rap.
Onstage at Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center in April at a dramatic stage reading of Ta-Nehisi Coates' book Between the World and Me, Black Thought delivered a gripping remix of his Harvard University freestyle at the climactic high point of the performance:
Black as oblivion
Black as obsidian
Black as the sky at midnight ante meridian
I am black as a portrait with Diddy, 2Pac and Biggie in
Black as the influence on the culture we living in
When Coates took the stage near the
