Questlove recently spoke with Common and Pete Rock on his Questlove Supreme podcast, and the conversation yielded something The Roots fans have been waiting for since the group’s latest album, 2014’s …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin: News of a new album.
During the episode, Questlove said of the upcoming project, “I know the exact date I want to release it, and it’s not 2024, but it’s a seminal 2025 date that will make sense once it comes out.”
Worth noting is that 2025 will mark the 30th anniversary of The Roots’ Do You Want More?!!!??! (which was released on January 17, 1995), as well as the 15th anniversaries of How I Got Over (June 22, 2010) and the collaborative John Legend album Wake Up! (September 21, 2010).
Quest also spoke about how Common and Pete Rock’s 2024 joint album The Auditorium Vol. 1 has inspired him and Black Thought (Tariq Trotter) to finish their upcoming album. He said:
“I will say that it’s made Tariq into… the motherf*cker wrote seven songs in one day! We have not done that since our second album. […] I was like, ‘Yo, dog. You ain’t going to believe this, but Rash [Common] and Pete made the perfect summit meeting record. No person’s outshining the other person.’ […] I was just going off about it and I could tell I planted a seed. But then, I think after the Hollywood Bowl performance that we did, […] I think that lit something under Tariq.
I mean, I can say in the last two weeks, he’s knocked off at least 80 percent. […] I mean, back in Do You Want More?!!!??! days, ‘Riq would write, like, six or seven songs in a setting. This album is definitely […] it’s probably what he’s working on right now as I speak. It’s inspiring.”
Check out the full episode above.