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Kyrie Irving’s myriad of off-court works are pretty well-documented. While he tends to keep a low profile away from the court, Irving is known for using the platform he’s been given as a professional athlete to help improve the lives of others — the progress made by the K.A.I. Family Foundation, purchasing a house for George Floyd’s family in the aftermath of his murder by a police officer, the support he’s offered to numerous folks in marginalized and indigenous communities, etc.

Earlier this year, the KAIFF teamed up with the Paani Project, an organization founded by students at the University of Michigan, to bring a solar-powered water plant to the Rohal village of Tharparkar, a district in Pakistan’s Sindh province. A video posted by Paani’s co-founder, Sikander “Sonny” Khan, shows the struggles faced by people who live in the district, with one woman saying following the instillation of the plant that the organizations did not give them water, but instead, “it has given us a new life.”

In response, Irving received praise from the United States consulate in Karachi.

“It’s a cliché to me at this point because I’ve done it so much, but we take water so much for granted here, and just the little ripple effects of it,” Khan tells Dime. “If you’re over there, you literally spend a quarter of your day at times going to fresh water, and the water you’re getting isn’t even healthy. It’s not safe. But you still have to get it, because water is a necessity for life.”

This necessity is behind the work Paani does. From raising $600 via bake sales at Michigan during its first year as an organization in 2017 to where it is now, the organization is dedicated to bringing fresh water to people who live in areas where the lack of access could mean someone lives or dies, or can contract an illness by drinking what is available. As of this writing, the organization is on the verge of installing its 5,000th water system in its four years of existence.

Last month, one of those wells came via a partnership with Irving’s foundation. Khan loves basketball and viewed Irving as the kind of person with whom he wanted to work — even beyond the fact that he’s a fan of Irving as a basketball player.

“I saw that there was a lot of synergy between our mission and their mission,” Khan says. “They care so much about empowering women and children in communities, both local and abroad. I looked at their incredible track record of work, and I felt like there was an immediate connection between the impacts we were trying to create.”

He sent out an email to the KAIFF, and while Irving was tied up with the ongoing NBA season, Paani worked with the organization’s executive director, Tyki Irving.

“At the time, I was trying to think, could we have done this with anyone else?” Khan wonders. “I love all these other dudes, but I just feel like it was very out of reach to find somebody else that has that compassion for humanity, that extends to everyone.”

The well was installed on July 19. The list of things it’s able to do is longer than the list of moves Irving is able to bust out when he’s toying with a defender. It’s built in a place where it’s accessible to everyone in the community, making it easy anyone who wants to drink, clean, cook, or anything else. This does not just mean humans, as cows and other animals in the village use it as a way to nourish themselves.

Because they’re generating all of this via solar power, that energy’s also harnessed to provide light and electricity in things like community centers, schools, and mosques. At night, this light, along with hand lights Paani was able to provide, helps the populace avoid issues with things like snakes that might be harder to see when it’s dark out. Next to the solar water center, Paani set up a farm and provided seeds and instructions on how to grow things like tomatoes.

Within a few days of the project being announced at the end of July, Khan says the organization, which didn’t put out a release announcing the well, was able to raise $100,000 thanks to the coverage that came by way of Irving’s involvement. Paani does reports on a quarterly or six-month basis, meaning there’s still a bit of time before they return to the village and see exactly how things are going, even if they can make guesses on how things have gone in the aftermath of other projects.

The most important thing, though, is that the two organizations came together to make something incredible happen for a community that desperately needed it. The woman in the village’s quote about how the well gave them a new life takes on an extra level of significance in light of a report from the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration that July was the hottest month in recorded history. The effects of climate change impact all of us, but for those with scant resources, things are accelerated.

As such, when asked to reflect on that quote, Khan can’t help but think of the way we take access water for granted while others aren’t afforded that luxury.

“People go into the most rough conditions to grab [water],” Khan says. “And then even the water they’re drinking is not safe for them to drink, but what else are you going to do at that point? And so now, it’s not only saving them so much time for all the traveling, from all the risks that come with having to collect the water, but now it’s like, okay, you can dedicate your time to things like crafts, you can use the water that’s over there to invest into farming, and that also helps you combat so many other issues, whether it be self-ownership, or whether it be the hunger crisis over there. Because in that particular area, there’s hundreds of children every single year who died because of a lack of food.

“And so now, if you’re able to grow a farm, that helps that helps prevent any sort of issues when it comes to like, okay, where are you going to get your next meal?” he continues. “Okay, now you have water, you have your needs to provide fruit, tomatoes, things like that. So it provides so much and I think that statement encapsulated it so well.”

As for the well itself, it’s not the only one Paani has installed with a basketball tie — another one, also located in Pakistan, is named after Irving’s old teammate with the Cleveland Cavaliers, LeBron James. Khan is a huge fan of James and Kobe Bryant, and has long considered himself a fan of the Lakers, but he’s also a fan of Kevin Durant and appreciated Irving even before joining forces with the KAIFF. With the two teams being the favorites in their respective conferences to compete for a championship in 2021-22, Khan predicts that his loyalties “probably” will be tested.

But as of now, he has an idea of which way he’s leaning.

“It’ll probably be Kyrie and the Nets,” he says.

Toronto outfit Goodbye Honolulu first came up on my radar after the internet exploded when Selena Gomez was spotted at one of their shows. As it turns out, this wasn’t just some sort of gimmicky fluke — the truth is, there are few bands more purely infectious in their songwriting and stage presence than Goodbye Honolulu. The band’s forthcoming debut self-titled album is due out in October, and was produced by Ben Cook (Fucked Up, No Warning, Young Guv) and Tony Price (US Girls, Slim Twig, Ice Cream, Michael Rault).

Ahead of the release, they sat down to talk Spinal Tap, The Clash, and Jimmy John’s in the latest Indie Mixtape 20 Q&A.

What are four words you would use to describe your music?

Jacob, Fox, Max & Emmett.

It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?

We’d like to still be excited about creating music, to have it be exciting for the listener as well as ourselves and to have it be ever changing. We’d like to continue to blur the lines between musical genres and just keep experimenting.

What’s your favorite city in the world to perform?

Our hometown Toronto of course, but we’ve had some amazing times in Washington, DC, and New York is awesome and has an amazing energy to it.

Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?

I don’t think we’d be able to choose just one artist. But any friends we’ve ever played a show with or have worked with closely have always inspired us greatly. I would also add each other… since day one we’ve all been extremely influenced by each other’s writing, style and general outlook on the world. We are family and are all super close.

Where did you eat the best meal of your life?

Jimmy John’s have been an integral part of touring life and have been great friends to us out on the road. Jimmy John’s 4 Life.

What album do you know every word to?

Probably a Beatles record or like any early 2000’s music.

What was the best concert you’ve ever attended?

Best concert we’ve attended would probably be any of the shows we played with Hinds, when we toured with them. Their live shows are so much fun, so positive and just such a party. They are legends forever. Endless love & respect to them.

What is the best outfit for performing and why?

A suit with some speeders on.

Who’s your favorite person to follow on Twitter and/or Instagram?

Social Media is fake.

What’s your most frequently played song in the van on tour?

Our most played tour van song is definitely just listening to hours of creepy podcasts.

What’s the last thing you Googled?

Creepy Podcasts.

What album makes for the perfect gift?

The Clash – London Calling

Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?

Haunted Air Bnb in Gatineau, Quebec.

What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?

Fox has a Goodbye Honolulu tattoo & Emmett has Rock & Roll on each knee cap, given to him by Fox. Those ones are special.

What artists keep you from flipping the channel on the radio?

We love anything Broncho puts out. They’re a super cool band.

What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you?

That’s a big question.

What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?

Just keep going. Don’t give up, even when it feels overwhelming and difficult. Just keep pushing through and believe in your art or whatever you’re pursuing.

What’s the last show you went to?

Our last show we went to was the last show we played on tour with The Beaches in our hometown of Toronto at The Danforth Music Hall in February of 2020, two weeks before the world went into lockdown.

What movie can you not resist watching when it’s on TV?

Spinal Tap.

What would you cook if Obama were coming to your house for dinner?

We’d get him some Jimmy John’s or maybe some Gyros’ from Messinis in Toronto.

Goodbye Honolulu is out October 1. Pre-order it here.

Known for the deeply DIY ethos and biting commentary in her music, Illuminati Hotties‘ Sarah Tudzin is gearing up for the release of her next LP, Let Me Do One More. So far, the musician has previewed the effort with the fiery “Mmmoooaaaaayaya,” the Buck Meek-featuring “Uvvp,” and the sun-soaked single “Pool Hopping.” Now, Tudzin has enlisted the assistance of another indie rock favorite to remix one of her Let Me Do One More songs.

Tudzin tapped Bartees Strange, whose 2020 debut LP Live Forever was one of the best of the year, to rework “Pool Hopping.” The new version of the song takes the original up a few notches as Bartees Strange adds dimension with his complimentary vocals and jaunty guitar.

Speaking about the remix in a statement, Tudzin applauded Bartees Strange’s talents. “There is no one at this whole dang pool party that could give a better spin on ‘Pool Hopping’ than Bartees Strange,” she said. “I’m so honored to have found a collaborator and friend in Bartees. Also I’m thrilled that he said yes to adding his style so we can all celebrate ‘Pool Hopping’ Summer for just a little bit longer.”

Listen to Bartees Strange’s “Pool Hopping” remix above.

Let Me Do One More is out 10/1 via Snack Shack Tracks/Hopeless Records. Get it here.

St. Vincent’s current era has been all about the ’70s, whether she’s performing Daddy’s Home songs on late-night TV or in her videos. That carries on in her latest visual, for the title track. In it the visual, which currently is exclusive to Facebook, St. Vincent, all done up in era-appropriate garb, sings the song on the back of a flatbed truck as she makes her way through town.

St. Vincent previously told Apple Music of the song:

“The story is really about one of the last times I went to go visit my dad in prison. If I was in national press or something, they put the press clippings on his bed. And if I was on TV, they’d gather around in the common area and watch me be on Letterman or whatever. So some of the inmates knew who I was and presumably, I don’t know, mentioned it to their family members. I ended up signing an autograph on a receipt because you can’t bring phones and you couldn’t do a selfie. It’s about watching the tables turn a little bit, from father and daughter. It’s a complicated story and there’s every kind of emotion about it. My family definitely chose to look at a lot of things with some gallows humor, because what else are you going to do? It’s absolutely absurd and heartbreaking and funny all at the same time. So: Worth putting into a song.”

Watch the “Daddy’s Home” video here and revisit our review of Daddy’s Home here.

Daddy’s Home is out now via Loma Vista. Get it here.

Sonny Chiba, the Japanese actor and martial arts legend who appeared in American films like Kill Bill Volume 1 and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, died on Thursday from COVID complications. He was 82 years old.

Chiba “studied under karate master Masutatsu ‘Mas’ Oyama and earned a first-degree black belt in 1965,” according to Variety. “In 1984, he received a fourth-degree black belt. He also held black belts in ninjutsu, shorinji kempo, judo, kendo, and goju-ryu karate.” He began his acting career in the early 1960s, while his breakthrough international hit came in 1974 with The Street Fighter. The hyper-violent film, and its sequels Return of the Street Fighter and The Street Fighter’s Last Revenge, caught the attention of a young Quentin Tarantino, who references Chiba in True Romance; he also played swordsman Hattori Hanzo in the first Kill Bill movie. Chiba had another fan in Hollywood in Keanu Reeves, who met his hero while doing promotion for John Wick: Chapter 2.

I believe this tweet put it best: “The whole clip is so f*cking adorable.”

“This clip of Keanu meeting his hero Sonny Chiba says it all. RIP to a true legend. You will be missed, Sonny,” Talk Film Society associate editor Sam Van Haren tweeted. The footage is from 2017, but it resurfaced following Chiba’s death for being so pure and lovely. “Oh my goodness I’ve never seen this before. Amazing to see how starstruck Keanu was. Sonny Chiba’s legacy runs through much of today’s action movies,” one quote-tweet reads, while another notes, “Keanu is arguably the greatest living action star and he’s marking out on Chiba like he just met Santa Claus which is how you know that dude was one of the best ever.” The tributes continued to roll in:

Here’s some of Chiba’s finest work:

(Via Variety)

To be a woman and a professional athlete is to be a walking protest.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged by the female icons that populate every major sport right now. And yet, it’s something the stars of the WNBA embrace, unreservedly. The league made headlines in 2020 for using the insular and isolating experience of playing in a pandemic-triggered “bubble” to regroup off the court with athletes and entire teams connecting on the issues that mattered to their communities. They earned praise for championing social justice issues and enjoyed a spike in both ratings and media attention paid to their in-season play thanks to the hashtags and warm-up tees, the hoodies they sported, and town halls they hosted during a year that challenged us on a societal level with lockdowns and contested political elections and a widening divide of our shared ideals.

But to truly appreciate the work names like Maya Moore and Candace Parker and Nneka Ogwumike have been doing, we need to look much further back than just one year. Laying the blueprint for intersectional activism on the court has been a decades-long movement, one that’s made this particular moment possible. After all, affecting real change is more of a marathon than a sprint, and the WNBA has been running the game for a long time.

From The Beginning

The “96 Effect” calls back to the year the Olympic Games put women’s sports on a pedestal. Watching American women achieve podium-level success in their respective sports — from soccer to softball, and yes, basketball — fueled a desire to see those same athletes spearheading league play. The gold-medal-earning performance of the women’s national team translated in the regular season with the creation of two female-fronted associations: the WNBA and the ABL, or the American Basketball League.

It’s the latter that set the stage for the kind of activism we’re seeing in today’s players. The ABL — which folded after two seasons of failing to compete with the marketing power and sizable funding from the WNBA’s main backer, the NBA — managed to infuse its players with a sustainable passion for advocacy. The ABL was built on the radical idea that, in order to attract talent, teams would have to pay players what they were worth.

“The ABL was so far ahead of its time as far as what the players are talking about now: equal pay, health benefits, being treated with respect and more,” Valerie Still, who started with the ABL’s Columbus Quest before moving to the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, told Sports Illustrated.

The ABL offered higher salaries, better healthcare, maternity leave, and more necessities that the NBA didn’t deem their sister league worthy of, at the time. But even more importantly, the ABL gave players a voice, consulting with them on everything from how teams were marketed to what their uniforms looked like, schedules, stock options, and more. When these players eventually joined the WNBA, that sense of autonomy over their athletic career couldn’t help but evolve into a desire for control over how they used the platforms afforded to them by the game to affect real change.

Taking A Knee

Before Colin Kapernick sacrificed his professional football career to draw attention to police violence against Black and Brown bodies, the WNBA was forming their own protest courtside and weathering the backlash for it. In July of 2016, Minnesota Lynx team captains Rebekkah Brunson, Maya Moore, and Lindsay Whalen got together to discuss how their team would respond to the recent shootings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. They decided to wear t-shirts, ones that read “Change Starts With Us” on the front and “Black Lives Matter” along with Castile and Sterling’s names on the back during their next warm-up. Four police officers involved in security at the game walked out. Later, teams like The New York Liberty, Indiana Fever, and Phoenix Mercury would sport similar t-shirts, drawing attention to the Black Lives Matter movement. The teams were slapped with financial penalties, each player was fined hundreds of dollars, the WNBA’s official stance was one of passive censure. And yet, the players persisted. More importantly, they banded together, challenging the league with their collective commitment most sports federations have little experience in managing.

While big-name athletes like Kapernick and LeBron James bravely stood up to champion social justice movements, they did so largely on their own. Few of Kapernick’s fellow NFL stars knelt in solidarity with him, just a handful of major NBA icons donned shirts emblazoned with Eric Gardner’s final words, “I Can’t Breathe.” Their solitary protests were easier to dismiss, excuse, and attack because they were simply a target of one: one “bad apple,” one disgruntled player, one overpaid athlete who just needed to “shut up and dribble.” But the women of the WNBA, who were used to working as a team in everything, from forming their own league to fighting for better pay, knew that linking arms and kneeling together was an optic the federation had no excuse to ignore. So that’s what they did.

Teams playing against one another on the court, like the Liberty and the Indiana Fever, presented a united front away from the paint, staging media blackouts and holding press conferences where they refused to talk about basketball in lieu of discussing social justice initiatives. In 2017, the Los Angeles Sparks walked off the court in support of BLM. Eventually, the league rescinded its fines, caving to the pressure, and sparking a new era in sports activism, one that saw executives, managers, and owners working with players to reshape their sport’s relationship with values-driven movements.

Championing PRIDE

The WNBA is one of the world’s most diverse sports leagues and that sense of responsibility to inclusion runs deep, especially when it comes to the causes teams decide to champion. In the early 2000s, the LA Sparks became the first team in any pro sports league to market to the LGBTQ+ community. Around that same time, Sue Wicks decided to publicly come out and used the media interest in her relationship status to condemn the league for only promoting the personal lives of straight players. Her courage led to other stars, names like the legendary Sheryl Swoopes, to also come out, forcing the WNBA to start paying attention to its large and dedicated queer fan base. It took a long time for the association to listen, but eventually, every team in the league began hosting Pride events and supporting nonprofit initiatives supporting the LGBTQ+ community.

When the Pulse nightclub shooting happened, teams once again wore warm-up shirts addressing gun violence while players like Breanna Stewart auctioned off her game-worn shoes, with the proceeds benefiting victims of the shooting. Now, with stars like Layshia Clarendon, the league’s first out nonbinary athlete, leading the charge, the WNBA is using events like this year’s Pride month to focus on inclusivity when it comes to transgender and nonbinary athletes, partnering with Athlete Ally to host league-wide educational sessions on allyship and selling Pride-based merch with profits going to GLSEN, an organization that works to end discrimination, harassment and bullying based on gender expression, sexual orientation or gender identity.

The Bubble and Beyond

That long history of speaking up and speaking out for their communities culminated with a historic 2020 season that earned the WNBA an unexpected amount of press that focused on the feats its players were performing off the court. The WNBA Bubble brought 144 players from 12 teams to Florida to quarantine together, to play ball, but to also recommit to their shared ancestry of activism and influence. Before the season began, the league launched its own Social Justice Council made up of players and WNBA leaders, whose sole purpose is to find ways for the association to address issues ranging from gender inequity to racial bias, systemic injustice, and LGBTQ+ discrimination.

The council dedicated the league’s 2020 season to the “Say Her Name” campaign, a movement meant to draw attention to the unjust killing of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman killed by Louisville police officers in March of that year. Players on every team wore warm-up shirts and donned Taylor’s name on their jerseys. The league had the phrase “Black Lives Matter” etched onto the court. Some athletes who skipped the season, names like Maya Moore and Renee Montgomery, and Natasha Cloud, did so in order to continue serving in their own communities, fighting to free those who had been wrongfully convicted and remain on the front lines of social justice reform.

When Atlanta Dream owner and then-US Senator Kelly Loeffler spoke against the movement, her team worked with political advocates to endorse her opponent.

“We don’t do it because it’s trendy,” LA Sparks power forward and WNBA Players Association president Nneka Ogwumike said of the Bubble’s activism. “We educate ourselves and we try our best to do what we can to push the dial, to be on the right side of history and to make progress, so all we ask is for everyone else to do the same.”

That progress continues despite the uncertainty brought on by a lingering pandemic that continues to devastate the communities of some of the league’s top players. For their most recent season, the WNBA laid out a series of social justice initiatives that include tackling anti-transgender legislation, the fight for voting rights, and public health. In April, the league donated $25,000 to the Black Women’s Health Imperative, supporting their mission to help protect and advance the health and wellness of Black women and girls. When vaccine hesitancy amongst Black and Brown communities became a threat to public health initiatives, the WNBA stepped up once again, becoming the first pro sports league to reach a 99 percent vaccination rate amongst its players as stars like A’ja Wilson and Layshia Clarendon appeared in public service announcements encouraging Black women to get their shot.

And the league itself has committed to systemic change, particularly when it comes to partnerships with prospective sponsors. The WNBA Changemakers is a first-of-its-kind collective aimed at redefining the relationship between investors and the athletes they sponsor. They’re making a commitment to working with values-driven businesses whose messages align with the league’s history of activism in the hopes that athletes will no longer feel they have to choose between making a living and standing up for their personal beliefs.

These initiatives and policy changes aren’t just positive press fodder. They’re not praise-seeking charitable efforts or a way to pit female athletes against their male counterparts. They’re just the continuation of a progressive foundation that was laid decades ago, a legacy the women of the WNBA honor every time they step out on the court and step up for what matters.

They’re proof these icons, like the ones that came before them, are on the right side of history … and it’s time other leagues took note.

Peacock has officially transformed the classic arcade game Frogger into a new competitive game show (from Holey Moley producers Eureka Productions) that’s ready to jump onto your TV. In the first official trailer, host Damon Wayans Jr. introduces the massive real-life set that will force contestants to contend with everything from moving vehicles, flooded streets, and precariously floating lily pads as they battle their way across the street for a chance to win $100,000.

“Frogger will feature a variety outrageous obstacle courses or ‘crossings,’ including Frog City, Candy Frog Land, Frogs in Space, Frog Skull Island, Ribbit River and Toad Temple,” according to a press release from Peacock. “These physically demanding challenges will see contestants dodge treacherous traffic, leap over snapping gators and hop over hungry hippos to conquer the course.”

Here’s the official synopsis:

A worldwide phenomenon since its introduction by Konami in 1981, Frogger has remained one of the most classic and beloved video game franchises of all time with a library spanning more than 30 titles across various platforms. The show FROGGER brings to life this popular franchise and supersizes it on an epic course! Audiences and contestants alike will be transported into a wild, whimsical FROGGER world, filled with all the simple but challenging elements of the mega-hit from Konami.

Frogger will stream new episodes every Thursday starting September 9 on Peacock.

Phoebe Bridgers has released three new remixes of Punisher standout “Kyoto” courtesy of Glitch Gum, Bartees Strange, and The Marias. Check out the Bartees rework — which sounds more like a straight-up cover — above.

“I wanted to find a way to make this song hit in a completely different way, but still retain some of the big and small moments that make the song special to me,” Bartees said. “At first I was thinking through how I could use the stems, but the more I got into it the more I wanted to take it somewhere else entirely. Crushing tune, glad I could mess around with it.”

Meanwhile, Glitch Gum morphed “Kyoto” into a wild, hyperpop ride, complete with Auto-Tuned vocals and crashing choruses. “All I know is one day, when I was in between Zoom classes last fall, I thought, ‘Man, what if Phoebe Bridgers did hyperpop?’ That idea turned into a 30-second snippet of ‘Kyoto,’ which turned into a full song, which turned into working with Phoebe and her team to make this little quarantine project come full circle in ways I could never even fathom,” Glitch Gum said. “It was so fun deconstructing the musical realms of both Phoebe and I and combining them into something that filled the hyperpop-indie-crossover-shaped hole in my brain. I am just really happy with how it turned out and forever thankful for Phoebe, her friends, and their continuous support.”

Things calm down somewhat on The Marias’ version, which presents as more of a mid-tempo chillwave affair. “I remember seeing Phoebe years ago at an open mic here in Los Angeles, and I knew right off the bat that she was really special,” The Marias said in a statement. “Working on this remix was a sort of full circle moment for us. ‘Kyoto’ is an amazing song as-is, so with the remix we were just curious to see what it would sound like with the vocal slowed down and adding some of our favorite synth sounds behind it.”

Listen to all three “Kyoto” remixes above.

Punisher is out now via Dead Oceans. Get it here.

There’s a kind of intimacy that comes from hearing someone recount the odyssey of their life. Subtle sways in tone that give away the emotion behind a certain beat in the story. 7 Years (which you can hear on Audible), by Tariq Trotter, aka Black Thought, delivers on that promise as we learn about the hip-hop icon’s childhood, the emergence of The Roots, and his many influences — both in music and life. But it’s not an obvious choice for anyone to be this open and introspective.

In this expansive interview, we spoke with Trotter about opening up, his guiding philosophy about control and flexibility, anxiety about joining forces with Jimmy Fallon, his influences, and not forcing music history onto a younger audience.

What’s the motivation behind going deep and telling your story like this? Is it a want to be more deeply understood or is it more about doing a personal excavation?

I think it was initially about being more deeply understood, but as you embark on that sort of project, different layers sort of reveal themselves during the process. So there’s definitely a certain degree of self-discovery that takes place, which is the beautiful part. For someone like me who hasn’t been as accessible as I am in this moment in time… I’ve shared personal stuff about my past and my family in Philadelphia and The Roots early on in our career and stuff like that, but I’ve never gotten too deep into any of it. So there’s something to be said about just sort of getting things off your chest and off your shoulders and just being able to lift some of those weights and to be more transparent. I was able to be vulnerable, on the 7 Years project, in ways that I’ve yet to in my music.

Why do you think you haven’t been as open in the past?

I’m a guarded person by nature, and I’m sure some of it has something to do with the time and place from which I come, but, you know, it’s a habit. I feel like it served me, it served me fine throughout my career to not necessarily be in the forefront, to not necessarily share that much information about my personal life. That’s the way that I’ve moved, so it was a decision that I made earlier on. [But] I feel like, at this point in my career, it’s sort of the final frontier. If you asked someone who’s a long-time fan and who has supported us over the years, what they’d like or what would be ideal for them in a project… which I’ve done, and people tell me, “I would just like to know more about you. About the person.” So, it’s a delicate balance because I am still very private, but yeah, I feel like this is sort of the ideal time to open up in that way.

I subscribe to a lot of what you were saying about the need to be flexible and kind of realizing our smallness against the forces of nature, the wind, as you use as a metaphor or the waves. When did you kind of land on that as sort of a bedrock principle with the need for reinvention every seven years and that need to be flexible?

I don’t even know that I had it when I was coming up, as much as it was something that dawned on me as an adult. I would say, in recent years, it’s something that I came to understand. Before then, it’s something that I always felt but never really could put my finger on why I felt that way. I wasn’t able to make sense of it until more recently, I would say.

We all have this healthy ego and we see ourselves as this indestructible force, but to have that ability to step aside and realize that we’re not and we need to kind of just try to hang on to as much as we can while surviving is really fascinating to me.

I agree. You know, when you think of things like the overview effect, and how that affects astronauts who leave Earth’s atmosphere and go out into space, it can be overwhelming for some. It depends on sort of how you’re prepared for it mentally. It could be overwhelming or it could be… It’s definitely life-changing, from what I understand, but it could be just this huge, more of a revelation when you sort of come to understand… not only the role that we play here on the planet but just how small of a cog the planet Earth is in the machine that is the universe. I feel like there are parallels in just the level of acceptance that you need to exercise in order to sort of come through, come out on the other side of it, without losing your mind. I think it’s comparable to that.

It seems clear that you guys were looking at the Fallon job as a clear pivot, but when you went into that situation, did you envision that it would be that much of a commitment and this long-term of a thing?

No. I don’t think we had a complete understanding of how much of a commitment we were getting into, or how long of a run it would be. I feel like so much has happened over the past 12 years. Then I also feel like 12 years has sort of gone by in the blink of an eye. I don’t think we had any clue. We also had no idea how we were going to sort of navigate all our other endeavors and sort of balance that stuff out. Would that sort of be the end of one version of The Roots and the beginning of another? Obviously, yes, on some levels. Would we sort of lose ourselves in the process? That sort of remains unknown. You have to sort of watch it unfold in real-time.

It has been a blessing working on The Tonight Show and just working in the capacity of a comedian and just being in front of an audience every day and being on TV every day has only made us better. I think it’s made us sharper, it’s made us a tighter unit as a collective, just a higher level of artistry and brotherhood and everything that sort of goes with it. I feel like it’s definitely the best decision, but we couldn’t have known at that point in time.

Being more home-based during that time, as opposed to traveling as much — how do you think that’s influenced you? From the albums that you’ve recorded during this time to even this project, because I would guess that you could say that maybe you wouldn’t be as willing to be accessible if you hadn’t had that exposure constantly with Fallon. Is that fair to say?

Yeah. I think that might be fair to say. There’s a certain level of reinvention, reintroduction, like reminder introduction that takes place when you have a long career working in one capacity and then you pivot in the way that we did. I’m constantly trying to sort of … I mean, not that I’m frantic about it, or something that happens on as much on a conscious level as it does on a subconscious level. To a certain extent, I am just trying to balance the identity that people sort of know me as. You know what I mean?

Yes.

There are folks who weren’t familiar with The Roots before we came to NBC, who only know me as Tariq from The Tonight Show. They think I’m funny and they know I’m quick-witted and I can improvise songs on the spot. They don’t really know or understand the journey, or realize that from which The Roots sort of come. Then there are people who were diehard Roots fans from day one, who don’t necessarily know this person. They’ve gotten to know the person that I am or what my identity has become on The Tonight Show. Just like trying to balance that out is something that happens constantly. It’s a continuous thing. So, you just go from one end of the spectrum, and just as soon as you’ve sort of balanced out everything on that end, you need to return to the opposite end to restore balance down there.

Were you worried about that kind of situation when you jumped into this job, the idea of people only knowing you from The Tonight Show, not knowing how deep The Roots music goes? Also, are you surprised at how comfortable you’ve become with the knowledge that “Okay, some people know me for this, some people know me for that”? Where was your headspace then versus now?

I definitely feel it was a concern in the beginning. We had worked very hard, and we had made very many sacrifices, even at that point in our career, which ’07 was when we first met Jimmy. ’07 or early in ’08, something like that. Yeah, we had already made so many sacrifices just to maintain a certain level of integrity and to maintain a certain bar that we set with the brand. Yeah, it was definitely a concern. I was concerned that we were starting from ground zero again in very many regards. So there was that. Over the years, I have sort of been … I’ve surprised myself, just with my evolution… as a storyteller and as a musician and as an actor and as a comedian and TV personality, costar. Being able to sort of step up to the plate in all the different regards. I surprise myself. Sometimes I got to jump back and kiss myself. [Laughs] No, I’m just playing.

This project also has the benefit of being able to take some of those fans that only know you from The Tonight Show and introduce them to the deeper complexity of your work and The Roots.

Absolutely. I think this project is able to function as the perfect sort of bridge on either side. For people who may have thought, or may have had a certain impression of what it’s like to be on a TV show, or ways in which my life may or may not have changed, I think I sort of paint an accurate picture. You know? And it serves as a bridge.

The situation with Questlove and with DaBaby where DaBaby said he didn’t know who Questlove was when responding to the criticism Questlove laid out there: hearing something like that, how does that make you feel?

I mean, I’m fine with it. You know? I don’t know. I can’t say that he’s not telling the truth. You know what I’m saying? Of course you know who Questlove is. Everyone doesn’t. You know what I mean? Some people work with musicians, producers… There are people who work in folks’ homes who the people whose homes they’re working in don’t know their names. So I can’t just assume because he’s been on The Tonight Show and because Questlove played drums for him that he’s familiar with him. I don’t know if someone knows Questlove or not. It doesn’t really matter to me. I feel like there are bigger fish to fry, especially in the world and in this moment. I mean, it is what it is.

This came to my mind when I was listening to 7 Years. The detail you bring to the conversation about all the artists that influenced you and the really broad coalition of sounds that you exposed yourself to… To me, when someone says that kind of comment, they’re kind of telling on themselves if they say they don’t know who somebody is. Is that a fair assessment?

I think it’s a pretty fair assessment. I mean, you know, the younger generation, just younger people, younger artists, for them, and I might be completely off on this, I can only speak to the way it seems or the way it feels. It doesn’t feel, to me, like paying homage to the foundation and to where the music sort of came from, to the old school, is as important to younger artists or the artists of today, as it has been over the years or as it’s been to me personally or to as important as it is and always has been to people from my graduating class. You know what I mean?

Yes.

I have children in their 20s. And I’m an artist, and I’m their father, and I don’t know that they’re… They’re not up on the legacy, the history, what made me want to do want it is that I do. This person influenced this person who influenced me. I mean, I don’t impress it upon my kids, but I don’t impress it upon them because they’re disinterested. They could care less. I don’t hold that against them. It’s just one of those things. The world has changed. People have changed, and what their concerns are have evolved to something completely different. Sometimes, I try to understand it, but more often than not, I just give up and I just accept that I don’t understand it and won’t. [Laughs]

At the end of the day, all you can do is what you’re doing, which is talking about your influences, putting those names out there, and drawing a map for people to find if they want to go down that path. Right?

Exactly. But it’s a delicate balance. I don’t want it to be preachy. I want it to feel like if you want to go down that path. I don’t want to have you reluctantly taken down that path against your will all the time.

You can download Tariq Trotter’s ‘7 Years’ on Audible by going here.

Beyonce-approved pop R&B duo Chloe X Halle are reunited now that Halle has completed filming Disney’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid and to commemorate the occasion, the Bailey sisters appeared on matching covers of Flaunt magazine earlier this week. Posing in Fendi in contrasting water/fire-themed shoots, the sisters drew outsized reactions on social media when they posted their respective photos — including from peers like Lil Nas X, who had a raunchy, borderline-NSFW compliment for older sister Chloe and her shoot.

Responding to Chloe’s tweet posting a pair of fiery stills from her cover story, Nas — who may be attracted to men but apparently isn’t above handing out thirsty comments on women’s sexy pics too — wrote, “no disrespect but u need yo ass ate for this because wow.” Far from being offended by the fresh reply, Chloe responded with a string of emojis and a “thank you boo.” Judging by the replies in the thread, their mutual fans were bemused by the comment, considering Nas’ orientation, which he made pretty explicit in his recent “Industry Baby” video.

Both artists are currently working toward releasing new projects; while Lil Nas X is nearer each day to releasing his debut album, Chloe has been teasing her first solo single, “Have Mercy,” sharing a pre-save link this week.