Every since I first saw The Roots “Do You Want More?” album cover, something about it has always seemed like “a visual sample” of Romare Bearden’s “Pittsburgh Memory”. Although I am not quite sure that the structure over the head of the character on the right in Bearden’s collage is a bridge, but it is definitely some type of city infrastructure that suggests the same type of feeling from a visual standpoint.
As I think about Bearden’s eye, I think it is safe to say that he and The Roots have/had their eyes/ears/bodies steeped in the concerns of “the folk” , the everyday people that poem beauty and ugliness into song that sings on canvas, stage, page, tongue, arm, leg, leg, arm, head, whatever…
What I enjoy most about The Roots, whether or not i totally dig the album from a musical angle, is that their albums always give me something to think about as an entire package, cover, liner notes (those Major Jackson joints were the bomb), song titles, ideas in the songs, etc, etc…and that is what I am most looking forward to in this new album…Ear up!