Review: The Roots Third Annual Picnic

Thousands of fans turned out to support third annual

Roots Picnic yesterday (June 5th) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A number of top

acts performed in support of The Roots’ annual, all-day festival, including The

Roots, John Legend, Wu-Tang Clan, Jay Electronica, Money Making Jam Boys, Nneka,

Vampire Weekend, Peedi Crakk and others. Here’s a quick recap of The Roots’

annual picnic.

A variety of artists performed, including Res. That was

interesting, because she tweeted Questlove about wanting to perform and he

replied that they booked the concert a year in advance.

Nneka looked very into her performance. She’s

so pretty it was hard to turn away from her while she was singing. One of her

last songs was titled “Heartbeat”??? It’s rumored that Nas is going to spit a

verse on it. Rumor or fact? Dunno….

The Money Making Jam Boys consists of Dice Raw,

Black Thought, P### and Truck North. They rocked the crowd with the assistance

of Peedi Crakk.

Jay

Electronica rocked the crowd with some beats courtesy of J. Dilla. He

also did his original tracks and ended each song with an acapella. Jay

Electronica got the crowdy hype and he went it..literally.

Jazzy

Jeff

Djing & Questlove on the drums. This was a dope set. More old

school hip hop and they showed all the youngins their favorite songs really are

sampled from older songs. Jazzy went in!

The Roots, didn’t do that many originals well

at least not the ones I thought they would. Black Thought was good. Their live

band was killer, which included a guy walking around the stage getting down with

a tuba. The Roots brought out John Legend, who is featured on their new album

How I Got Over. He did a few original tunes too.

The Roots and Method Man, Raekwon and Ghostface

– Killer set. Hearing The Roots play the Wu-Tang’s original tracks was

nothing short of amazing. The highlight of the show was when Method Man jumped

in the crowd. He was literally trying to stand on two people’s hands like a

cheerleader and almost lost his life. Ghostface gave a moving, humorous tribute

to the Philadelphia sports teams, including The Flyers, who are playing in this

year’s Stanley Cup.

The

Clipse – Their performance was mad delayed and their sound wasn’t on

point. Pusha’s mic was all off. They did a few jams especially my favorites from

Hell Hath No Fury, like “Keys Open Doors” and “Ride Around Shining.” People were

were definitely messing with it. But before their last song, Vampire Weekend

started on the main stage. Wo it was a battle and The Clipse got a little mad.

Vampire Weekend – I love his voice. Was a big

fan before, so it’s nice to hear they sound the same live.

The Very Best, with radioclit

and Esau Mwaya came out and did Electro and Afropop.

They had fly dancers, and the crowd was jammin despite not knowing the words.

Seriously NO one knew what they were saying, but everyone was so with it! My

favorite is their song “Julia Julia” which they just did a video for a few weeks

ago.

 

Mayer Hawthorne from Detroit, came

out with a big band (full suits) and did a swing twist on songs and original

s**t. The crowd couldn’t stop the music from taking over their limbs and it was

also a good twist in the lineup, because the crowd was diverse so the older

heads got to dance in a way that didn’t include pelvic thrust or jumping up and

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