The “Game Theory” is defined as “An agent or person who is faced with a

set of moves he can play and will form a strategy, to best respond to

his environment.” Nobel Peace Prize-winning mathematician John Nash,

the subject of the film A Beautiful Mind, developed this theory to

calculate an actual formula to winning and losing. Amir “Questlove”

Thompson and The Roots are poised to release their next album entitled

The Game Theory demonstrating how they have always stood the test of

time, musically cultivating every album to best respond to the current

climate in Hip-Hop like a barometer foretelling of turbulent

conditions. Questlove affirms, “For me, it’s important that the title

of each Roots album embodies what we’re going through at the time, what

Hip-Hop is going through, and what the world is going through… As for The Game Theory, someone’s gonna win and someone’s

gonna lose.”

The Roots don’t seem to be losers, and they certainly aren’t on a losing team. Aligned with Hova, the group retains their constant goals, as Questlove changes the production technique for their first Def Jam release. With Malik B back in the lineup and a point to prove, The Roots have the fertilizer to grow now more than ever.

AllHipHop.com: There’s an energy around this album, as if you’re finally getting your due respect in Hip-Hop, I don’t know if you agree or not. What makes this album different from the rest, I know a lot has occurred between now and The Tipping Point that might have developed the energy behind this album.

Questlove: I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we actually have lasted for that long of period. But more than that, it’s kinda hard to tell with today’s marketplace, especially with the sound that we’re traditionally associated with.

There’s always a pressure to stay current in the marketplace, we were always in control of our artistic vision. The last album [The Tipping Point] we kind of let our fear get the best of us. Because we just didn’t have a feel for what Jimmy Iovine (at Geffen/Interscope) liked and didn’t like. The fact that (Jimmy) is the same guy that controls around 15 or 16 platinum acts, someone is going to get neglected if you don’t set a fire or raise a stinker. That was the first and last time we took the approach of doing a “please the president” album.

AllHipHop.com: I figured now with Jay-Z this would be the time you would do a “please the president” album.

Questlove: Yeah, but Jay already made it clear that he ain’t havin’ that. The first thing on his mind is that “I don’t want to be the big bad wolf that killed The Roots.”

AllHipHop.com: There are a lot of people both nervous and anxious at the same time about your move to Def Jam.

Questlove: Well I think a lot of people see the move to Def Jam as, “Oh man y’all ‘bout to cash in, y’all with Hov, it’s over!” Fans already throwing diamonds in the air, but it’s far from it. Number one, he’s not on the album, we didn’t want him on the album. I think its important that we coast that line and not get over excited like “Yay Hov, we’re finally gonna make it,” that’s when you start to fall off, when you start having these expectations and setting those marks for yourself that aren’t going to happen. I expect this album to follow the same trail, and the same potholes that we’ve encountered throughout our career. I’m still very much in the knowledge that we are a very hard group to swallow for mainstream America. Just because we’re on Def Jam, the world’s most popular Hip-Hop figure, doesn’t mean it’s going to be smooth sailing.

AllHipHop.com: Yeah, I viewed it as your greatest opportunity is also your greatest challenge. Your albums are usually a reflection of the times, are you going to do anything different this time around to fit into this marginalized Hip-Hop market? Are we going to see you sitting on 24’s or Hub snappin’?

Questlove: This is the thing; this is why I’m mad at snappin’ only because I view it more as a culture thing with snap music but that is one of my signature sounds. If anyone knows my production, they know that I’ve always used handclaps and snappin’. But no, there is no snappin’ on this record. The direction of an album just follows what album came before it and how many times we had to perform set songs on stage. We’re one of the rare acts in Hip-Hop that have to perform these songs 200 times the previous year. By that point you’re usually trying to get away from that previous sound as much as possible. I’m the type of producer that makes a laundry list of things we haven’t done yet. With this album and just personally, I think of what ways can I make the drums speak this time. The whole idea of me doing the minimum drum kit that I’m known for of just kick, snare, high hat – that’s over. This is the first time I’ve played with like a ten- 13-piece drum set, tom toms, other symbols. I wanted more rhythmic percussion sound with this album, it gave me different textures and colors to deal with. This is still a very dark album.

AllHipHop.com: I’ve always viewed the song “Water” off the Phrenology album as a turning point for the group. It showed a side of the group and Black Thought that was more personal and opening up emotionally on a record, something that was rarely seen before this record.

Questlove: I’m glad someone recognized that, and not just the chaotic noise. Well number one, Malik B. is back…

AllHipHop.com: Really?

Questlove: Yeah that’s the surprise.

AllHipHop.com: There are a lot of fans that are dying to hear Malik back on a Roots record.

Questlove: Malik is the heart of The Roots. The balance of Tariq [Black Thought] and Malik was definitely based on Tariq being the more virtuoso MC, the battle MC – his style is impeccable. Malik was the heart of the group. If you actually take time to listen to what Malik says, he’ll say some ill s**t about how f**ked up his life is.

AllHipHop.com: In my opinion, Black Thought should be on everyone’s Top 10 or Top 5 list.

Questlove: Believe it or not, I do random Google searches to see what people thought of the first single and their like “he’s lackluster, he doesn’t have charisma.” I don’t think charisma is a good judgment, a real MC chooses his words carefully. I’m saying for the record that this is definitely Tariq’s heaviest hitting record, as far as his lyrics are concerned. He made a complete growth and a lot of people mistaken that for “blahzayness.” He’s not animated on this record, he’s very serious, he’s not minstrel, he’s not coonin’…

AllHipHop.com: You know the first time I’ve ever heard Eve or Beanie Sigel was actually on a Roots record. A lot of people still don’t realize that Scott Storch has been down with y’all since the beginning. Does it bother you that people that you have put on have gone on to reach greater levels of mainstream success than the group itself?

Questlove: I find it ironic, there’s an ongoing joke that the women that we are no longer with from the Do You Want More?!!!??! era have all performed some sort of hex on the group. They’re off somewhere in West Philly with dolls and pins in our hearts. Scott has a 12 million dollar yacht and my cable just got cut off. Nah, I mean it’s just the nature of what it is. It really depends on what you measure as success. I’ll be very honest with you, there are times when I’m like “G######, what the hell did I do to deserve this? Why can’t I catch a break?!” But then again not many Hip-Hop artists can say, “This is my ninth great record.” I don’t feel as though we’ve reached our peak yet, I still feel like there is still genuine interest in the group, that to me is much more important. I never thought back in 1992 that in 2009 I’d still be doing it and enjoying the perks of having a good job.

AllHipHop.com: Do you feel even amongst a marginalized market with all the leanin’ and rockin’ and snappin’, that very quietly there is a resurgence going on with the Native Tongue movement?

Questlove: To be honest, no. I’m still close with Common, Kweli and Mos, but clearly a tsunami has occurred on our property. I understand cats gotta run for cover. Making sure your daughter has clothes for school and a secure home, that’s some real s**t so you gotta do what you gotta do. I actually do see the native tongue thing occurring, but I see it with it SaRa, who’s signed with Kanye and this other group J.Davey. Those two, I see as part of the next Native Tongue movement, not to say that we won’t still be a close knit crew, but the Native Tongues have kind of drifted apart. Mos is doing his thing with his movie career, Common is on the GOOD Music side of things – we’ll still do s**t together. But the idea of jam sessions together, I see how the original Native Tongues just got older, but that was the time period.

AllHipHop.com: That’s always been the dichotomy in Hip-Hop, one side has to exist for the other to work. <br<

Questlove: Yeah, Hip-Hop’s whole existence is reactionary and based on the reactions to poverty conditions. If the economic conditions determine the course of action in Hip-Hop then it’s being held hostage, but I do my best to defy the odds. I want to be the first Hip-Hop group to release its 15th great album…

T

oday’s A&R not only eats off of the artists he signs, he can become a star in his own right. Jay-Z can shout out “Lenny S” as TI brings in DJ Drama to be the ears of Grand Hustle/Atlantic. However, in the formation of Hip-Hop as we know it, one of the most unmentioned names that should be is Dante Ross.

As a producer, Ross was known as the “Stimulated Dummy,” but with the demo tape blasting, he was a prophet. At Tommy Boy, Ross helped bring in a young Dana Owens who’d soon become Queen. At Elektra, he saw a star in a beanie-wearing Busta Rhymes, in Leaders of the New School. But as 3rd Bass, Brand Nubian, and KMD all ripened with Dante Ross in their sessions and producing their beats, it wasn’t until 1998 that the New Yorker got his props.

Since producing the Triple Platinum Everlast album Whitey Ford Sings the Blues Dante Ross has been distracted by the duckets and the diversity within Rock music. But this summer, teaming up with Scion, Ross will be holding beat-battles to see if you can inspire him.

AllHipHop.com: From the years as an A&R, what’s one act that you passed on that may’ve been a mistake?

Dante Ross: There’s a couple. Das EFX, I had their demo and I was late to their party. Erick Sermon had sent it to me beforehand and I really slept on that. Groups that I tried to sign that I didn’t get were A Tribe Called Quest and D.O.C. – the two I remember the clearest. A Tribe Called Quest, I lost in a bidding war. The D.O.C. had the greatest demo ever, because it was his album. It was literally his mastered album. There was a song on there they couldn’t fit that Atlantic ended up taking off the album, that they wanted to be able to put it out. I really, really wanted to sign him, but it was just too complicated and couldn’t go down. The group that I passed on ‘cause they were my friends was Cypress Hill. I should’ve signed them, they fit into everything I was doing at the time, but I was such good friends with Muggs. Fifteen, 20 years later, I’m still really good friends with Muggs, so maybe it was the right thing to do. I passed on House of Pain too. They had “Jump Around” on [their demo]. I knew it was a hit song. But the reason I passed on them was ‘cause I signed a lot of Five Percenters, a lot of Gods, and I didn’t want to deal with the grief of the white dudes bein’ my biggest group. It was disrespectful to the Gods.

AllHipHop.com: I was reading your Lordz of Brooklyn interview in the new issue of Mass Appeal. I know you write there, but what else are you doing in Hip-Hop these days?

Dante Ross: Actually, I do less Hip-Hop production nowadays than I ever have. [After Everlast’s] Whitey Ford Sings the Blues I just did a lot of alternative records. I worked with Korn, Santana, Anthony Hamilton… the list goes on and on. I tend to do a lot more stuff that’s beat orientated, but not straight-up Hip-Hop. There’s some Hip-Hop in everything I do. Whether it’s an ‘80s “Planet Rock” thing, or some grimy stuff like I put under the Whitey Ford [album], it usually tends to be beat orientated.

AllHipHop.com: When Jay-Z brought Rick Rubin back into Hip-Hop with “99 Problems,” it was huge. Could a certain artist do that with you?

Dante Ross: Possibly. My Hip-Hop stuff nowadays is more current than what Rick’s doing. Rick is doing this retro thing where they’re going to Rick for an ‘80s sound. The “Stimulated Dummy” sound wasn’t as tied into an era. I think what Kanye and people are doing now is just an extension of the sound we had.

AllHipHop.com: Is it true that when you signed Leaders of the New School, Charlie and Dinco showed up to sign without Busta – who’d been kicked out – and you refused unless it was the whole package?

Dante Ross: It wasn’t really like that. Charlie came to see me with a joint. It was just him, not Dinco. [Charlie] and Busta always had their little things. I was just like, “Yo, your man right there though, the Busta Rhymes kid, he’s a star. He’s gotta be that dude.” They accepted. It wasn’t like they was tryin’ to get him out of the band. Charlie always wanted to put himself on the forefront; there was always a competitive thing with him and Bus’.

AllHipHop.com: It have to been hard to sign an artist, then turn around and charge them for beats…

Dante Ross: I was always really, really cheap. I never charged an astronomical amount of money. It was never pre-disposed that somebody had to do somethin’ with me. It was like, if I had a joint that they liked, hey, it was all good. Actually, the dude who I always ended up workin’ with was [Grand] Puba. Me and Puba, musically, were really on the same page. Max [Puba] showed me a lot about makin’ music. My biggest checks came from Everlast; I never got big checks from my Hip-Hop groups. I mean, 3rd Bass paid me more money than like Puba would.

AllHipHop.com: My favorite Casual record was always “Gotta Get Down” b/w “Turf Dirt” on your Stimulated label. Why didn’t the label succeed, because it was part of Loud Records?

Dante Ross: It’s multi-tiered. One, it was in the Loud fold. Two, as a producer, I was so distracted doing other records. I didn’t focus enough on my own stuff as I should have. Reason being – economics. At that point, after doing the Everlast record, I could write my own ticket. I could do a Korn remix for 30,000 bucks, no problem. I could do a Santana song for 50,000 dollars. Getting gigs like that – the biggest gigs you’ve ever had in your whole life, and you’re slowing down to pick up of [thousand dollars], it’s not worth it. I was just following my heart to an extent. I wanted to make other kinds of music. I had a little deal over at Warner Brothers with this group, Hesher, and it didn’t really happen – but it was wanted to do. I wouldn’t fault anybody, I’d just say the success I had with Everlast to an extent.

“Gotta Get Down” has a story though. I bought that beat six months before Casual hit it. [Alchemist] played it for me, and I had just got my deal, and I was like, “Yo, I’m buyin’ that from you.” That one sat on the shelf for like six months. Al’s a nasty mothaf**ka. He studied a lot. He’s further proof that it’s a young man’s game.

AllHipHop.com: What let you know that now was a good time for a nationwide producer competition?

Dante Ross: I saw Beat Society do it. Back in the days, both Large Professor or the Beatnuts would have a stretch in their show where’d they just rock s**t live. It was amazing to see. About two days ago, I walked into Rootdown in Los Angeles, and I seen Cut Chemist and Madlib goin’ at it – just bangin’ s**t against each other. I thought it was incredible to see. The idea was always in my mind. I saw Beat Society and I thought it could be done a lot more excitingly than the way they were doing it. Live beatmaker people really wanna see that – it’s like the next step in a DJ battle. Me and my boys always sit around like “What you got?” just buggin’ out with the [MPCs], battling it out. It’s real fun to do. If it inspires me, and I think it’s exciting, I think the rest of the country will as well.

AllHipHop.com: The Beatnuts and Large Professor are geniuses at what they do. But nowadays, so many of the guys that win these competitions really believe that “Yo, I’m a producer now.” Is the door too easy to walk through to be a Hip-Hop producer today?

Dante Ross: It depends what your definition of a Hip-Hop producer is. To me, there’s a beat-maker and a Hip-Hop producer. A producer makes songs; a beatmaker makes beats. There’s cats that’s really dope with the beats but [can’t] arrange a song, make an artist perform better, mic equipment – that separates you. I started as a beatmaker and I became a producer and a songwriter. Usually, it’s an evolution. I do think now, there’s more tools than ever. I think that’s a plus. I don’t think it’s too easy to be a producer, ‘cause on the real, it’s hard to sell joints right now.

AllHipHop.com: Besides you, who are the other judges?

Dante Ross: I’m in the middle of confirming a lot of people, and I don’t know who’s gonna stick. I’ve reached out to Prince Paul, Alchemist, Muggs, Rico Wade, Organized Noize. It looks like everybody’s gonna come through. I’m lookin’ for my finale judges. I don’t know who I’m gonna use. I’m trying to get [DJ] Premier to do it, but I haven’t really connected with him yet on it.

AllHipHop.com: You go to a lot of beat battles. What’s cliché these days? What’s cutting edge, what isn’t?

Dante Ross: To me, something that’s not fresh is using a tired sample. One of the rounds, we’re gonna give people a sample lab, a drum loop, and a couple of sounds. I think what’s wrong is to just grab the most obvious loop in the sample lab. What’s wrong is to just press play on your MP and think you’re rockin’. I think the guy who’s gonna win is gonna bring his live performance aspect to the show – somebody who uses mutes on the MP, somebody who’s triggering live. What’s tired is not being charismatic and doesn’t do the obvious.

AllHipHop.com: On the mainstream level, many would say Busta Rhymes is the hottest artist out in 2006. In the independent/underground culture, many would say that MF DOOM is the biggest artist the last few years. How does it feel, years later, to know that you brought those two monsters into the game?

Dante Ross: It makes me feel great. Busta, that guy’s built for it. I’ve rarely met anybody who works harder than him. That guy’s relentless, always wanted it so bad, and he got it. Man, he’s a testament to talent and grind. He’s a superstar. From the minute I saw him with Leaders on one microphone with all three gettin’ down, I was like, “That guy got it. He’s a genius.” To see DOOM do it, to me, is even more amazing ‘cause DOOM was dealt a bad hand by Elektra Records and the loss of [his brother] Subroc and all that. To see DOOM on top is amazing. It says that my years are still relevant, that time may pass, but artists are still relevant. Those two artists are a testament that my ears are made for the long haul. Unfortunately, I don’t think too many record label executives give me the respect for having pioneered those guys’ careers, but I can’t let things like that bother me. To see them carrying on like that is beautiful. I’ll see Busta out, and he’ll tell his boys, “Yo, this is the man who put me on.” I always felt that [saying] that is awkward ‘cause nobody ever puts anybody on; you get on for a reason.

Contestants from across the United States are invited to send their original

Mixes/Videos (between 1 and 4 minutes in length) between June 1, 2006 and

August 18, 2006.

Entries should be sent to:

King of the Beats Entry

276 Canal street

Suite 7W

New York, NY 10013

For more information: www.scion.com/kingofthebeats