Roots MC Black Thought may spend his evenings as part of The Tonight Show house band but he's putting his downtime to good use.
This is just one of the projects that the rapper, born Tariq Trotter, has been able to do since 2018 when releasing music with producers 9th Wonder, Salaam Remi, Danger Mouse and Sean C.
The 51-year-old MC says that coming from a collective like the Roots, working with producers one at a time has helped fuel his creativity.
"Because I've worked for such a long time as part of a collective, serving the greater good of The Roots' consensus, my dexterity as a writer and storyteller outside The Roots is best served if I'm working with one producer at a time, " Trotter told The Fader. "I could work with 20 producers on 20 projects simultaneously - I'm able to compartmentalize in that way - but as long as there's only one producer per project, that's my sweet spot. That's how I've been able to hit this productive stride in recent years."
Trotter says collaborating with Michels on this project was due to his old-school sound."My head exploded when I found out the stuff coming from [record label] Daptone and Leon's [(Michels')] label wasn't old. I was like, "Wait, this is contemporary [expletive]? These dudes are in Brooklyn and Queens right now?"
Glorious Game is available Friday on all streaming platforms and on vinyl, cassette, and CD.
