So in our second installment of my singular video mission of getting The Roots to not only be house band for Fallon, but also America, and Gawker, we have ?uestlove discussing the paranormal depths of his magazine collection, Puffy's relationship to new media, and the sobering consequences of having a band-member who Tweets 100 times a day.

The Roots Interview Pt.2 from weekendvids on Vimeo.

So yeah, I used to blog for The Roots and okayplayer, and about a month ago I did this long interview with them. Turns out they're fans of Gawker, and traffic to their website, and with the band making the mainstream America move with Jimmy Fallon, I wondered if maybe we could do something similar here in blogland. Make them the unofficial quasi-sorta house band of Gawker, on the weekends, in my afternoon slot.

What follows is a little over a minute of ?uestlove talking about that initial transition to the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. In it Ahmir describes the band as slaves with three masters (or in his words, a band with three demographics). One of them being Lorne Michaels.

What is a slave with three masters to do? I'm thinking the Gawker commenter community is the best source of advice on the subject. This is just a whim of an idea, so there are no specific rules. But the band holds a weekly residency at the Highline Ballroom, and we can arrange for whomever provides the best advice on the matter to get free tickets and meet the band backstage etc. Perhaps, even discuss how to handle it when Lorne pops in.

Here's the clip. If this sounds good, fire away. If it sounds retarded, let me know other ideas. And we'll try and do better next weekend.

Talking with The Roots (pt. 1) from weekendvids on Vimeo.

So coming up in 15 minutes, we're going to talk White Rapper 3: The Chronicles of Asher Roth, the melanin-challenged eminem-inflected emcee who released his album this Monday (4/20). He's got the pop MTV and EW buzz behind him, and Eminem has grasped for his brother's hand in solidarity (making them the Martin & Malcolm of white-rappers, I s'pose?), but I have Tom Breihan (Pitchfork), Touré (Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast), and Byron Crawford (XXL) weighing in on the merits (or lackthereof) of the album and related media narrative.

Then I want to try something different with this Roots clip we have. Make it like an open caption, but with video or something. And we might give stuff away! If you're into that. Are you? Well stay tuned, and we'll figure it out then.

Also: Yesterday I took a trip to Spanish Harlem (SpaHa, stand up!) with celebrity photog Diana Levine; it was sort of a Ghetto Pass Illustrated treasure hunt for pictorial gold. You can let us know if we found any.

Finally, did you know next month (May) is Black History Month? There's a manifesto and everything! Stay tuned and we'll get you up to speed.

wordemup.

I've never had a group that I actually like go the late night house band route. Springsteen fans saw Max Weinberg take his act to Conan's show; and I'm sure there were some jazz heads who were flabbergasted to see their main man Kevin Eubanks signing up with Jay Leno. But The Roots? The Illadelph generals opening up for that stuttering mop-headed ball of suck, Jimmy Fallon? It's kind of tragic. On one hand, we'll get to see The Roots on TV every night; on the other hand, Black Thought opening for Jimmy Fallon every night is the cultural equivalent of Miles Davis playing his horn on the subway platform to back up a semi-trained dancing spider monkey.

To the extend that The Roots are a hip hop group, it's pretty fucking shocking. To the extent that The Roots are a hipster group, that's the end of that. They still give one of the best live shows anywhere, and the thought that the only way to see them live any more will be in the middle of the afternoon in a Midtown studio between periods of Jimmy Fallon snickering at his own cue cards is just an atrocious thing.

But they're old and so are we, so everyone is tired. Now I will go and cut myself repeatedly.