Syllabus to include LPs by Led Zeppelin, Prince and Beastie Boys.

Tomorrow, Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard releases his first-ever solo album Former Lives. And on Friday night’s episode of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, Gibbard rolled through, performing first single “Teardrop Windows,” while the Roots, in uncharacteristically fuzzy power-pop mode, backed him up. As an on...

Red House Painters’ first album, Down Colorful Hill, came out 20 years ago last month, and over the last two decades, the band’s mastermind, Mark Kozelek, has produced a catalog of staggering power under a host of monikers, including his own, Desertshore, and most famously, Sun Kil Moon. (I’d argue that his name sho...

Kendrick Lamar might be the most electric live rapper currently working, and he got a chance to display that on last night’s episode of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. Kendrick teamed up with the Roots on “Swimming Pools (Drank),” the whirling drunken lament from his forthcoming LP good kid, m.A.A.d. city. ?uestlove, ...

Since forming in Philadelphia 25 years ago (yes, it really has been that long), the Roots have become one of the most innovative, progressive, and influential acts in the history of hip-hop. Originally coming up in age where artists like A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul helped define what the left-of-center end of [...]