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Black Thought
Tariq Trotter from The Roots
Black Thought
Tariq Trotter from The Roots
Biography
As Co-Founder of The Roots and a multi-hyphenate creative, Tariq Trotter—aka Black Thought—has quietly affirmed himself as one of the most prolific, prescient, and powerful voices in hip-hop. Over the course of his career, he has won three GRAMMY® Awards and three NAACP Image Awards. Black Thought has notably delivered eleven applauded albums with The Roots, who have also served as the beloved house band for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon for over a decade. Black Thought’s solo music career has also accelerated at full speed in recent years with his celebrated Streams of Thought series. Pairing him with a legendary producer for each release, the Streams of Thought series has generated millions of streams and media acclaim. In 2022, Black Thought teamed up with Danger Mouse for their acclaimed collaborative album, Cheat Codes. The acclaimed release topped many year-end “best of” lists in 2022. Most recently, his collaborative album Glorious Game with Leon Michels of El Michels Affair received similar praise.
Maintaining this momentum, Black Thought has continued his creative renaissance as the main composer and lyricist of the 2022 Off-Broadway production Black No More. In addition, he also made his Off-Broadway debut starring in the production, stretching the boundaries of his creativity once more. Black No More earned a nomination for “Best Musical” at the 2022 Lucile Lortell Awards. His presence has also seamlessly translated into roles in film and television such as HBO’s The Deuce amongst other productions. He most recently appeared in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s feature directorial debut, Tick, Tick… Boom!. Beyond collaborations with everyone from Eminem, John Legend, J Dilla, and Big Pun to Linkin Park, Logic, and Fall Out Boy, alongside fellow The Roots co-founder Questlove, Black Thought co-produced the multiplatinum GRAMMY® Award-winning Original Broadway Cast Recording of Hamilton. The soundtrack is RIAA-certified diamond, the first Broadway soundtrack to ever to achieve that status. Also in conjunction with Questlove, he launched the production company Two One Five Entertainment, which developed and produced renowned documentaries such as Hip-Hop: The Songs That Shook America, Descendant, The League and more. Most recently, he announced his first-ever memoir, a powerful reflection on his youth called The Upcycled Self, out on November 14th via One World.
Throughout his career, Black Thought has been called “easily one of the greatest of all time,” by Rolling Stone and “one of the most prolific, amazing MCs and lyricists of today” by NPR. Perhaps Billboard said it best, “listening to Black Thought is like enrolling in a masterclass on lyricism.”
Lyrically dexterous, politically provocative, and consciously incisive, Black Thought continually encourages the game to move forward with him again and again.
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