The Roots – Dear God 2.0
New York at night through a taxi window is a specific kind of view - not the postcard version, just the city and the people waiting at corners, the side of things only someone driving those streets gets to see. That’s the lens for The Roots’ Dear God 2.0
video. Everything shot from the backseat, watching the city pass. It’s intimate and unsettling at once, the distance and closeness together.
I’ve never been the kind of person who gets swept up in American hip-hop the way other people do, but The Roots have always felt outside that. There’s something about what they make - the musicianship, the way they build these layered tracks - that doesn’t land the same as the usual stuff. This video has the same quality. Not flashy, just close attention to a city and the people in it, the small moments and contradictions.
Their album How I Got Over
has Joanna Newsom and Dice Raw on it. They’re the kind of band that can stay ambitious without making it obvious they’re trying. That’s rare.