The Roots have been getting plenty of attention as of late, and all of it hasn’t been positive. The band will release their new album Undun on December 6th, but the news of the highly unanticipated album found it self on the backburner to a mini controversy involving GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann.
As previously reported, Michele Bachmann was a guest on Jimmy Fallon, and as she was walking out on stage The Roots, who so happen to be Fallon’s houseband, led by ?uestlove played Fishbone’s 1985 song “Lyin’ Ass Bitch’ as Bachman’s intro. That sparked a firestorm which lead to an apology to Bachmann from not only ?uestlove, but Fallon and NBC.
So in a recent interview with Pitchfork ?uestlove talks about the incident and the resulting backlash. Read the excerpts below via Pitchfork.
Pitchfork: Do you regret playing that walk-on music for Michele Bachmann?
?uestlove: It wasn’t like a chess move where you have to think 12 steps ahead; you’re just, like, “Fuck, all right, I’m gonna do it,” in a kamikaze-type way. And I really didn’t think about how it could be perceived as a misogynist swipe– it didn’t hit me until my [Twitter] timeline started showing up that it was seen that way. I was like, “Fuck, I forgot ‘bitch’ is actually in the title.”
It deeply offended a lot of women’s groups and non-Bachmann supporters, and for that I’m deeply sorry. I’m not parading like I’m the poster boy for the feminist movement, but those who truly know me know that that’s not me. I was really just going with her whole revisionist history angle, I wasn’t calling it out on her being a woman.
Pitchfork: What kind of reactions have you received since?
?: I’ve seen some really colorful epithets in the past four days, but “nigger fuckhead ghetto stick” is probably the one that takes the cake. I’m still trying to get my head around that one. Blocking 3,500 tea party extremists [on Twitter] in a three day period is no fun, especially when you’re a drummer dangerously close to carpal tunnel. In the end, was it worth it? Absolutely not.
Pitchfork: Was there a moment when you were scared that you might get fired?
?: Yeah, last Wednesday, the day before [Thanksgiving]. We were seeing where she was going to go with it because, if you call the right channels, next thing you know advertisers are in the NBC building asking for proper action to be done. So we were definitely waiting with bated breath. And then her camp was like, “Look, it’s Thanksgiving. Let’s just put all this behind us and call it a day.”
The only one who was not too happy with the result was D’Angelo. [laughs] He was praying I got suspended for six months or a year. He was like, “You know what that means right? That means you’re going to go on tour with me, man! We’re gonna be together again!” I was like, “Welcome to the real world: People don’t get suspended for a year, they get fired.”
To read the full interview with ?uestlove click here.
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