{"id":177646,"date":"2020-07-31T07:50:58","date_gmt":"2020-07-31T15:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.siccness.net\/wp\/?p=177646"},"modified":"2020-07-31T07:50:58","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T15:50:58","slug":"malik-b-early-member-of-the-roots-dies-at-47","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.siccness.net\/wp\/malik-b-early-member-of-the-roots-dies-at-47","title":{"rendered":"Malik B., Early Member Of The Roots, Dies At 47"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Malik Abdul Baset, a rapper best known for his work with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/artists\/15121130\/the-roots\">The Roots<\/a>\u00a0as Malik B., has died. He was 47.<\/p>\n<p>His death was confirmed by The Roots&#8217;\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/artists\/15121446\/-uestlove\">Questlove<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/artists\/627971101\/black-thought\">Black Thought<\/a>\u00a0in a statement Wednesday, but no cause of death was provided. &#8220;It is with heavy hearts and tearful eyes that we regretfully inform you of the passing of our beloved brother and long time Roots member Malik Abdul Baset,&#8221; the statement reads. &#8220;May he be remembered for his devotion to Islam, His loving brotherhood and His innovation as one of the most gifted MCs of all time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Malik B. first met Roots co-founders Ahmir Thompson and Tariq Trotter \u2014 before they were known better as Questlove and Black Thought, respectively \u2014 while attending Millersville University, in rural Pennsylvania, in the early &#8217;90s. By 1993, the group had self-released its debut album,\u00a0<em>Organix<\/em>, and had begun to cultivate a reputation for finely honed live performances and a tireless schedule of touring.<\/p>\n<p>That work ethic, and the quality of\u00a0<em>Organix<\/em>, resulted in The Roots&#8217; second album,\u00a0<em>Do You Want More?!!!??!\u00a0<\/em>receiving major label support in 1995. But it was\u00a0<em>Illadelph Halflife<\/em>, released the following year, which propelled the group towards the mainstream \u2014 both in hip-hop and the culture at large. If they had previously been seen as a talented, live-instrumented detour from more popular forms of rap, the focus and distillation of vision revealed on\u00a0<em>Illadelph<\/em>\u00a0made hip-hop&#8217;s center move, slowly at first, towards The Roots.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Malik B.&#8217;s last album as a member of The Roots,\u00a0<em>Things Fall Apart<\/em>, remains a high-water mark for the band and for the art of hip-hop, earning a Grammy for the Erykah Badu-featuring &#8220;You Got Me&#8221; and selling over 1 million in the U.S. (Part of that album&#8217;s power lived, undeniably, in the locked-tight work of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/daily.redbullmusicacademy.com\/2015\/06\/the-soulquarians-at-electric-lady\">the Soulquarians<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Malik Abdul Baset, a rapper best known for his work with\u00a0The Roots\u00a0as Malik B., has died. He was 47. His death was confirmed by The Roots&#8217;\u00a0Questlove\u00a0and\u00a0Black Thought\u00a0in a statement Wednesday, but no cause of death was provided. &#8220;It is with heavy hearts and tearful eyes that we regretfully inform you of the passing of our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":177647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[43617],"class_list":["post-177646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-malik-b"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.siccness.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.siccness.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.siccness.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.siccness.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.siccness.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.siccness.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":177648,"href":"https:\/\/www.siccness.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177646\/revisions\/177648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.siccness.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.siccness.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.siccness.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.siccness.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}