Black Thought on MTV Cypher 2001 With Eminem, Nas & Jay-Z.
Hip-hop fans will remember Jay-outstanding Z’s material from MTV Unplugged in 2001, which he recorded with the renowned The Roots group. Now, in an IG Live conversation with Sway, Roots member Black Thought explains why the group agreed to collaborate with Jay since they also planned to conduct a cypher with two other Rap Game giants.
Sway Calloway recently did a new Instagram live session with The Roots’ Black Thought as part of the ‘Bedroom Bars‘ series. During the live session, Black Thought freestyled and did an interview. Black Thought also revealed that an Unplugged session that Jay Z recorded for MTV in 2001 with The Roots, could’ve had Eminem and Nas too but Jay changed his performance.
In the 2001 MTV Unplugged CD, JAY-Z is accompanied by The Roots. The Roots agreed to do the performance with Hov because they were going to incorporate a cypher with two other great rap heavyweights, according to Black Thought in an interview with Sway. Jay, on the other hand, pulled out at the last minute.
“Nah, Nah, we don’t work on anything,” said Black Thought on whether he ever worked with Jay-Z. “I don’t know, we did that Unplugged joint. He was rocking with the band and he was supposed to and the reason why I agreed to let him rock with The Roots was because it was supposed to be part of that performance where he and I freestyle. It was supposed to be him (Jay-Z), me, maybe Eminem, maybe NAS. It was supposed to be like a cypher session and for whatever reason, he changed the performance.”
Black Though continues, “I didn’t really want to make a huge deal out of it so I let him still rock out with the band. They still made history but originally I was supposed to rock with them. You know, after that he signed The Roots to Def Jam and even when we were his artists he for whatever reason never jumped on the record together.”
Notably, in a prior interview with Hot 97 in November 2019, Black Thought remarked bluntly regarding rappers not wanting to rhyme next to him, especially in the context of Jay-Z/The Roots, “They don’t want to get subjected to Black Thoughtification…”
