J. Period Roots Mixtape

Brooklyn-based J. Period — the DJ behind The Best of the Roots, a promotional mixtape for the Roots upcoming release, Game Theory — has mashed up “Pity the Child” with “Come Together.” The track is differentiated from Danger Mouse’s Grey Album, as it’s just one part of a longer audio-biography, not a stand-alone mishmash of a hip-hop/British-invasion tune. “What I do is sit down with the artist and interview them from behind the scenes, ask them what inspired them to get into making music in the first place,” J. Period told SPIN.com. “It goes deeper than a normal mixtape.”

J. Period’s challenge on The Best of the Roots was telling the hip-hop band’s career in 80-minutes. “The Roots have so many styles, it was a real challenge putting it all together,” he said. But the DJ combined some of the Roots’ best songs with exclusive interview material from Black Thought in a remarkably concise manner, and “Pity the Child / Come Together” (featuring Zion 1) is one of the album’s seminal cuts. “A lot of people only look at hip-hop as a superficial, money-driven thing, but the mixtape is authentic; there are no rules in mixtapes,” J. Period began. “‘Come Together’ builds on the idea of what hip-hop can be used for: A unifying tool. It builds on the same ideas as the era that gave birth to the Beatles. Back then, music was a tool to unite people and spark change, and hip-hop hasn’t tapped it’s potential to do that. It has the potential to be bigger than music.”

Now Hear This:
The Roots / The Beatles – “Pity the Child / Come Together” (Download MP3)

Talk: Do you think this shows the Roots at their best?

On the Web: jperiod.com