"M-illitant" The Lyrical Reformer
By Brian Salkowski (Commentary #229)
Malik joined The Roots in its earliest days. Before The Roots went on to score three Grammy awards and become the official house band on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the group started out as a small hip-hop group between Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1987. Malik came on-board (in addition to bass player Leonard “Hub” Hubbard) before The Roots released its debut studio album, Organix, in 1993. Malik wasn’t the flashiest verbal technician in the Roots; that was always Tariq Trotter, a.k.a. Black Thought, a boundless lyrical dynamo whose freestyle abilities were legendary from Day One. Nor was he the group’s most magnetic public personality; that was often drummer Ahmir Thompson, a.k.a. Questlove. But Malik brought something crucial to the group on their first four albums in the Nineties. He kept the Roots grounded, giving their jazzy, free-wheeling explorations a firm footing in the Northeastern rap canon of that era. He was the member of the Roots you could most easily imagine running into on any city block, the guy whose warm, human presence balanced out his friends’ musical chops.
