Hiphop has come to many a crossroads in its 30-plus lifespan; each time a particular sound or style has waned, another one springs up to carry the torch. As the '80s came to a close, the weight of the dookie ropes began to strain—just as the funky, fun-loving steez of the leather-medallion clad Native Tongues posse came into being. De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and the Jungle Brothers crafted a communal, Afrocentric vibe that indelibly influenced a whole generation to come after. Cool, but not afraid to be nerdy; funky, but not blind to the charms of a Zep breakdown... ghetto, but unafraid to crack a smile. Although that pattern eventually lost out to the corporate-backed thug aesthetic that rules to this day, there are still a few that maintain their creative lineage to those days; Common, Kanye, and Little Brother all spring to mind, but no one upholds the tradition quite like the Legendary Roots Crew.

Came close to the utmost but no cigar/Nose to the grindstone, head to the stars/The number one runner with the number one drummer/Grammy award–winnin' it's the world's eighth wonder...

It could be said the entire left-of-everything-else, pro-black rap movement of today has the Roots—who perform at the Premier on Thursday November 10—as its functional nucleus. Their Okayplayer movement—not to mention the short-lived Soulquarian collective that encompassed the cream of the "conscious" MCs and soul revivalists—is anchored by their organic backbeat and true-school ethos. Retained are the love, the genre-bending spirit, and the insider-joke fun of their predecessors, though it may be lost on the young'uns; how many neosoul neophytes copped their Roots Come Alive live album without any knowledge of Peter Frampton?

Today, the Roots are themselves at a crossroads... having dropped their sixth studio album over a year ago, core personnel Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter, Kamal Gray, and Leonard "Hub" Hubbard find themselves the inaugural signing to the newly minted Def Jam subsidiary that's known as either "Def Jam Left" or "Left Jam" (depending on who you ask). The proposed artist-driven label is how things are ideally supposed to work—artists are nurtured and developed, not summarily dropped after weak first-week SoundScan showings. Def Jam cheese Jay-Z is of course well acquainted with the magic of hiphop's baddest band, having had their touch on his "Unplugged" and "Farewell" concerts.

The Roots' newfound home represents the best news they've gotten in some time; even with their hard-won platinum respect (and, yes a Grammy), the group's catalog has yet failed to produce a platinum album, despite having a handful of stellar LPs and at least two classics under their belt. As a result, label drama has plagued them from the start—from Geffen to MCA to Geffen again, they never got the push they needed. Internal problems have also proved an obstacle—the 10-minute opus "Water" from 2002's Phrenology (the latter of those classics I mentioned) stunningly depicts how Malik B, once responsible for one-half of the crew's vocals, fell to the wayside because of addiction. The internal and external pressures proved enough to stunt the Roots' creative stride; after the pigeonhole-pimpslapping step forward of Phrenology, the fellas took two back with the blandly commercial sheen of its follow-up, 2004's The Tipping Point. Time has revealed the group's own dissatisfaction with the effort, from which Questlove himself claimed detachment at one point prior to release.

As everything falls together, the Roots are staying busy as ever in their current limbo, dropping Homegrown! A Beginner's Guide to Understanding the Roots, a double-disc collection of rarities and remixes. It is, after all, the perfect time to reacquaint the public with Black Thought's infinitely slept-upon lyrical virtuosity, and Quest and Company's peerless musicianship.

Which brings us to Game Theory, their upcoming longplayer. Per usual, the cerebral title says it all; Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines the phrase as "the study of the ways in which strategic interactions among rational players produce outcomes with respect to the preferences (or utilities) of those players, none of which might have been intended by any of them." With the backing of hiphop's most enduring brand, and a promise to make a raw return to Phrenology's fearlessness, Quest and his "baadasssss" band of brothers are likely to soon show the world that their oldest strategy has always been the best—to just do them. recommended

hiphop@thestranger.com