Diversity grows from The Roots up

Posted on Jan. 21, 2010, at 12:16 a.m.

“Bring The Roots to UMaine,” created by student-athlete Andrew Downey, has amassed nearly 2,200 members and spurred Student Entertainment into booking the band for a March 20 gig. But for those involved with the Facebook group, the concert is about more than the music.

Downey said he wanted to bring The Roots, a hip-hop group unique for their live instruments and cross-cultural appeal, to bring the UMaine community together. His work coincided with a capstone project on diversity he is working on with fellow student-athlete Brandon Mclaughlin.

“I’ve felt like there’s two different groups of people on this campus,” Downey said. “[Mclaughlin and I] felt that a concert alone would help, but The Roots coming here would allow everybody to come together because their fan base is predominantly white, but they play hip-hop music.”

Downey worked with friends and faculty to make his dream a reality. Myer Taksel, an athletic-academic counselor at UMaine, shared Downey’s love for The Roots’ music and message.

“We started talking about this not as a concert, but as a cultural diversity event,” Taksel said. “Something that will help change, transform this campus.”

“Our campus is the most unculturally diverse, dead college campus I have ever stepped foot on, and I have been on campuses coast-to-coast,” Taksel said. “If there’s one thing on this earth that can create some genuine, lasting energy in the name of cultural diversity, it’s The Roots.”

Downey and Taksel, who have attended multiple Roots concerts together, both said that The Roots offer an intelligent and drastically different message when compared with other hip-hop acts.

“This campus needs to see the real black culture and the real hip-hop culture because there are a lot of stereotypes out there — there’s a lot of misconceptions,” Downey said.

Facebook groups campaigning for certain artists to perform at the University of Maine pop up every so often but rarely succeed.

According to Patrick Nabozny, acting vice president for Student Entertainment, Taksel and Downey approached Student Entertainment in early December when the Facebook group was in its infancy.

“We sat down with them and said, ‘Yeah, this is good, but you need to bring something more to the table… we can’t honor every Facebook group,’ ” Nabozny said. “When it got to be 1,200, 1,500 kids, we were kind of like, ‘They’re affordable, they’re pretty popular, they’re on [Late Night with] Jimmy Fallon, let’s do it.’ ”

Nabozny referred to The Roots concert as democracy in action. “The students of UMaine asked for The Roots, so Student Government is giving them The Roots,” he said.

Nabozny said he hopes the Facebook group will convert to actual ticket sales. If it does however, he predicts a sell out in the Field House. When The Roots came in March 2001, the audience reached just over 1,000.

Downey regularly posts videos and news to the Facebook group’s page and said its success could be attributed to students wanting to fill a cultural void. If not The Roots, Downey said he considered other positive hip-hop acts such as Talib Kweli, Lupe Fiasco and Common.

Nabozny said that Student Entertainment was considering concerts by mainstream rappers Drake and Akon. Downey and Taksel both said those hip-hop acts would not have the same uniting effect on the UMaine community.

“[The Roots] have played with Dave Matthews, U2, Mos Def, Ornette Coleman,” Taksel said. “They play in Paris. They play all over Northern Europe. They play in Japan. They have universal appeal. That’s not my opinion — that’s fact. Those other hip-hop groups aren’t doing that. Those other hip-hop groups are peddling sex, violence and homophobia.”

Nabozny said he hopes the concert will be an event where people of all backgrounds can come and have a good time. He mentioned the band’s NAACP Image Awards as proof of their caliber.

“If there was a group that could kind of bridge the divide on campus, I think it would be this group, more so than like a Drake type show,” Nabozny said.

Taksel’s relationship with Downey and The Roots is as unique and inspiring as the band themselves. According to Taksel, he grew up in the ’60s — “the golden age of rock ’n’ roll” — to which he said there was no comparison. Taksel said that he became deeply depressed in the ’70s and gave up on music completely by the ’80s.

Taksel said the only new band he listened to since the ’60s was U2.

“When we listened to music in the ’60s, we listened to music for a message,” Taksel. “[U2] completely floored me because of their politics, and I was raised very political as an anti-Vietnam War activist.”

Taksel met Downey and soon learned of his intense passion for music. Downey attempted to turn Taksel on to hip-hop, The Roots in particular, but Taksel said he had made up his mind that hip-hop was misogynist and violent.

“Downey insisted The Roots were different,” Taksel said. “The Roots now have picked up where U2 left off. They are now unequivocally my favorite band. They are much more than a band — they are a way of life. They are not only brilliant musicians, but they are highly intelligent young men, who I believe can do anything.”

Taksel said that The Roots’ performance will most likely feature everything from Zeppelin covers — “because white people love Led Zeppelin,” according to Taksel — to reggae. Their lyrics will be about global warming and the struggles facing America’s youth, instead of demeaning women.

Taksel, who works primarily with minority students, said that he takes the feelings of segregation on campus seriously.

“This campus and this country are almost completely segregated still,” Taksel said. “Our football team is probably 50 percent white, 50 percent black, brown and it’s segregated for the most part. One of the ways it’s highly segregated is its musical taste. Hopefully The Roots can begin to change that if for no other reason through their tremendous energy.”

Campus Currents: The Roots