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The Roots will now stream YouTube content five nights a week

With this year's Roots Picnic postponed from May to August, the Philly hip-hop band is putting its energy into creating musical content on YouTube, five night a week.

Questlove performs with The Roots during the Roots Picnic at the Mann Center last June. During coronavirus shutdowns, the band is producing streaming content on YouTube.
Questlove performs with The Roots during the Roots Picnic at the Mann Center last June. During coronavirus shutdowns, the band is producing streaming content on YouTube.Read moreTIM TAI / Staff Photographer
    by Dan DeLuca
    Published 

Starting this week, Philadelphia hip-hop band The Roots will be streaming content on their YouTube channel every day, Monday through Friday.

DJ sets by the band’s drummer Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson have been highlights of the new paradigm in livestreamed music while the world is on coronavirus lockdown. His four-hour late-night sessions have been enormously entertaining and educational — an all-Stevie Wonder evening was so impressive that Wonder himself called in to say hello.

But as with a lot of the livestreaming excitement over the past few weeks, it’s been difficult to keep track of when exactly the good stuff was happening. You needed to keep an eye on Questlove’s Instagram to see when he was going to be popping up on YouTube.

Now, the band is putting a plan in place to let fans know not only when Questlove is manning the wheels of steel, but when a whole package of entertainment options from the band is going to take place, on a regularly scheduled basis.

Monday’s schedule kicked off at noon with pianist James Poyser’s “Behind the Keys” podcast, focusing on his work with Mariah Carey, followed by Capt. Kirk Douglas telling Bruce Springsteen “Guitar Stories” at 3. And then at 9 p.m., it’s the main event, with a live episode of “DJ Questlove Presents.”

Questlove’s DJ sets will go live Monday to Friday at 9 p.m., with various live and taped podcasts and interviews during the day, such as rapper Black Thought’s conversation with deejay D-Nice at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

“While we are daily trying to figure out ways for us to play as a group while practicing social distancing, we are always thinking of new ways to be creative and leaving our comfort zone," Questlove said in a news release Monday. "We just hope people will follow and subscribe and we will keep the treats coming.”

The programming is a joint venture of the band’s Two One Five Entertainment and Live Nation Urban, the division of the concert promotion company that presents the Roots Picnic.

This year’s picnic has been moved from its original May 30 date at the Mann Center to Aug. 1.

“After we made the decision to postpone The Roots Picnic, there was a major creative void as usually we spend the months of April and May on phone calls and in countless meetings planning the various aspects of the event," said Roots manager and Live Nation Urban head Shawn Gee, in a statement. "We built this idea for a content rich channel after seeing the immediate success of Questlove’s virtual DJ sets.”

All content can be found at youtube.com/theroots.