Derek Webb capitalizes on a tweet-fight with the Roots’ ?uestlove to bring on the funk.
It was more than a year ago that I talked to Derek Webb about… well, stuff. Toward the end, I asked him about a string of tweets regarding issues he seemed to be having with ?uestlove, drummer for the Roots and sine qua non of “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.”
It seemed an odd pairing for a Twitter feud. Webb’s gotten into it with plenty of folks in the past, but a scion of hiphop known for his encyclopedic knowledge of popular music seems like the last person he’d choose to pick a fight with. For his part, ?uestlove seems like a fairly unconfrontational guy, better suited to lending street cred and cool solidarity, like Silent Bob with a ‘fro pick.
Mr. Webb readily cops to his propensity for button-pushing; what’s odd about this whole situation is that, for once, he didn’t do it on purpose.
I was walking into a show that I was doing somewhere, and right before I walked in, I put up a thing on Twitter [about] what a huge Roots-head I am. Offhandedly, at the end, I said I might have to get a whole separate Twitter feed just for him. Which I thought of as a kind-hearted joke from a fellow over-tweeter.
After I came out of my gig, I had a flood of action on my feed: “What’s this feud between you and ?uestlove?”
Mr. Webb is prolix in his praise of the Roots. He calls them the greatest backup act since the Band played behind Bob Dylan. He’d only quit following ?uestlove’s Twitter because the volume of tweets was starting to overwhelm him.
But when the Roots’ 2011 record Undun came out, he was ready to rejoin the bandwagon.
I got that record and I was just flipping out. I was telling everybody about it, posting stuff online.
That’s what makes the whole thing so weird, Mr. Webb says. The joke was only the tail end of a what was meant to be a gesture of devotion.
Instead, he finished the show he was playing and found that ?uestlove had taken umbrage:
I’m speaking to Mr. Webb on the phone, but I’m pretty sure I can hear him shaking his head.
@derekwebb noone is holding a gun to your head to follow me.
— A Bad Muntana (@questlove) December 21, 2011
He’s got 2.5 million Twitter follows, probably gets 50 replies every few minutes. But for some reason, he saw mine.
For the eight of you out there who don’t know, when someone blocks you, it means that all their Twitter material is denied you. You can’t see their feed, you can’t send them a message or even tag them in your own tweet. So Mr. Webb was prohibited from offering an apology to ?uestlove.
A second later, he tweeted out “What a tough day, I had to block my first verified user.”
A brief pause indicates Mr. Webb’s pleasure at realizing the celebrity status conferred by the “verified user” title. Twitter nerdiness over, he continues,
All his fans wanted to know who it was.
…That was kind of it.
Some people might take to their blog or call their friends in the press, in order to achieve catharsis. Mr. Webb called hiphop producer Josh Moore, who collaborated with him on Stockholm Syndrome, Feedback, and most recently SOLA-MI. Mr. Webb appealed to Mr. Moore, another devoted Roots fan, to help him address the situation with–what else?–a song and an accompanying video.
But Mr. Moore’s wife ended up delivering a baby that week.
So it kind of went dark.
Last April, Mr. Webb was talking to the Houston Chronicle and, as in my interview with him last year, got into this story as an afterthought. He didn’t expect it to get printed. But it did.
@questlove saw the article and tweeted it, with just one word of commentary:
Well? RT @SketchtheJ: Folk singer derek webb's awesome plan to become unTwitter blocked by The Roots' @questlove: http://t.co/oy9TpKMaUG
— A Bad Muntana (@questlove) April 11, 2013
Webb only found out about this because a friend told him…after all, he couldn’t see the Tweet himself. He immediately called up Mr. Moore again.
I told him about my delusions of grandeur…we’re still going to write this song. I’m going to go on Jimmy Fallon and perform this song on Late Night. Questlove’s going to come out and unblock me on the air.
Within 48 hours, we wrote, recorded the song and shot that video. And then we put it up online, and at the end of the video we answered back,
“Well?”
It’s a great song, with the catchy hook and clever lyrics typical of Mr. Webb’s music, but stylistically far removed from the driving folk rock he’s known for. Mr. Webb says it was written as a tribute to the Roots’ syncopated, funk-influenced take on hiphop. Furthermore, the speed with which it was all put together is atypical of Mr. Webb, who has often mentioned that he writes pretty slowly and methodically, often in collaborative hibernation with whoever’s accompanying him on a given project. This one, in contrast, was written in cross-country shifts.
When the moment arises, I can get the work done.
From his post in Houston, Mr. Moore laid down a beat and wrote the chorus, then sent it to Nashville with big blanks where the verses should go. Mr. Webb finished the tune, and they presumably filmed their pieces separately and then cut them together and released it on Spotify… also a departure for Mr. Webb, who loudly opines his contempt for big online music distributors.
But in a situation of this gravity, certain compromises must be made.
Lest there be any confusion, Mr. Webb’s feelings are not hurt over this matter. And as much as he’d love to get on Fallon, it’s not just merely stunting for the sake of wider exposure. The whole thing is just an opportunity to play ball with a personal hero.
The song is written as a Roots tribute song. Our love for the Roots is written into the whole tone of the video.
For me, it’s like, here is a hero of mine I’m having a public conversation with. He keeps teasing me, and I keep teasing back. It’s fun. Why would I not want to have this fun interaction with my favorite drummer of all time? From my perspective, that’s how it happened.
The one-year delay is neither here nor there, since Mr. Webb wasn’t expecting to see the issue revived. But, he says,
When he throws the ball, you respond. The only reason it came back was because Quest brought it back. I am calling that my first collaboration with Questlove.
Since releasing the video in early April, Mr. Webb knows that ?uestlove has not only seen it, but likes it. A friend of Mr. Webb’s asked the drummer to sign a copy of his new memoir to Derek Webb. ?uestlove drew a picture of Mr. Webb’s face, with a banner across it that said “Blocked.” But underneath, Mr. Webb says fondly, there’s a note that reads “It was a cute video , I’ll give you that.”
On Twitter, the drummer has even adopted some of the song’s references as his own, threatening people with the loss of their taco updates if they make him mad. He’s occasionally mentioned Mr. Webb by name…though, as per the format of Twitter, he can’t actually tag Mr. Webb unless he unblocks him first.
As to that, Mr. Webb is waiting on pins and needles to see some kind of response. He has friends who work on “Late Night,” who have advised him that the producers think the video is hilarious. Beyond that, he hasn’t heard anything.
Every few weeks, I will check and see if I’m still blocked. It’s almost kind of a release. I’m glad he didn’t just quietly unblock me–that would be such a letdown, if he was like “all right,” hit the button, and it’s done. I still really have this dream in my head, of standing in front of the Roots and hearing that drum part that we programmed, that was crafted to feel just like Quest’s drumming, to have him playing that behind me.
I’ve got this picture in my head of him bringing up his laptop from behind the drumset, and hitting that button, on the air.
Anything short of that, at this point…I’d rather just stay blocked.
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If you’re in the mood for a Twitter overload, follow Derek Webb and @Questlove.
Just keep it civil. And join the #UNBLOKME lobby, if you dare!
