Anything to do with private companies owning prisons, that scares me more than anything because that basically tells me that America plans on having prisons [become] so comfortable [that you don’t want to leave]. Mumia Abu-Jamal [click to read] to this day, refuses to have a television inside of his cell. This is probably the most disturbing thing about being on death row in Pennsylvania, it’s the fact that death row inmates actually have it more comfortable than general population prisoners. You get like a little kitchen area, you get a television, [and] they’re now introducing the idea of having computers inside the cells. [Mumia] says it’s almost like they’re trying to pacify you, sort of complace you, so that you’re comfortable in accepting the fact that they’re definitely gonna kill you. One guy that I actually knew that was in the prison was like, “Yeah man, that new prison was better than this old project I lived in.” And that was just fucking with me. I was like, “The hell?” And even Tariq’s brother, [who’s] been in prison since we’ve been out, since Do You Want More?!!!??!, he’s gotten out and straight up told Tariq like, “Yo, I’m going back in, man. I can’t take this shit. I don’t know what to do with myself.” He won’t go see his P.O. so he can purposefully get arrested so he can get another year-and-a-half. To him, it’s free rent. It’s free utilities. All of his boys are in there. He was about to play on this ball team [before] he got let out. Being outside was like being in prison to him. If [he’s] thinking like that, then you know there’s a gazillion Americans thinking like that.

DX: How do I switch gears to this much more important topic, pornography [Laughs]. You have Sasha Grey in the “Birthday Girl” video [click to view], and you even have a rapper named P.O.R.N. featured on the new album, so are there any plans for Okayplayer to launch like a porn sister site?
?uest: You know it’s funny you say that, Sinnamon Love [click to read] is probably the ?uestlove of the porn starlets. Even though she’s a porn actress, she’s really on some geek shit. I had her come on Okayplayer back when the porn industry was rocked by this incident in which one of their new starlets happened to catch the HIV virus from a black actor. For which, there was a total blackout of the industry. It was like a civil war going on [with] all the white actresses saying, “See, that’s why we don’t work with black men.” And the black [porn stars] was like, “Yo, what the fuck? What the hell [were they] doing shooting a scene without testing him first?” So I had her come on the site so she could kinda educate people about the porn industry ‘cause she’s really eloquent in the way that she explains the business. And after about a week or so of doing that I was like, “Whoa, we should really start something.” There are people that have a genuine curiosity of that world, much more than just its inhabitants but sort of like what a day [in their life] is like. I just happen to know probably the [more] intelligent portion of the porn world, to the point where I almost understand it. I’m still head-scratching [at times], especially where Sasha’s concerned ‘cause I swear that girl has like an I.Q. of 160 almost.

DX: Now I mentioned P.O.R.N. the rapper, and there’s another new cat on the album named Truck North, there were a lot of guests on this album period, but were there any collabos that you wanted but didn’t happen or happened but didn’t make the final cut?
?uest: Too many. I didn’t have time to get Phonte on the record. Q-Tip had a death in the family when he was supposed to do his verse. Q-Tip was supposed to be on “Criminal,” [click to listen] as was Lupe.

Time is our biggest enemy. We started recording the record in August of 2007, and with our touring schedule we only had bits and pieces of time to really get focused and get down to business. [With] our tour schedule, [we don’t] really have time to do a proper album. Not a proper album, but just how we normally did it [in the past]. Most people don’t tour while they’re recording, but we have to survive still. We have to do both. And we had to turn the record in in February. And so I wanted to get Blu on the record, and Jay Electronica as well [but couldn’t]. But there’s always album #11.

DX: Speaking of, what’s The Roots future at Def Jam now that the man who brought you guys there is gone?
?uest: I think a better question would be what’s the future of Def Jam? At the rate where they’re expecting to sell one million Mariah units [in the first week] and only got 463,000… Right now our future at Def Jam is in the hands of Mariah Carey. So I hope she goes diamond. Heads are gonna fly if this album flops. So right now I’m praying that Mariah Carey outdoes Thriller. Continued on page 4 »