The Roots - Understand ft. Dice Raw, Greg Porn

What this video is

Released May 2014 as a single from *…And Then You Shoot Your Cousin* — The Roots' fourteenth studio album on Def Jam Recordings — 'Understand' sits within a concept album Black Thought described as a satirical examination of violence in hip-hop and American society. The album employs multiple narrators to explore income inequality, spiritual bankruptcy, and systemic despair within Black American experience. The…

Why it matters

Represents a rare intersection of award-winning independent stop-motion animation craft and major-label conscious hip-hop (Def Jam), at a moment when The Roots were simultaneously the Tonight Show house band and recording some of their most uncompromising work. The video extends a lineage of…

The director

Joe Baughman is a filmmaker, stop-motion animator, cinematographer, and musician from the Midwestern United States. He specializes in music videos across stop-motion and live-action formats and has worked with artists including The Roots, Wilco, Sufjan…