Will we even make it was the first question. It was on a July Sunday evening, so it would be a hot one.

The Sunday evening in question fell on the weekend of a family reunion staying up telling stories and dancing. We had just driven back that afternoon so that day was already a long one. My past two Sundays were spent on my Brooklyn balcony drinking homemade mint cucumber lemonade listening to car horn practice. I didn’t have any fresh farmers market mint but I already knew I could chill at home and have a relaxing one. The Roots concert was in Flushing Queens. By train would take two, by the Jackie Robinson a winding one.

My wife tho, wasn’t the one. A true Roots fan. A chance to see them in the summer? For Free? She would roll solo if needed. This wouldn’t take two to make it go right for her. She has been a fan since their early albums.  I’m just a recent Roots fan after seeing them live in Central Park last summer.

I went to that concert to see the Jungle Brothers and Diggable Planets. I returned home a Roots convert.

The wall of sound, Black Thought with the ginsu knife dexterity, Captain Kirk playing the “Breezin” licks before a genius solo. Now I get it. I was willing to fight through Sunday evening gravity for another Roots experience. I also didn’t have farmers market mint and the C-Town stuff doesn’t cut it. Off to Queens we go.

How am I in the sweet spot for this concert audience was the second question. DJ Scratch, “if you old enough you know this song.” Yes DJ Scratch, I’m old enough and I know this song. I waited for Red Alert on Friday night to play this song. My heavy soled sneakers are not out of place two stepping to this song.

I’m proudly bopping my gray temples to this song. Pointing to the sky now for Biz Markie.  “This is something for the radiohhhh.”  

Before we get to the question, a question of space, time, and funk let’s pause for a moment with the Queens Borough president. Donovan Richards -rocking an uncle up top, nephew on the bottom ensemble – addressed the crowd to show love for Queens county where “360 languages and dialects are spoken.” Loved it when he said, “Queens is the world’s borough and you deserve world class culture and that’s why we got the Roots playing tonight.” We will see you and your video team in a mayoral primary soon Mr. Richards.   

And now, at last, to a setting sun and a summer breeze blowin’ through the jasmine in my mind as The Roots take the stage. Somewhere after “Proceed” and “Looking at the Front Door” it hits me that this band swings. I understand this isn’t some new revelation for a hip-hop band with jazz and funk influences. I am speaking about what hit me as someone just hearing them live for just the second time but really listening to them for the first.

In a sweaty sunset in the park gotta live it up, life is what you make it with my age-appropriate crowd moment maybe my ears were more open. The Roots groove reminded me of the “Ella and Basie” album I listened to earlier in the week. I thought of Miles Davis talking about swing in James Kaplans book “3 Shades of Blue.” And I felt it. I heard it and the felt the now and later move together. Those musicians swung time. Black Thought’s vocals. Quest Love’s drums. Dave Guy’s trumpet. Ian Hendrickson-Smith’s sax. Tuba Gooding Jr’s sousaphone. And the keys, and guitars. We were here and there making the stink face with happy hearts.  

It was somewhere around 9pish when on a different Sunday night, I would be arguing with an episode of “The Bear,” that The Roots took us to through a sermon of the J.B.’s “Gimme Some More that I was free from time. No thoughts of tomorrow, or the week ahead. “Don’t Say Nothing Just Gimme More.”     

It was only later the following week when I was thoroughly anchored back to the clock and listening to the full J.B.s “Pass the Peas” album that I understood what they had done. They had gone back to the source, put it through their people-in-the-park powered flux capacitor, gigawatted us forward to a new possible. Hip-Hop, the new frontier.

Can Hip Hop bend time?  Yes Hip-Hop can. The Roots do it. In Flushing Queens on a July night we bent time together. Maybe the next Questlove directed doc will take us through the journey and tell us how Dilla did it. How Grandmaster Flash bent time with a flick of the wrist. What is the Luke and Miami bend?