Philadelphia’s hip-hop collective the Roots are off to a rough start at their new label. After seven studio albums with MCA and Geffen, they signed to Def Jam in 2006 at the behest of then-label president Jay-Z. However, since Jay-Z’s departure last December, things have been a bit more difficult. In an effort to please Def Jam executives with a radio single, drummer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson says the group presented the pop-leaning "Birthday Girl" featuring Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump.

Label staffers praised the track, but fans panned it, and the tune was stripped from the U.S. version of their new album, "Rising Down."The set is book-ended by a 1994 conversation where the members vent their frustration about not garnering the attention they expected from MCA. Thompson says the snippets show that their Def Jam predicament isn’t the first time the Roots have "been mired in some sort of label battle."

• News
• Audio
• Video
• Albums