The Roots, posing at 5th annual Roots Picnic at Festival Pier, Penn's Landing, Philadelphia

Philadelphia, PA- June 2 : The ROOTS attend the 5th Annual ROOTS Picnic held at Festival Pier at Penn's Landing in Philadelphia, PA on June 2, 2012 in Phiidelphia, PA. The Roots is an American hip hop/neo soul band formed in 1987 by Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter and Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are known for a jazzy, eclectic approach to hip hop which includes live instrumentals. (Photo by Terrence Jennings/PictureGroup)

Photo: Roots Picnic 2012 Recap, Part 1!

Eddie "STATS" Houghton

June 05, 2012

Photos by Terrence Jennings.

Roots Picnic 2012 had it all: Ups, downs, history-making performances, sunshine, thunder, lightning, jerk chicken, soul, dancehall, trillwave and that good old rap and most of all more beautiful people than you could blow an airhorn at. Some of our favorite photographers--notably the homie Terrence Jennings--were on hand to record it all and since we have two days of musical madness to get thorugh (and each of the following flicks is worth at least 1,001 words) we better jump in. Let's go.

St. Vincent

Roots Mural Arts Project

Mercedes and Tracey from the JazzyFatNastees

J. Period and Stretch Armstrong

Merrill Garbus of Tune-Yards and Spank Rock

DJ Sicksentz from Mr. Muthafuckin' EXquire

OKP Photog Mel D. Cole

Capn' Kirk

Yameen Allworld

?uesto and Fela Kuti necklaces - coming soon to the Okayplayer Store

DJ Maseo from De La Soul with ?uesto

DJ Jazzy Jeff

Yasiin Bey FKA Mos Def

Wale

Black Thought aka Riq Gees

Black Thought x De La Soul with Yasiin Bey in the background

Plug 1 and 2 of De La Soul

Coco from Quadron

the crowd

Diplo, Walshy Fire and Jillionaire collectively known as Major Lazer

Walshy Fire of Major Lazer

Rakim

Photo: Roots Picnic 2012 Recap, Part 1!

Sign Up To Our Newsletter