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4th annual roots picnic held at the festival pier at penns landing 12
4 June 2011- Philidelphia, PA- J. Period and the Crowd at the 4th Annual ROOTS Picnic held at the Festival Pier (at Penn's Landing) on June 4, 2011 in Philadelphia, PA. Photo Credit: Terrence Jennings
Photo by Terrence Jennings

J. Period Recruits Black Thought, Posdnuos and Pharoahe Monch For a Pointed Protest Anthem

A Tribe Called Quest Celebrates The 25th-Anniversary Of Their Seminal Debut 'People's Instinctive Travels...' LP Live On The Tonight Show With The Roots. Photo by Shayan Asgharnia

J. Period brings three titans to the mic on his politically-charged new cut. As tensions boil across the country with protests that range from strictly peaceful to explicitly violent, the Brooklyn-based selector and producer has wrangled some of his heavyweight associates to bless his freshly-released and timely-as-ever protest anthem, "Rise Up!."

Leading the pack, Pharoahe Monch bats first, passing it off to De La Soul's Posdnuosand as an extension of their Live Mixtape styles, Black Thought joins and leaves nothing but smoke in his wake, knocking it out of the park as the track's clean-up emcee. Joss Stone graces the closing bars with some vocal flourishes as the track fades into a clip of a Martin Luther King Jr. speech. It hasn't been confirmed, but our guess is that Questlove is the man behind the kit.

Period tells Rolling Stone that the song "aims to remind us of the higher ideals we’re fighting for when we call for justice: unity, equality, diversity, empathy." Hear it down below and join us in Philly to see J. Period rock with Black Thought, Fat Joe, Mobb Deep and Scott Storch for another edition of the Live Mixtape at Roots Picnic.