The Roots Are Releasing Endgame, Their First Album in a Decade

The Roots are finally ready to drop new music. In a new Billboard cover story, Questlove and Black Thought confirmed that Endgame, the group's first studio album in more than a decade, is nearing completion. The two spoke openly about what the project means, where it came from, and why 2026 has quietly become one of the most significant years in their three-decade run.

For anyone tracking the group's trajectory, the timing makes sense. This summer alone, The Roots hosted the 16th Roots Picnic, headlined by Erykah Badu and Jay-Z in his first major solo performance in seven years. Questlove premiered his Earth, Wind and Fire documentary. The group returned to the Montreux Jazz Festival more than 30 years after their debut there, and performed at the opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. All of this on top of their ongoing role as the house band for Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show, a gig they've held since 2009.

"I'll probably look at 2026 as our best bucket-list summer we've ever had," Questlove, 55, told Billboard.

What We Know About Endgame So Far

Questlove and Black Thought describe Endgame as a return to the free-flowing jam sessions that defined The Roots early on. The word they keep coming back to is curiosity. Not nostalgia, not a victory lap. Curiosity. The same energy that brought two teenagers together at the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts in 1989.

The album is being guided by longtime manager Shawn Gee, who also serves as president of Live Nation Urban. Beyond that, the duo has kept details close. No release date has been announced, no features confirmed publicly. But the framing they use is telling. Black Thought described everything feeling like a new beginning, and Questlove spoke about returning to the creative spark that defined their earliest work before the late producer and co-manager Richard Nichols passed in 2014. Endgame sounds less like a comeback record and more like proof that the best version of The Roots is still ahead of them.

The group's last studio album, ...And Then You Shoot Your Cousin, came out in 2014. That is a long gap by any measure, but The Roots have never been a band that defines themselves by release cycles. The Tonight Show, the Picnic, Okayplayer, the documentaries, the festival curation. All of it has kept them visible and relevant without a single.

Why This Matters for Independent Artists and Creators

The conversation in the Billboard piece goes well beyond the album. Questlove and Black Thought talk about the architecture of longevity, and what they say is worth sitting with if you are building anything in the creative space.

Questlove framed the Tonight Show not as a TV gig but as 11 musicians putting in eight to ten hours a week in the gym. "Being in a position where we have to write eight-second themes is a very, very hard thing to do," he said. Writing tight, practicing constantly, absorbing how other disciplines work. That is the unsexy infrastructure behind a 35-year career.

Black Thought made a point that cuts even deeper. He talked about not taking rejection personally, about staying malleable, about remaining like water as a performer. "The people who stood the test of time are the ones that give a damn about what they do and who consider whatever they do as an art form."

And then there is the Okayplayer lesson, which Questlove calls one of the most important things that ever happened to The Roots. They built a platform, it grew beyond them, and at first that felt like a loss of control. Then he realized that is what legacy actually looks like. You build something, it runs without you, and that is the goal, not the problem.

The Roots came up as a live band with no industry template to follow. They have been independent thinkers operating inside the major label system, running a festival that now matters to people who have never even bought a Roots record, and mentoring the next generation of musicians simply by showing up on television every week and playing it real. If you are an independent artist trying to figure out how to build something durable, this interview is worth reading in full.

Endgame does not have a release date yet, but it is clearly close. Keep it here for updates as more details surface. And if you are looking for spaces in LA where that same energy around live instrumentation and creative independence stays alive, check out what is coming through our [events calendar](/events).