"Rock Box" Track of the Day: Aloe Blacc, "I Need a Dollar"

Song: "I Need a Dollar" by Aloe Blacc
Released: 2010
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It's the opening title theme from How to Make It in America, HBO's recession-era New York dramedy (or is it more of a comma?). To promote his new Stones Throw album Good Things, Blacc recently performed "I Need a Dollar" on both Conan and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, where it sounded impressive live and won him some new fans at Studio 6A.

My reaction upon hearing "I Need a Dollar" for the first time on How to Make It in America was exactly like my initial reaction to American Gangster's original song "Do You Feel Me," a Hank Shocklee-produced throwback to the sounds of the period setting of the Denzel Washington film that was performed by Anthony Hamilton (and written by, of all people, Diane "My Heart Will Go On" Warren). I wondered, "Whose recording studio archives did they dig up this gem from?" Blacc's vintage soul sound was so convincing in "I Need a Dollar" that I was surprised to learn the track was new.

"I Need a Dollar" is the perfect song for both a show that's like Entourage's cash-strapped, bedbug bite-covered East Coast cousin and these shitty times. Blacc actually wrote it before the recession hit:

Complex: What inspired the concept for "I Need A Dollar"?

Aloe Blacc: No money problems. That was boom time. The housing industry was up. Everybody was happy. I lived in this house that we called the Monmouth Temple on a street called Monmouth in Los Angeles from 2003 to 2008. A lot of musicians tend to live in this house. One of the guys has a really nice record collection, and he gave me some chain gang field recordings of convicts, largely black, from the South, working on chain gangs. This was in my head at that time. It seemed to me a little bit like a spiritual. That's the way I originally made the song. I actually recorded it with my friends in 2007 at the Monmouth Temple when we were just sitting in the front room stomping on the wooden floor and clapping our hands. Kind of like a spiritual you could do it in church. So that's how I always heard it. At least the melody in my voice, that's always remained and it worked perfectly with the music that these guys made in New York.

That spiritual quality in Blacc's voice helps lend "I Need a Dollar" a certain timelessness that will outlast whatever fashion or beverage trend the hustlers in How to Make It in America will attempt to take advantage of all season long.

Blacc is one of many former rappers who have shifted towards more melodic material with tunes like "I Need a Dollar." In his pretty good remix of "I Need a Dollar," L.A. battle rapper Dumbfoundead dabbles with ease in this shift towards sung vocals that Blacc has fully embraced:

"Rock Box" Track of the Day: The Roots, "Here I Come"

Song: "Here I Come" by The Roots featuring Malik B. & Dice Raw
Released: 2006
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It's featured in Superbad. (It also appears in the Hancock closing credits.) "Here I Come" is the most upbeat (and party-friendly, hence its inclusion in Superbad) track on 2006's Game Theory, The Roots' most militant and brooding-sounding album. Game Theory was a bold move for their first album for Def Jam, a label that many feared would interfere with The Roots' sound and force the band to be more mainstream (luckily, Def Jam's been hands-off). You may be more familiar with the faster-paced version of "Here I Come" that The Roots perform each weeknight during the opening titles and end credits of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Dammit, Fallon! That was supposed to be the theme song for my talk show! You know, the one I host in my basement with my special guests, a cardboard cutout of Liza Minnelli and a cardboard cutout of Jerry Lewis?
Which moment in Superbad does it appear?: The scene where Jonah Hill, Michael Cera and Christopher Mintz-Plasse finally arrive at Emma Stone's party.

Speaking of Superbad, last night's Daily Show superimposed the face of a crying John Boehner from 60 Minutes over the body of McLovin while he lost his virginity in the movie. That cracked my ish up.

Hear Black Thought, Malik B. and Dice Raw disturb the peace.

All the other "Rock Box" Tracks of the Day from this week:
Classic & 86, "Ridin'"
Pulp, "Like a Friend"
Run-DMC, "Rock Box"
The Crystal Method, "Starting Over"

Late Night with the Roots Featuring Jimmy Fallon

Right now, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon has the rockingest theme song on TV (the Roots' sped-up version of their own 2006 tune "Here I Come," the complete opposite of The Jay Leno Show's lame opening theme, which Vulture amusingly slammed as "a rejected demo from the Beverly Hills 90210 sessions"), as well as the illest late night band (the Philly collective is one of the few bands whose albums I always buy). The Roots always pick the cleverest and most playful walk-on music for Fallon's guests, from Jay-Z's "Lost One" for Lost's Jorge Garcia to Quiet Riot's "Bang Your Head" for head-butting gossip column favorite Kiefer Sutherland. (The Late Night blog keeps track of the walk-on music, easily my favorite part of Fallon's show.) Last night, the Roots awesomely welcomed Dennis Quaid with the Lalo Schifrin theme from Quaid's 1981 movie Caveman. ?uestlove, Black Thought and their cohorts have officially outed themselves as film score geeks.