I read that The Roots were performing at the Blue Note in Manhattan a week or so ago.

The occasion was the 30th anniversary of the release of ‘Do You Want More?!!!??!’

(I have this problem where I think 1995 was like 10 or 20 years ago. It always throws me for a little bit of a loop to think of it as 30 years ago. Such is life, I guess.)

But I read that and I realized that, although I know The Roots as the house band on ‘The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,’ I didn’t really know The Roots for their music.

So I gave a couple of albums a listen - the aforementioned ‘Do You Want More?!!!??!’ and ‘Things Fall Apart.’ Those were the ones, along with ‘Illadelph Halflife,’ which I’m also planning on listening to, that seemed to be most highly regarded.

Those albums, from 1995, 1996, and 1999, would have been around during my college years.

As I’ve told you before, I was never much of a rap listener myself, but I certainly listened to a wider array of music during college - some by choice, and some because it was the music being played by roommates or floor mates or just around campus.

As far as I know, no one played The Roots in a way that I knew them as The Roots.

I definitely remember A Tribe Called Quest being played. That’s an example of rap music that made its way into my life and I realized I should maybe listen to it a bit.

I imagine someone was playing The Roots, but if I heard it I didn’t know it.

But, listening to them now, I could see it just being background-type music. I don’t mean that as a backhanded compliment - I mean it as, it’s very listenable. It’s hanging around music. Throw it on in the background while you’re sitting around chatting.

I’m sure someone on the 18th floor of Warren Towers at BU in the late 90’s was doing that.

But I was also thinking when I read about their performance earlier this month that it would be really cool to see The Roots at a venue like the Blue Note.

Maybe someday I’ll do something like that.

For now I’ll appreciate them differently if I happen to be up late enough to catch them on ‘The Tonight Show’ again.