As an elementary-school-age child, the Roots’ founding vocalist and rapper Black Thought (real name Tariq Trotter) experienced a tragedy of his own accidental doing. “The most profound memory I have from my childhood, is burning down my house at 6 years old,” Trotter told The New York Times. “I used to play with green plastic army men, and I would use a lighter to melt parts of their body, to make it seem like they were wounded as they fought each other,” he recalled. This time, the lighter grew hotter than usual, Trotter suffered a quick burn, and he instinctively threw the lighter across the room of his family’s home in Mount Airy, a neighborhood in Philadelphia. The flame was still active, however, and it made contact with curtains, sending them ablaze. Trotter, his 14-year-old brother, Keith, and their mother’s boyfriend all safely got out of the house while firefighters battled the flames.
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Much of the home and possessions inside it were lost, but it had left lasting psychological effects on Trotter. “No one ever blamed me. My mother offered enormous grace, knowing that I was just a child,” Trotter wrote in his memoir “The Upcycled Self.” “But once you’ve burned down your home, everything else is small in comparison. That experience of total loss became the basis of all that I am.”
