You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made.

I'm Rishikesh Herway.

This episode contains explicit language.

Drummer Amir Thompson, also known as Questlove, and rapper Tariq Trotter, aka Black Thought,

started the roots when they were in high school in Philadelphia in 1987.

Over the last 30 years, the band's released 17 albums.

They've received a bunch of Grammy nominations, including three wins.

They're also the house band for the tonight show, starring Jimmy Fallon.

In this episode, Questlove tells the story of how they wrote and recorded the song, It Ain't Fair.

It was created for the film Detroit, directed by Oscar winner Catherine Bigelow,

who also made the films The Hurt Locker, and Zero Dark Thirty.

Detroit is about the 1967 Detroit riots.

It centers around the events at the Algiers Motel, where police killed three young black men and beat and tortured nine others.

The roots recruited Singer Balal to contribute vocals to the song,

and they worked with the Dapkings, the backing band for the late Soul Singer Sharon Jones,

to help them create a sound that evoked the music of 1967.

I recorded this interview with Questlove at 30 Rocket Valor Center

in between tapings of the tonight show.

This is Amir Collieb Thompson, P.K.A. Questlove of the legendary roots crew and co-author of It Ain't Fair by the Roots and Blau.

The origin of this song was one of my managers, Sarah.

It was just like, uh, Catherine Bigelow's gonna call him five minutes.

I was like, okay, fine.

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