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Do you easily separate artists you work with -- Al Green should sound like this, and The Roots will do something different?

Absolutely. If there's one thing I don't have in my career, it's an identifiable sound. I have to do that because we have to represent for all the other black bands that don't have a deal. For me, it's more important to give the artist what they need than to have them give me what I need. It'd be easy to make Al Green sound like a Jill Scott record, but I know the elements that attract me to Al Green's music. The key is not overplaying the drum sound -- very dry. I don't have an ego where I'm not going to get to play breakbeat on Al's record. If anything, I sound more authentic playing it how people are accustomed to hearing it. It's organs, it's strings, it's basses that are out-of-tune. What I had to do, to get musicians in the right mindset was make them characters. Some of the cats are younger and their reference points -- I had to make them a character. I had to tell them they're a factory worker and they can only play every other weekend. You work 50 hours a week, but you can't wait to have a beer and play with the boys. You have a cheap-sounding bass and aren't technically proficient -- you only know a few chords -- so play dry. They looked at me like I was crazy when I said they should detune the bass. It got to the point where I had to buy them a pawn-shop bass -- something cheap -- because it was sounding too polished and too perfect. Overplaying it wouldn't do it justice.

Do you take something away from an experience like that and bring it back into The Roots or do you leave it as it was?

That process could only work for Al Green. The reason you can overplay is because he'll oversing. It'll be 70 percent of him singing and 30 percent of you playing. You have to challenge yourself to make the most effective sound without overplaying. There's a balance to it. For someone like Duffy, I wanted to overdo it a little more. When I worked on her stuff, it was a whole other perspective, so it varies from artist to artist. There's a rumor that we might meet up with Tom Jones in May depending on the results of this record.

I've heard that you want to do six more records, or people say you'll do four -- is it even fair to think like that at this point?

I don't know. I wonder if when the Stones were making an album were they looking as far as Steel Wheels or A Bigger Bang? As long as I love music and as long as it loves me, why not? I say one at a time, but I'm already on the next record. Time won't allow me to stand still. Musically there's an idea for what I want to get done.

Do you see an end of the road?

If there were an easy answer for my mortgage being paid ... I don't know how people retire with debt coming in how it is. Unless you have Jay-Z money ... you still have to generate money -- look at Michael Jackson. I'm sure in 1990, when he was told he had to generate $8 million a month, he knew he could do that shit in his sleep. He didn't foresee the airplanes going inside of his World Trade Center so that it would be a miracle to make $5 million a month. I've learned not to live beyond my means. Of course, this is the point where I go by a mansion I can't afford and 12 Hummers. (laughs)

I have to ask about the hair. At what point did you say, it's my trademark and I can't touch it?

It just grows and keeps on growing. (laughs) It's just to the point where it grows continually that I don't have ... my barber teases me that he sees me ... actually this year is the most shape-ups and trims I've ever gotten because we decided to shoot 10 videos for the record. For every video and TV appearance, it's a minor trim that I get.