Karim Benzema x Black Thought - Like A Fine Wine

It’s a weird thing, talent. Because despite it existing in you, you’re at the mercy of a lot of external circumstances which decide whether or not you can bring it out and showcase it to the world.

Your surroundings matter. The company you keep matters. In some cases, talent can be there for decades before people truly harness it. It’s all about the right environment giving you the power to release it.

And no one can personify this conundrum as well as Tariq ‘Black Thought’ Trotter and Karim Benzema. For both of them to be considered as some of the greatest ever in their craft, it took time, patience and heaps of mental strength. Their path to glory wasn’t a formality. Though they showed clear signs of brilliance in their youth, they both had to bide their time for a plethora of years before being able to display it in all of its might. Because greatness isn’t linear. It’s all about timing, being in the right place to snap it up.

Karim Benzema’s career demands intrigue. He was once the face of an extremely exciting emerging generation - the golden boy of France. Only to be cast out by his country and endure years of controversy before returning back to his nation almost a decade later. For his club, he was praised, criticised, loathed, loved and then immortalised. All this behind one of the most complete and classy number nines to ever play the game.

Tariq Trotter, or Black Thought has lived a life like no other. He was the co-founder of the extremely highly regarded and appreciated hip-hop trio ‘The Roots’. He launched a breathtaking solo career whilst in his 40s, has collaborated with some of the biggest names in music and was the flagbearer for a new movement in the genre. All this from a man who burnt his house down aged 6 and lived through the murder of both of his parents at a very young age.

For both of them, their stock was extremely obvious from the earliest of days. Many people don’t know this but Benzema was the wonderkid in France starting from around 2004. He raced through Lyon’s youth teams and made his professional debut aged 18. Scouts and coaches raved about the forward’s ability and he was instantly likened to his nation’s most revered strikers. The pace of Henry, the instincts of Trezeguet and the combination play of Henry. By 2006, the teenager was knocking on the door for a starting spot.

And in that year Benzema’s performances were demanding nationwide attention, The Roots had released their 6th studio album ‘Phrenology’. By this time they were established names in the hip-hop world who were famed for their progressiveness and refusal to cater to the masses with their sound. People were also drawn to them because of Tariq Trotter. He was a virtuoso MC with such a potent and energetic cadence which gave The Roots a different dimension. It was a group he had cofounded in 1987 with his schoolboy friend Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Richards. And he was firmly the star of it.

But hip-hop has always centered around solo power. Black Thought, the genius he clearly was - struggled to escape the lens of group instrumentation from which The Roots were looked through. Sure, everyone knew he was talented but his ceiling was capped by being part of a group where the appeal was less about who they were but what their music represented. Trotter’s public appeal didn’t much up to any of the other lead MC’s in the game around that time such as Jay Z, DMX or Eminem - despite the fact he was just as talented as them.

It’s a situation Karim Benzema could have related to following his first few seasons at Real Madrid. He left Lyon for the Spanish capital in 2009 and though he initially found himself as a second-choice option to Gonzalo Higuain - he forced his way into the starting lineup in his 3rd season. Benzema’s start to life in Madrid was as much as you could ask for if you were a young striker joining the biggest club in the world. By 2013/14, he was averaging over 20 goals per season. It wasn’t incredible but it was hardly a feat to turn your nose up at.

But Real Madrid fans, entitled as they are, were quick to jump on the neck of their French talisman. He missed too many chances, he looked like he didn’t want to put in the effort. Barcelona had just signed Luis Suarez - Benzema wasn’t a superstar.

But Benzema, like Trotter - had all the ability of a superstar. He just couldn’t show it. He was the foil to the brilliance of Bale, Ronaldo, Ozil and others. He was the Hawkeye, the Steve Kerr of that system. But there was no whining from the Frenchman. He didn’t seem to care to be the star and was happy filling in his role as the unselfish and dismissable number nine.

It’s a testament to his ability that a striker was never signed to replace him despite murmurings from fans that Madrid deserved better. The coaches knew what they had with him.

But nothing in football, nor in music lasts forever. The world keeps spinning, people come and go and landscapes shift. For Benzema - it was the physical decline of Bale, Hazard’s failure to delight and Ronaldo's blockbuster transfer to Juventus which called for a new hero at the Santiago Bernabeu.

For Trotter, it was different. There was no defining moment where he and The Roots parted ways. In fact they still work together on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon despite the death of the third member of the group Malik B. For him, it was more just a necessity to speak out individually instead of a collective and let loose on all his personal experiences and traumas.

He’d began writing for a solo project years ago, at the turn of the 21st century. But for many reasons, the project never fully materialised until almost 20 years later where his first solo album ‘Cheat Codes’ was dropped. 

And the ripple effect it created in the hip-hop world was seismic. Black Thought sounded better, hungrier as a man in his late 40s than he did when he was with The Roots. He was rapping like a man possessed on every song and in tandem with the brilliant Danger Mouse laying down masterpiece after masterpiece on production, the album almost instantly became a classic.

It seemed everything in his career up to that point was a stepping stone to his magnum opus. It catapulted Tariq out of the ‘one of the most underrated rappers ever’ conversation to ‘one of the greatest rappers ever’. Nobody was rapping like that, nobody was as raw and powerful yet so skillful as Black Thought. That album has its own sound that is grounded in the 90s but unleashed by a man with 30 years of experience and reflections. It has its own corner among classical albums in the genre where it stands solitary. He was undeniable, untenable. It was the arrival of a superstar nearly 30 years after he arrived.

There was a gaping superstar sized hole in Real Madrid’s squad after the summer of 2018. Hazard arrived the next year but his body was written off. As too were Real Madrid’s finances as a consequence of their gluttonous spending of the last 5 years. There was no one to throw money at.

But Madrid already had their superstar attacker. He just never had the chance to show it. After a dismal 2018/19 season, Benzema took it upon himself to make this outfit his team. It was the moment he’d been waiting for. His chance to be that player everyone saw at Lyon. You know how the story goes from here. 2 La Liga’s, 1 Copa Del Rey and 1 Champions League in the next four seasons.

Real Madrid was now his team and he made the world know it. This four year stretch featured arguably the best individual season we’ve seen from a player not named Messi or Ronaldo. In 2021/22, Benzema single-handedly dragged Madrid through the UCL knock-out rounds. A mesmeric hat-trick against PSG in the round of 16 was followed by a hat-trick against Chelsea in the next round, to be followed by 3 goals in his next two games against Man City.

It was a level of inevitableness that maybe only prime Cristiano Ronaldo has ever reached. He transcended earth for that season. 44 goals and 15 assists in 46 games in all competitions. The Ballon d’Or finding itself in his hands by November - and nobody could even cast any doubt.  Now mentioned in the same breath as the greatest strikers of his generation. That was the real Karim Benzema and it was worth the wait.

Tariq ‘Black Thought’ Trotter and Karim Benzema. Two legends who had to bide their time and wait for the chance to be the stars their talent deserved.

Greatness has so many faces but behind all of them is a moment in time, a series of circumstances which allowed them to be great. It’s within so many people that never get that perfect alignment of stars. Or maybe when you get a glimpse of that chance, you have to snatch it up with both hands and show everyone what you can do.