The Roots, a hip-hop group best known for its live performances, will be headlining this year’s A&O Ball, a major annual concert, A&O Productions’ chairman said Tuesday.

The band is noted for using instruments to create its hip-hop beats instead of relying on beat boxes and for creating a unique sound that incorporates jazz and other styles.

The April 19 show will return to the Riviera Theatre, 4746 N. Racine Ave., Chicago, where it was held in 2002 before being held on campus in Patten Gym last year.

Additional musical acts for the ball will be announced this week on A&O’s Web site at www.aoproductions.net, said Brian Bockrath, the group’s outgoing concerts director and incoming chairman.

The major advantage of using the Riviera Theatre as a venue is that it will allow more students to attend the concert than last year, which featured Zwan and Queens of the Stone Age. Fire marshals, concerned about exceeding the capacity of Patten, turned away ticket-holders to the sold-out event, said Bockrath, a McCormick junior. The experience of going downtown to a major concert venue should also be a major perk, he said.

“It’s kind of fun to take over a venue that people might go to a normal concert at,” Bockrath said.

He added the event will “expose the campus to Chicago in a way that isn’t really pursued very often.”

Having a large event in downtown Chicago is a bonus for Weinberg freshman Michael Tong. He said the venue will give students an excuse to visit the city and explore other areas.

“If it’s in Chicago then you can do something (downtown) before and after,” Tong said.

For McCormick freshman Mark Lockwood, the location wasn’t even an issue.

“Basically, if The Roots are coming that’s awesome,” Lockwood said.

A&O originally tried to book The Roots for this year’s Dillo Day concert, but the band had a scheduling conflict. Still, the rap-jazz fusion group that last came to campus for a concert Fall Quarter of 1999 seemed appropriate for an event like the ball, Bockrath said.

Communications senior Colleen Clemency said her schedule doesn’t allow her to go to weekday events, especially those off campus. She said she would have been interested to see The Roots play on Dillo Day.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate cheap concerts,” Clemency said, “It’s just that time-wise I can’t do it.”

The Roots’ latest release, the album “Phrenology,” sold at least 500,000 copies according to the group’s Web site, and its newest album, “The Tipping Point,” is scheduled for a June 29 release.

The album, “Things Fall Apart,” won a Grammy Award in 1999 for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for the song “You Got Me” featuring singer Erykah Badu, a Grammy winner in her own right.

The concert should provide a variety of sounds to please just about everyone, Bockrath said.

“(The Roots are) kind of a staple of the college concert scene… an act that we thought could really draw 2,000-plus students off campus,” he said.