Amir Questlove–Thompson
speaker
268 appearances
5 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard May 2025
Amir Questlove–Thompson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Well, yeah, I mean, they could have just patiently just stopped the song and started all over again as if nothing happened. But, you know, she infamously does a weird dance and runs off stage, kind of humiliated, and they go to a commercial. It just so happens that Oz Rodriguez, my co-director of this documentary...
said that, you know, they also have the audio recording of the production room, like what was happening at the time. And for me, it was so hilarious to hear the producers and the directors inside of the control room.
You know, so I love showing, like, not how the sausage is made, but, you know, you get to see what's under the trunk. And that, to me, is the most fascinating part of SNL, like how it's able to happen every week without fail.
Well, the thing is, we went through this like 10 years before with Milli Vanilli. This is what I call the post-thriller effect of 1982, where suddenly your music video became the most important way to sell the song. And it came to the point where if you're in concert, Fans expect whatever you did on your video, you would have to surpass it.
Because Michael Jackson's introducing this whole idea of not only do you have to sing the song, but you have to sell the song, dance the song, act the song. For most people, it's hard enough just to sing it, but also to sing and perform or dance or whatever you have to do. Since the 80s, there have been options on how to sell the song without you giving up your voice or whatever.
Kind of the lip-singing aspect has been a thing since the early 80s, but for me as a musician, that's just a fact of life. But for a lot of people, they're There's a smoke and mirror aspect to it. And I guess with that Ashley Simpson performance, you know, most of America found out that half their favorites kind of do that. Like, it's just the standard. Really?
I don't want to pop any more balloons than I have to, but it's just, again, like, from the artists that I talk to, it's like they might get in their heads that, you know, if I move too much and I'm out of breath... then I won't be able to hit the notes like I normally do. I think people, again, the thriller effect is it must be perfect. And I'm kind of from the school of warts and all.
I love seeing the warts. I love seeing the pimples, the mistakes. To me, that's the human touch. And I think people need to trust that more. Things don't have to be Instagram filter perfect 24-7.
There's some people, you know what? There's a few artists that are smart enough that will maybe do eight specific takes of a particular performance so that you're under the impression that they are, you know, what's up Detroit? How y'all doing? You know, like they'll go that far. Like I know artists that will do like 10 or 20 versions of a song to sort of customize or not get caught out there.
But I think just in the name of presenting a perfect package, that's what people go through.
Yeah, in concert or most, you know, I'm on television. I'll say that 90% of... of, you know, it's very rare for a person to just go 100% live. Like, I'll say that on the Tonight Show, 85 to 90% of what you see is a perfected delivery. Like, in their minds, it's like, I must sell this song to sell my album.
And so they don't want to leave risk or to chance any, you know, any flub that would make you say, nope, that note was flat, so I'm not supporting that group. So... Yeah, that's kind of where we are now in entertainment.
Exactly. So pretty much it's just part of the course. It's always been that way. But when I go to SNL... Yeah, I'm entertained by what I see, but I'm not sitting in the audience just to watch Saturday Night Live. Like, for me, the best part of the show is what happens in the commercials.
Like, watching the Teamster guys and the crew guys, like, at furious pace, in two minutes, like, build an entire set while, you know, the artists are quick-changing in the back, and, well, they make it in two minutes flat, and... To me, that's the best part of the show, like watching the choreography of a well-oiled machine.
Absolutely. So even though Paul Schaefer was the first generation SNL late night band, when Paul went to the David Letterman show, which, you know, I will say that the David Letterman talk show, especially in its first season, 10 years. It was such a kind of 80s counterculture moment. My parents always felt that those guys were hip, even though they were like totally nerdy.
They kind of liked the irony hip, the nerdy hip of Paul and David Letterman. And so as a kid, I just—you know, Paul was just, like, the coolest guy ever. And so, you know, I mean, at the time, I didn't realize as a 10-year-old that, you know, someone were to come to me and say, you know, young man, in 35 years, that will be you on television.
Like, you know, like my version of, you know, a Christmas story, you know, like my Jacob Marley. But— To me, when I was offered the late night thing, when you're doing the pros and the cons of it all, Yeah, in my head, I was like, wow, you know, this is my chance to be the Paul Schaefer. But Paul's very unique. I'm definitely not the Paul Schaefer of The Tonight Show.
Like, you know, Paul and David almost have this Run DMC-esque finish each other's sentence kind of camaraderie going on. I'm not there with Jimmy yet, but, you know, I've made my mark still.
All the time. Um, I can tell what type of artists we're dealing with based on how late the camera blocking the rehearsal, the day of is, and, um, kind of a way that artists handle, um, that control issue is usually with time. Oftentimes we'll get an artist that will drag their feet. It's now 10 minutes late. It's now 15 minutes late. And the artists don't understand like,
blue collar and white collar office politics like, hey, we're a union group and we have to take an hour break at this specific time. And, you know, the things that they don't generally get, you know, artists are sometimes in their own ecosystem, their own world, their own bubble where they're not thinking like, oh, am I going over union time? Like,
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