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
It's hard to escape it. Yeah, all throughout, like, first and second grade, like, every Christmas pageant, I think it was expected that I was supposed to play Little Drummer Boy.
Because I was a drummer, right?
Exactly. But oftentimes in school, at the Christmas pageant, even if it were something totally the opposite, like our production of The Nutcracker or something like that, they would find some sort of excuse to give eight-year-old Amir a drumming spotlight in the program.
This is so hilarious to me. I'm sorry.
This song, this particular song is my one. This is my introduction to Christmas music. Two, it's my introduction to James Brown.
Yeah, my first James Brown was this. No, it was just that, you know what it is? You know, I was a kid of the Muppets era and there was a tortured...
genius musician on Sesame Street and his name was Don Music and he was always full of self-doubt and insecurity and whenever he couldn't find the right words or the right chord he just like you know he'd bang his head on the piano like a tortured soul not you know it was exaggerated so I used to think it was funny and James Brown has a voice similar to my grandmother's
And she's a very animated woman. So as a baby, I thought that was grandma singing all those songs because James Brown really belts like a female gospel singer. You know what I mean? With his high notes and his yelling. So when I hear this very, very depressing song about misfortune, this is the... This is the Murphy's Law of Christmas songs. I don't know.
I think my three-year-old self just thought that grandma was performing a comedy skit or something like that. So I added that song for the ironic reasons. I think this is one of the most hilarious songs ever because James Brown is overselling the... He's really overselling the woe is me character of the song.
Right, exactly.
Yes, but see, after that, then I wanted to hear all the songs where he's like screaming and crying.
Teddy Van, her father.
She was five when she did this. So, you know, Akeem Van is, you know, most would know her. She's a staple singer. in the Prospect Heights area because she's like – she's the owner of a really awesome bakery. It's called The Bakery on Virgin, and it's in Prospect Heights. And so – but the weirdest thing was – Back when Wendy Williams, the personality Wendy Williams was a DJ on Hot 97.
This is like in the 90s. It's she had a Christmas themed show once. And I remember they played this song called Santa Claus is a Black Man. And I called the station and just left a note. Like, I don't know if you guys know who I am and whatever this Questlove of the Roots. And I got to know the name of that song.
And shockingly, I think like two days later, they emailed me back and sent me a cassette copy of the song because that's the times we were living in. And what's also notable about this song is that I believe that singer Luther Vandross, who at the time was a local singer, and ironically, the one act I had to leave off of Summer of Soul, he's also singing background on the song.
Yeah, Power of Love. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Well, I just loved the absolute innocence of it. Yeah. similar to I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus. This is Christmas through the eyes of a child who, the whole point is that kids don't know that their parents are really Santa Claus. So this is, besides I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, this is sort of another song in that vein where
Yeah, she doesn't realize that her dad is actually Santa Claus.
You know why I chose this? Stevie Wonder is world famous for his unique jingles for radio stations. You know, if you search the internet high and low, you can find some that he's done over the years and over the decades. So these jingles, there's actually a Philadelphia version of
Showing 241–260 of 268 · page 13 of 14
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