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 that level of pressure that one puts on themselves, you know, and there's just no space for humanity in entertainment, but especially in black entertainment. So I feel as though now's the time to have that conversation because I feel as though, especially with black people, you We are now in a space where we are open to things like the discussion of therapy and mental health.
Well, yeah, this became a serious point of contention with, you know, kind of me and the Disney organization and, you know, the idea of like, well, is this the burden of genius or the burden of black genius? The difference between black genius and regular genius is that, you know, most white artists aren't,
Their feet aren't going to be held to the fire of, you know, remind yourself that you're Italian. You know, make sure you keep up your German roots.
Yeah, exactly. When you have black success, nine times out of ten, you're going to go in the history books because it's just so pioneering. And you better make us proud and you better not mess up or embarrass us. I think right now we're just starting to have that conversation about how do we feel inside, you know, our humanity.
So these next six projects I'm working on, this will be the common denominator. I touch on this in the Earth, Wind & Fire doc, which comes out in September. And with Sly, it's also about humanity and vulnerability, which, you know, is sometimes just way too risky to... figure out will you get penalized if you are oversharing too much because some people might not be able to handle it.
Yeah, he's been clean for about kind of close to a decade, and that's why we called it Sly Lives. The irony of all this is that All of his disciples unfortunately didn't make it, but yet Sly is still with us. And for me, like, my favorite part of that film is when his kids describe what his life is like now. Like, I love the fact that Novena Caramel from KCRW in L.A. says that, you know, like...
He loves pizza with pineapples on it. He loves, you know, watching old Westerns. He loves driving new cars. The first time I saw a slide drive, he was driving a very unusual, I don't know what kind of car that was, but just the fact that he has an everyday normal existence. Like he plays with his grandkids. Like he, he's just a, the,
a normal guy, which to me, that speaks volumes, like to be normal, to be human, you know, not to be the scary black guy, not to be the over-sexualized person, but just a normal, relatable, everyday person. To me, that's the dream.
Well, whenever I do a press run, this is one of my favorite highlights. And, you know, I'm so glad that for the last 20 plus years, like this has sort of been like the springboard for my projects coming out. And I thank you for receiving it.
This is 1968.
Sly will invent the alphabet for which most of pop and R&B or black music will write from for, you know, the next 60 years. Like, we're still writing from his dictionary to this day. And so, okay, we have a four-minute song to make. How many micro-songs can we have in this particular song? In other words, a typical Sly the Family Stone song is... has a bunch of elements that will grab everybody.
Like, most songs will just have one specific hook. Like, this is the chorus, this is my hook. Okay, here are my lyrics. Instead, Sly will do a four-bar part that's like earworm. You know, like, that'll grab you, and then he'll do another four bars that will grab someone else. So, you know, lyrically and melodic-wise, his formula is also... The world's funkiest nursery rhyme music.
Look at Everyday People, his number one hit. Everyone knows Everyday People. Everyday People is basically the schoolyard version. The lyrics of that song, the melody of that song is basically schoolyard taunting. There is a black one who doesn't like the... And... His whole thing is like, if it can appeal to a kid, to a first grader, then melodically you have them. And rhythmically...
His rhythm section, Greg Rico on drums and Larry Graham on bass. Specifically, Larry Graham's right thumb are probably the two most revolutionary aspects of Sly's music. And that's because Larry Graham is a bass player who used to play in bands without a drummer. So as a result...
he would have to hit his bass in a very specific way so that you could feel the rhythm because there's no drummer there. And, of course, once he's in the sly system, he invents kind of a thumping, plucking thing, which I guess most of your listeners would probably be familiar with, the way that the Seinfeld theme sounds, or the way that Flea plays in the Red Hot Chili Peppers, like with his thumb,
Larry Graham from Sly and the Family Stone, a.k.a. Drake's uncle. Oh, really?
Yeah, Larry Graham is... Well, you know, Drake's name is Aubrey Graham. Drake's father is Larry Graham's brother. But, yeah, he revolutionized a way to play bass. And so, I mean, pretty much he just invented the idea of, like, ear candy. Like... a whole bunch of micro ideas inside of one three-minute song. And that's the genius of Sly Stone.
So what people don't know is that Sly basically considered dance to the music like his sellout song. Sly had released this really intelligent debut album called A Whole New Thing, which is probably my favorite album of this entire canon. But yeah. It was way too wordy, way too smart, way too nerdy, just so ahead of its time that only a certain few latched onto it.
And the rejection of that album kind of depressed Sly and his label said, look, You know, like you're doing way too much. You got to simplify it. People aren't as smart as you are. Like instead of you being the smartest guy in the room, be a relatable guy in the room. Like people just want to dance to the music. and kind of in a very bitter, scoffy way.
He was like, all right, well, people want to dance to the music, fine. And so he did a very sarcastic thing. And so he's like, all right, well, people want to dance to the music, fine. I'm going to make a song, and I'm going to teach them how to dance to my music. And essentially, dance to the music is an instructional introduction on who we are. Hey, I play the bass. I play the drums.
Showing 61–80 of 268 · page 4 of 14
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