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, 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 kind of me and the Disney organization and 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 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, my favorite part of that film is when his kids describe what his life is like now. 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.
Thank you for having me.
You know, it's weird. I've been on SNL. In every configuration except for the one that I want to be on, which is actual music guest. Like I've been a punchline on Weekend Update. I've been part of a Timothee Chalamet sketch. I've been mentioned in monologues. I've been in like a Lonely Island sketch. Yeah.
But I guess one could say that my dream, one of the main reasons why I was excited to be on The Tonight Show like 16 years ago when we first got offered the position, I was like, great, this puts me within like one degree of the brass ring, which is, you know, doing SNL. So, you know, kind of funny how...
I'm a part of that ecosystem almost in every way, but the one way I want to be, which is like musical guests one day. But, you know, The Roots are working on their 17th album right now. So, you know, I'm still hanging on to my dream.
The very beginning. So my Saturday Night Live obsession really starts with, you know, the epicenter of my entire music world is Soul Train. And it just so happens that, you know, for most of America, especially with Soul Train in its prime form, You know, everyone has a Saturday afternoon, 12 p.m., cleaning the house, watching Soul Train Experience.
But in Philadelphia, kind of weird, my Soul Train Experience was always at 1 in the morning. And so I had parents that were very forward-thinking, very cool. And, of course, I'd have to be in bed at, like, 8.30 p.m. So whenever, like, the Love Boat theme starts, it's like, got to go to bed. Not with that deep voice, but yeah, basically got to go to bed.
And the agreement was that be in bed at 8.30 and then at 12.30, midnight, we will wake you up. And by 12.30, Weekend Update is over for SNL. And then their music guest does two songs. And so... I would go downstairs, turn on the TV, watch the two songs from SNL, whoever the music guest was, and then Soul Train comes on at 1 in the morning, and then I'm in bed at 2 a.m.
and up for church at 7.30 in the morning. That's pretty much my life from 5 until maybe 11. Then Soul Train started coming on in the afternoon, but... I never stopped watching SNL. So, you know, I was there from the very, very beginning. It was nothing like it. I know that's the cliche that you're going to hear a lot about this 50th anniversary, but there was truly nothing like it on television.
Hey, no one can.
What?
It's the most iconic, nondescript theme song. And kind of in my... That was my first realization back when I would... Pretty much any Saturday that the Roots aren't touring and they're taping, I'm in the audience watching. And... That, to me, is one of the most humorous things ever. Like, wow. Like, you know it when you hear it. You know that's SNL. But no one can—it's a feeling.
Showing 161–180 of 268 · page 9 of 14
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