Questlove Isn't Manif*cking Around [VIDEO]

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Speaker 2 Okie dokie,

Speaker 2 you ready?

Speaker 2 We good,

Speaker 2 okay. We're rolling, then we're rolling.
So, your reputation is you

Speaker 2 are a rule follower,

Speaker 2 yo. Michael Che, I don't know what happened at the table with you, Michael Che.
So, oftentimes, Uno. oh go you know what so here's the thing okay let's get into this let's get into this actually

Speaker 2 this is what now

Speaker 2 with trevor noah

Speaker 2 so uh

Speaker 2 first first and foremost welcome welcome to uh you the listener slash viewer if you're watching this and welcome to our guest,

Speaker 2 the one and only Amir Questlove Thompson, someone who is who's become synonymous with not just all things music, but I feel like all things good times, which is a great vibe.

Speaker 2 You know, when you walk through the streets, you go like, man, that person I associate with good times. Good time guy.

Speaker 2 I feel like you made my time a little bit better because I was in Washington, D.C. That's where we are right now.
And then I found out you're going to be in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 2 And I'd been dying to get you on the podcast. And then, as you always do, you you made things happen, and I appreciate you for that genuinely.

Speaker 2 So welcome to it because we're going to have such a great conversation today. I know it will be.
You know, we're going to be chatting about your new book, right? Hip-hop is history.

Speaker 2 We're going to be talking about your life,

Speaker 2 your journey with music, and man, what happened at the Grammys behind the scenes. Buckle up.

Speaker 2 Oh, boy. I'm excited.
Welcome to the podcast. Thank you.
You know,

Speaker 2 I picked up your book and

Speaker 2 you jump into the book in maybe the most action-packed way ever. Yeah, let me tell you something.

Speaker 2 So, I'm obviously biased because I was there when this was happening.

Speaker 2 But in the very post it, yeah, man.

Speaker 2 That night. Do you even know what was happening?

Speaker 2 So, I'll set the stage. I'll set the stage for everybody listening.
So, it's the Grammys, right?

Speaker 2 It is the 2023 Grammys, 2023 Grammys. Grammys.

Speaker 2 And this is going to be one of the biggest years ever because hip-hop is turning 50.

Speaker 2 And there's going to be a 50th hip-hop celebration that brings together almost every artist or every performer or every group from hip-hop, from every generation onto one stage in one mega blockbuster performance.

Speaker 2 You've never seen anything like this. Right.

Speaker 2 And the man who is tasked with putting this together is the one and only Amir Questlove Thompson. And, you know, you talk about how you said yes before you even thought about it.

Speaker 2 They said, Amir, you want to do this? You said yes.

Speaker 2 And just like, just like any amazing action scene in a movie, we are completely in because we're thrust into a world where you realize very quickly that

Speaker 2 you don't just have to curate.

Speaker 2 a performance that encapsulates 50 years of hip-hop into like a 10, 15 minute performance, which is impossible. Yeah, I thought it was like a whole show.
I was like, getting ready for it.

Speaker 2 But then we realized you have to manage all of the egos. Please just break it down.
So one of one of my one of my biggest faults is often that I'm asked to do stuff like months or years ahead of time.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? So when someone's asking you, you know,

Speaker 2 three years before something, yeah, you're like, yeah, that'll be exciting. Right.
I'll do it three years from now.

Speaker 2 So, you know,

Speaker 2 Jesse Collins and Deanna Harmon asked me to,

Speaker 2 they have a way of pitching you that's like super exciting. Like, Amir,

Speaker 2 we think you should do, you know, we think you should curate the hip-hop 50 thing.

Speaker 2 And I'm all like the cartoon character, you know, like when someone turns somebody into a turkey, like somebody salivating at the mouth and all that stuff. And

Speaker 2 instantly, I got, I got to work. I figured, okay, I'm going to tell the story of hip-hop from the breakbeats of 1973 to the, you know, and I'm going through all the eras.

Speaker 2 And I was like, all right, maybe they'll give me a half hour. So,

Speaker 2 all right, here's my presentation. And I said, it's 31 minutes.
And the way they laughed at me, they're like, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 Just give us like 10 minutes. And then once I looked at the list and realized that it was 10 minutes, I'm like, well, I'm going to have to cut this list in half.

Speaker 2 Like, I realized instantly what they really signed me up for. What they really wanted to say was, hey, Amir, we would like you to be the bad cop in this situation.

Speaker 2 And then I realized, oh, I'm going to have to talk to people.

Speaker 2 Not only that, just go through my phone scroll. Like, not even the luxury of them.
You're the Grammys.

Speaker 2 You can call these people. No, like, I got to get up at 5 a.m.
and have a Zoom with Dr. Dre.

Speaker 2 It was the most seven

Speaker 2 intense weeks of my life of

Speaker 2 creatively cutting, whittling things down

Speaker 2 to a 10-minute

Speaker 2 standard, not to mention the amount of conversations I had to have with people that are like, wait, you want me to fly out there just to do a course? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like, I'm only doing eight bars of a course. Hell no, I ain't doing that.
You know, so, and then some people are really savvy because they've been in the situation before.

Speaker 2 And they'll say, like, who all going to be there?

Speaker 2 And then now I got to be careful. Like,

Speaker 2 well, there's

Speaker 2 hello. Hello.
Because the thing is, a lot of people don't realize some people don't want to be in the same vicinity or on the same stage as other.

Speaker 2 Because it's like everyone's in hip-hop, but not everyone in hip-hop is together. Right.
So then, who all going to be there was the first thing.

Speaker 2 And then now it's like, well, if I really need you to do this, then I got to knock out these three people so that you'll show up. So there was a bunch of that.
Oh, man.

Speaker 2 Then at one point, there were several groups who weren't even speaking to each other. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yo, I swear to God when I see da da da da da, yo, he owe me $3,000 from 1998 son. And da da da da da.

Speaker 2 Look, man, I'll give you the 3,000 bucks. Just

Speaker 2 so there was a bunch of that happening.

Speaker 2 So I'll jump into this part. So night off.
So I've seen the rehearsals, but now the thing that people don't realize is the rehearsals for the Grammys are broken down, right?

Speaker 2 So you rehearse when the people can rehearse. And so it isn't always chronological, you know.
So like, you know, if Bad Bunny's opening the show, he might rehearse like after a whole bunch of people.

Speaker 2 And you're really doing these pieces and segments and you're doing them. And you know, you got Ben Winston, who's executive producing the whole thing.
And, you know, you've got the director, Hamish.

Speaker 2 Everyone's trying to put this together. But hip-hop 50, everyone goes, we've never done anything like this.
Everyone at the Grammys said, we have never.

Speaker 2 Done anything like this. Oh, I know.
And so on the night, you know, everyone is really nervous. All I keep hearing in my ear.
So you had an earpiece. Yeah, I had an earpiece.
I had an earpiece.

Speaker 2 You might have known what I've gone through. Oh, I knew exactly what you were going through.
But I didn't know what you personally were going through.

Speaker 2 The book lays it out. And it's, man.
So you remember the first act, was it Bad Bunny that started the show? Yeah, so Bad Bunny started the show.

Speaker 2 So you remember that whole elaborate thing he did in the audience? Uh-huh.

Speaker 2 Like he's coming through the audience, they're drumming, they're banging, Bad Bunny's walking through, and then all of a sudden I hear,

Speaker 2 we need Amir. We need, okay, guys, we've got a bit of a problem.

Speaker 2 One of of the arts uh we got it we got and i'm like what what is happening they're like all right there's too much noise on this channel we have to switch you because something's gone wrong so now i'm like what's going wrong they're like it's not about this it's about hip-hop 50.

Speaker 2 and as soon as they say that i'm like oh no what has happened what is happening let me tell you all right so i thought

Speaker 2 my my main fear the morning of yeah had nothing to do with the production I was fine with rehearsals and everything. Yes.
Like creatively, we were good. There was a new problem.

Speaker 2 And the new problem was because

Speaker 2 First Lady Jill

Speaker 2 Biden was coming in the house. There's a more intense level of security detail

Speaker 2 than normal.

Speaker 2 Which, you know, okay, I've been to the White House a few times, whatever. I understand you're going to have to go through several stages of

Speaker 2 going through metal detectors and all that. You know, there's a few of my peers in the world of hip-hop that are like, nah, son, never, like, a never-again thing, a never again thing.

Speaker 2 Like, they see metal detectors and they're like, nope, I'm good. So

Speaker 2 just to

Speaker 2 kind of appease two of these particular figures, we had to go through hell and high water just to make sure that was cool, right? Which once I realized the last person was finally in the house,

Speaker 2 I had two good hours of.

Speaker 2 So I got changed, you know. Yeah, you were walking the red carpet, right? I went to the red carpet and, you know,

Speaker 2 mess with Taylor a little bit. You know, joking around.
Jokes to Taylor Swift, living the good life. Right.
Everything was fine.

Speaker 2 And then the second they introduced Bad Bunny, suddenly I just started getting like, goad red, gold red. Like, get backstage right now.

Speaker 2 And what I was told was that

Speaker 2 one of our participants

Speaker 2 is on his way back to his house in Calabasas because

Speaker 2 maybe or maybe not a security person was a little overzealous in

Speaker 2 checking

Speaker 2 our friend's date.

Speaker 2 He's instantly like, no, like it was just like

Speaker 2 this person's not coming back. So what they don't realize is that because we're on a very specific clock in terms of camera coordination,

Speaker 2 all the visuals you see. Every cue at the Grammy.
The lights, the dancers. Every cue is so specific.
And that person didn't drop out from the front or the back. They dropped out from the middle.

Speaker 2 Right. It's not like a thing where I could just instantly like, hey, we're cutting that song.

Speaker 2 Now, nine key people who are not in contact with each other have to be told that we're going to lose like four minutes and 27 seconds to like six minutes and six seconds. We have to cut that part out.

Speaker 2 But the thing is, it's a live show

Speaker 2 and the show is happening already. So you got to wait till commercials and then run to the light guy and say, Look, doing the hip-hop 50, four minutes and 27 seconds, six minutes.

Speaker 2 Then you got to go to the camera person. Then you got to go to the graphics person.
Then you got to go to the choreographer.

Speaker 2 And then you got to tell the dancers, hey, guys, I'm sorry, but that just dropped out. So we won't be using you.
Like these people flew out, you know, told their family, I'm going to be on TV.

Speaker 2 Hey, they've been rehearsing. Right.

Speaker 2 So it took about 28 minutes to just tell all those people that this particular artist has dropped out. Wow.
And I thought, okay, we're good. And then

Speaker 2 part two happens, which is, oh, man.

Speaker 2 Some genius decided, and I'm being sarcastic, to present the album of the year award before the presentation. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And the thing is, it's like, look, dog,

Speaker 2 this is Kendrick Lamar's time. Like, you've awarded this guy the Pulitzer Prize.

Speaker 2 You know, he's achieved things.

Speaker 2 He's the favorites. We already know this.
You know, we already know this. But does hip-hop know it the same way? Because I feel like.
He goes apart of hip-hop. That's what I mean.

Speaker 2 I feel like nobody in hip-hop comes to an award show thinking that they're not going to win the award. Kendrick rightfully won that Grammy, and one of the nominees was like,

Speaker 2 I'm going home. And that nominee was in the performance.
I remember this happening in my ear. I got a call from Ben.
He was like, Trev Mate, he's like, we just lost another hip-hop performer.

Speaker 2 We're going to try and figure it out, but for now, we might need to move things around. We just got to, and he was like,

Speaker 2 and then it was panic again. Yo, so it's four minutes left.

Speaker 2 And we just, and we begged him as he's walking out, like, yo, can you please, can you, I'm going home.

Speaker 2 And so you got, we have four minutes, one to make all the edits, but then I need somebody to end this thing.

Speaker 2 And I'll tell you what I did.

Speaker 2 I found a closet.

Speaker 2 I said, I opened the closet and went in. They're like, Amir, that's not a room.
Oh, no.

Speaker 2 And they're like, what are you doing in there? I don't make silence. And literally, I just sat there for two minutes, dead silence.

Speaker 2 Like, all right, what am I going to do? I thought you were having a mental breakdown because

Speaker 2 I heard during the cost, they were like, things are going crazy.

Speaker 2 Things are going wild. And then someone said, Amir just went into like a broom closet and he won't come out.
And I was like, well, Well, I guess he finally cracked. No, so this is what I learned.

Speaker 2 Unstoppable force, known as quest love, finally cracked. People think that meditation is like cosmic prayer.

Speaker 2 Meditation is just you got to sit in silence for a long time and breathe, and the answer will come to you. Now, let two minutes go by, and you can clearly hear them outside the door.

Speaker 2 And I was was like,

Speaker 2 I did that for two minutes. Two minutes left, Amir.
And I said, I grabbed my phone.

Speaker 2 I was like, I can either text Jay-Z right now

Speaker 2 or

Speaker 2 little Uzivert.

Speaker 2 And something told me, like, Jay-Z's, he's not the king of known. Let me stop putting that out there.
But.

Speaker 2 But he is the king of no. He's been known to be.
No, no, no, but he is the king of no.

Speaker 2 I think in many ways, I think in many ways, Jay has understood understood the thing that you and I are still working on. He goes, thank you, but no.
Scarcity marketing.

Speaker 2 No, which I would love to, oh, I would love that. Matter of fact,

Speaker 2 during the whole Zoom thing of me having to pitch people,

Speaker 2 Dr. Dre also taught me something because, you know, he gave me a no.
And I was like, all right, I'm going to ask him in two weeks and nudge. I'm like, come on, pal.
Can you do this for me? And Dr.

Speaker 2 Dre, in a way that I haven't seen since my father before, you know, like

Speaker 2 when you cross that line

Speaker 2 and your parent wants to give you that warning before all hell breaks loose,

Speaker 2 Dr. Dre said in a very serious way, which I now use on people, he says,

Speaker 2 Quest,

Speaker 2 let me tell you something.

Speaker 2 I really

Speaker 2 hate to say no twice.

Speaker 2 Damn. And the silence that ended,

Speaker 2 I was like,

Speaker 2 one,

Speaker 2 okay, I will never ask you to do anything in life. Two, I got to use that.
Like, literally. But Jay said no.
And I was just like, all right, let me just,

Speaker 2 let me hit Uzi or someone close to him. So I texted his team.
And as I pressed send, your phone dies. My phone went out.

Speaker 2 And so this is crazy because on the outside, we're like, we don't know what's going to happen. We don't know how it's going to happen.
It plays out.

Speaker 2 And I won't spoil all of it because I want people to read the, you got to read the book, but

Speaker 2 on the outside, yo, let me tell you this: you nailed it, though. You nailed it.
You genuinely like, and Jay-Z.

Speaker 2 And Jay-Z was part of it, basically. Jay-Z rapped along to every single, every single song.
Jay-Z wound up being the star of the show. Yeah, he did.
Him as an audience member. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Was better than him going up and doing that. No, it was one of the greatest performances ever, ever, ever, ever, ever.

Speaker 2 We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break.

Speaker 2 You know, there are few people who write a book about a topic that they are so inextricably linked to.

Speaker 2 You know, when you talk about the story of hip-hop, in many ways, I feel like hip-hop has had the same journey that you have had as a human being.

Speaker 2 And the two of you have been intertwined, you know, like twin souls. Yeah.
Because hip-hop today seems obvious.

Speaker 2 You know, I went to a Rangers game in New York.

Speaker 2 Someone invited me. They're like, do you want to come watch a hockey game? I went.
And the thing that struck me the most was in a stadium that was 99.99%

Speaker 2 white.

Speaker 2 Every time out, they played hip-hop. And so I want to know from your perspective,

Speaker 2 what was the first moment where you felt like hip-hop was going to maybe be a thing? Because you talk about being this child who was, I love how you even phrased it.

Speaker 2 You say you were eight years old and you were

Speaker 2 hearing hip-hop for the first time. You You were washing the dishes with your sister.
My sister and I were doing the dishes

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 the intro of Rapper's Delight comes on.

Speaker 2 And then we hear Sheik's Good Times. So we're just like, oh, it's Good Times.

Speaker 2 And then we started hearing people talk, rapping.

Speaker 2 And we just stopped doing the dishes like, wait, what is this? And, you know, it was like a clock radio in the kitchen. So we turn it up and we look at it.

Speaker 2 And the longer this song went on, I thought like, oh, I'll never hear this again in my life. So it was a decision to make.
Should I run and get a tape recorder and record what I'm hearing?

Speaker 2 Which is exactly what I did. Like I ran right to my room, got a tape recorder, put the tape recorder to the radio, the clock radio, recorded it and just sat there and listened.

Speaker 2 You know, Rapper's Delight was 15 minutes. Right.
So I came in at like maybe the three minute part and I wrote that entire song down. I was supposed to be in bed like eight, 8.30.

Speaker 2 You know, I was eight years old. I probably stayed up.
I was allowed to stay up until maybe 9.30 and I transcribed all the lyrics. And then I went to school the next day.

Speaker 2 Me performing Rapper's Delight for like all my fourth grade class members. And that's, you know, of course, like adults were like, oh, it'll never last.
It's a fad. But when it really called to me

Speaker 2 was in 1988. So there was like a 50s themed McDonald's called Big Owls based on Happy Days.
And I I worked there.

Speaker 2 And this is the morning that It Takes a Nation of Millions by Public Enemy came out, which if you know of their production style, it was a very, they wanted to sound like music's worst nightmare.

Speaker 2 So they would just pack in like 19 samples in one song. Right.
Just sound alike.

Speaker 2 They said that they wanted their music to sound like what crack feels like when you, because it was the crack. Oh, damn, I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 Which is why all my chapters are based on the five-year-old. Yes, yes you know yeah the first phase cocaine second phase

Speaker 2 you have you have one of the more interesting ways of breaking hip-hop down like where where most people would talk about hip-hop just in a decade or most you know they would say this was an era you broke hip-hop down by the drug that was pervasive at the time yeah and you know it's one of those things in stand-up we always talk about it we go

Speaker 2 There's always that moment where a comedian will get on stage and they will say something so painfully obvious that you don't understand why you never saw it, but it is so genius because nobody could see it because it was right in front of them.

Speaker 2 I feel like you revealed that with the way you broke hip-hop down.

Speaker 2 Well, when Chuck D said, like, we wanted to be music's worst of nightmare and because it was the crack era, he wanted his music to sound what crack felt like. Right.

Speaker 2 And then I realized, oh, so when the chronic came five years later, Dr. Dre slowed the music down.
It has to sound the weed. Yep.

Speaker 2 But then when the 97 Bad boy era really started to kick in, that was the sexy, that's the

Speaker 2 ecstasy era. And then, when the South first started coming in, that's the scissor era.

Speaker 2 And then, of course,

Speaker 2 with Molly, opioids, fentanyl, like we're going through each phase every five years,

Speaker 2 the drug of choice that we self-soothe on changes. That's how the music changes.

Speaker 2 Like, this is the numbing era.

Speaker 2 This is the era of no feelings. I don't want to feel numb.
Damn. And some people are totally emo.
So you're either 12,000% emo or no feelings, which is why everyone sounds numb.

Speaker 2 Like, that's why mumble culture doesn't make sense to my generation. Like, I grew up in the crack era.

Speaker 2 Right, because it doesn't, it doesn't match up with what you experienced or how you were living, how you were living that life. I

Speaker 2 genuinely love how

Speaker 2 you find these threads, how you, how you connect them, how you, you know,

Speaker 2 in the book, you talk about your journey in hip-hop, the roots journey in hip-hop.

Speaker 2 And I love the connection that you have with Tariq, where it's like, you know, here we are seeing the foundations of black thought and quest love,

Speaker 2 seeing them go from boys growing up, as you say, you know, from tweens to teens, from teens to young men. And then you're in hip-hop.
See, our narrative was that we were working-class musicians,

Speaker 2 which really isn't sexy.

Speaker 2 There's nothing sexy about,

Speaker 2 hey, we're a hard-working band.

Speaker 2 Because, you know, the narrative,

Speaker 2 a lot of the narrative, especially of the crack era, which is

Speaker 2 1987 to 1992, is the idea of winning. Yeah.
Which is why the idea of Scarface, we don't love the movie Scarface. The idea of Scarface is what we love.

Speaker 2 If anything, I think like Jay's life sort of mirrors that. Like, I'm a buck the system, right? And then I'm going to evolve and become the system.
Right. That's pretty much how

Speaker 2 America was built. Like, off of

Speaker 2 the Kennedys, the Rockefellers, you name it. Corrupt money, and then somehow they became the

Speaker 2 establishment. The establishment, the respectable establishment.

Speaker 2 For us, though, had to reek and I, like, again, even the idea, we were really the roots of name only because, like, we went to high school.

Speaker 2 When you're in high school, and boys to men are boys to men in high school,

Speaker 2 and I don't mean like this before they had a record deal, but it was like the Beatles on Sullivan. Like, they would walk down the block and girls,

Speaker 2 and singing the girls in the bath. And I'm like, oh, they're cheap, men, like, singing the girls.
And like, we can't do that. And

Speaker 2 so we started a group, but it was a name name only and it was only when I was coming back from my audition

Speaker 2 I auditioned to go to the new school or Juilliard

Speaker 2 and coming back home Tariq was with me for my audition this real pretty girl in kind of a gray coupon commercial way says excuse me are you the are you the drummer that uh plays in that spikely bucket commercial now yes I was the drummer in the boys to been Motown Philly video

Speaker 2 but because a very popular spikely commercial for the gap, where it was like a bucket drummer, you know, we see musicians busking all the time.

Speaker 2 But back in like 1991, it was weird to see a guy playing drumsticks in a bucket. And she was so beautiful.
And I said,

Speaker 2 no, I'm not. And she's like, oh,

Speaker 2 okay.

Speaker 2 And she sauntered off. and left the train and Tariq looked at me like, you damn running.

Speaker 2 And so cut to the next day, we're watching Soul Train and that Spike League commercial comes on.

Speaker 2 And literally, it was like the Eureka, what I call the Doc Brown flex capacitor inspiration moment. Like we just slow looked at each other like,

Speaker 2 yo, let's do that. And cut to two hours later, us going to South Street,

Speaker 2 busking. And, you know, the summer of 1992 is kind of where a year later we'll have a record deal and

Speaker 2 we will be the roots, as you know it at least. Right.
And the thing is, is that in our narrative, like we, we just never had a story of like, we won.

Speaker 2 And that's what hip-hop was at the time. Yeah.
I won. I got more than you.
Right. I've, you know, we were telling the truth.
We weren't rich. We weren't

Speaker 2 your rollies in the sky waving side to side. We didn't think to lie to people.
Yeah. Or I don't think it's lying to people.
I think it's sort of manifesting what your future is. And then it comes.

Speaker 2 But okay, but then what do you, what do you think? What do you think the secret to your staying power has been as a group?

Speaker 2 When people used to ask before, I would playfully joke that, you know, the reason why the roots existed for 30 plus years is because

Speaker 2 two tour buses. And I used to say Slytherin and Gryffindor.

Speaker 2 But I now realize something, which is oftentimes artists have this obsession with perfection. Yeah.
You're Michael Jackson, like, it must be perfect.

Speaker 2 Prince Prince is world famous for rehearsing this band like 15 hours a day. Perfection, perfection.
That's not the key.

Speaker 2 The key is like when you're trying to manage your destiny or rehearse your destiny,

Speaker 2 it never works. Literally, all you have to do is left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot.
And yeah, some of those times are trepidation.

Speaker 2 There have been moments where like, I don't like the way the audience looks like, oh, they don't know who we are. Yeah.
You know, and I'll overthink it, but it's just show up. So I don't think,

Speaker 2 you know, people, well, you guys are super talented. You know, you da, da, da, da, you, you have the ability to collaborate with whoever.
Nah, we're, we're still,

Speaker 2 we just, we show up.

Speaker 2 And that's literally,

Speaker 2 I believe that's the true answer. I try to make science of it, of it all.
Like, well, you know, because we're responsible or, you know, we're drug free or we're, you know, we went to counseling.

Speaker 2 Nah, we just, you literally show up. But you know what I think it is? I think I would love to hear what you think it is as well.
It's like, I think as artists,

Speaker 2 if we're honest about it, there is a great fear that comes with doing what we're doing because

Speaker 2 you are directly attached to the product. that you are creating.
It is a direct expression of who you are.

Speaker 2 It's a direct moment where you're exposing yourself. It's like another opportunity to be rejected.
It's another opportunity for it to not go right. It's another opportunity.

Speaker 2 You know, like, let's say the the music itself can go on without you. But when we talk about, let's say, a live performance,

Speaker 2 every live performance is a new performance. Do you know what I mean? You step on stage, and if your timing is off, and if your drumming is off, and you know, and if

Speaker 2 Thought misses some lyrics or if he messes something up, that crowd doesn't say, Oh, no, it's fine because the album is perfect. They go, That was terrible.

Speaker 2 But you know, you show me someone.

Speaker 2 I mean, no one actively plans on let me ruin this moment. Yeah.
But I guarantee you, at least 90% of the time,

Speaker 2 it's someone that's in their head.

Speaker 2 I learned

Speaker 2 that worrying is literally

Speaker 2 praying to be sabotaged.

Speaker 2 Man,

Speaker 2 I hope I don't drop a drumstick.

Speaker 2 When you worry, when you allow your brain to go to that place. Yeah, to focus on the thing.
Shout out to Lauren Zander for inventing the term mana fucking. That's when you start manafucking.

Speaker 2 So it's, it's, I guarantee you, behind

Speaker 2 every moment of

Speaker 2 that level of sabotage or bad performance,

Speaker 2 that's because a person's mind's not clear. I don't, like, before you go on stage, because your, your level of entertainment is more intimate because you have to talk to people.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like, do you at least, I have to sit in silence 15 minutes before I go on stage or DJ

Speaker 2 just so that I can ground myself and get in that zone. I'm the complete opposite.
Oh, you got to be all hyped and listening to the music. No, no, no, no, no.
I just, so it's funny.

Speaker 2 Everyone has a different routine. So Chris Rock, he has like, he almost has like a meditative zen quiet.
Everyone has to leave the room and then he focuses and he goes in, but he's also.

Speaker 2 Does he still have that prince?

Speaker 2 I think so. Does he have his prince

Speaker 2 alter? Yeah, but I think he's also one of the most precise comedians. So I get why he needs that, you know.
And then

Speaker 2 Kevin Hart, he's like a lot more loose. He'll just do the thing.
He'll laugh with people.

Speaker 2 Dave Chappelle is always playing music. That's one thing.
When you walk backstage, Dave Chappelle is playing music and the music is setting the scene,

Speaker 2 setting the vibe. For me, it's people.

Speaker 2 I need my people backstage.

Speaker 2 Because really? Yeah, because the thing I'm trying to do is, for me, I'm trying trying to bring you Trevor when I get on stage. I don't want to become somebody else.

Speaker 2 I'm not trying to become somebody else. I'm trying to introduce you to the funniest version of who I am.
And that is like when people know me.

Speaker 2 When people meet me for the first time, a lot of people are disappointed. They're like, oh man, I thought you'd be

Speaker 2 a little more.

Speaker 2 I thought you'd speak more. I thought you'd be funnier.

Speaker 2 But I'm like, no, most of the time I'm processing information. I'm observing the world.
I'm quiet. I wanted to say, you're the first comedian I met that,

Speaker 2 like, if

Speaker 2 any particular artist has a

Speaker 2 kind of a duplicitous

Speaker 2 existence where there is Dr. Jekyll and

Speaker 2 comedians to me are that, like, every comedian I know it's like life of the party on stage. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But the level of darkness that I witnessed

Speaker 2 out of it, and then I realized, like, oh, comedy is one of the best

Speaker 2 distracting,

Speaker 2 nothing to see here. Like, I don't want you to see the real me.
So let me be funny as hell to throw off the smoke.

Speaker 2 But you, you actually, you might be the beginning of a new generation that might be genuinely you

Speaker 2 and adjusted, at least from outside looking at. Yeah, no, I honestly, I try to be.
I try to be as much as I can because

Speaker 2 I realized this, and maybe you can relate as a performer. What I realized was, if I'm going to spend my life doing something,

Speaker 2 then I would like to spend my life doing something that'll help me be the best version of me versus spending my life doing something where I'm somebody else.

Speaker 2 And then I have to come to grips with the other person I am whenever I come off stage. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I know.

Speaker 2 So that's why what I'm trying to do is I walk out onto the stage and I'm trying my best for you as the audience to feel what I'm like with my friends.

Speaker 2 And if you meet me in the street and if I'm at a restaurant, that's me.

Speaker 2 That's like, that's just how I am because then I don't have to turn it on and I don't have to turn it off and I don't have to think about who's, well, which Trevor's coming today, which Trevor's showing up.

Speaker 2 No, I like that. I used to worry about that because I think

Speaker 2 for, at least for me,

Speaker 2 it was really,

Speaker 2 I'm in an even weirder space because I know I have people that admire me. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But it's not, again, it's not the Beatles hard days night. Like, no, a pack of girls aren't chasing me down an alleyway.
And it's weird.

Speaker 2 Like, sometimes I'll walk down the block and it's always like, you know, some guy's like, dog,

Speaker 2 like, da, da, da, that album changed my life, man. Back to college.
And thank you very much. And it's always, and I'll be high, like, wow, thanks.

Speaker 2 And then what always happens is whoever he's with, usually his data, whatever.

Speaker 2 I can hear maybe like five seconds of the conversation as I walk away. And it's always the tune of like, you don't know Questlove.
The Roots. You know the Roots.
You know, Jimmy Fallon.

Speaker 2 You know, yo, you mean the Will Smith tonight? You know, you know,

Speaker 2 Questlove.

Speaker 2 And that always just.

Speaker 2 But I was, I used to always, I would say that I was the person that

Speaker 2 would sort of self-evidence

Speaker 2 reasons why I don't deserve stuff. That's interesting.
So that's it. You talk a little bit about

Speaker 2 that in the book. And that's going to to ground me.

Speaker 2 I actually would like to get into that.

Speaker 2 In the book, you talk about

Speaker 2 almost experiencing hip-hop through an anti-hip-hop lens and not against hip-hop, but rather

Speaker 2 the machismo in hip-hop, the vibe. You know, for instance, even when we talk about weight,

Speaker 2 there's a really fascinating part of the book where you're talking about how, you know, Biggie and Big Pun and Fat Joe and all of these artists, how they use their their weight in a different way.

Speaker 2 Rick Ross, you name it.

Speaker 2 And you very candidly share your story and how, like, you are grappling with your weight in a different way. And you don't seem to have the same command over it.
And

Speaker 2 it's almost not a tool in your hands. I never thought this could be sexy.

Speaker 2 Yeah, for me,

Speaker 2 I realized

Speaker 2 super late in my life that

Speaker 2 we are going to self-soothe on something when we're not aligned. Yeah.
Like, I now don't, I don't see like

Speaker 2 a cocaine addict as like, oh, you just chose drugs. I now think, like, okay, you're self-soothing because of another issue.
Right. And there's different types of addictions that we don't think about.

Speaker 2 Like, we don't think that, yes,

Speaker 2 there's the greatest hits one. There's drugs and alcohol,

Speaker 2 there's gambling, but then there's some other that we don't think about. And for a lot of it,

Speaker 2 the amount of times that I've like celebratorily like, let's go to dinner. Or,

Speaker 2 you know, in the studio, I'll just have, you know, my writer, like, 10 different types of cereals.

Speaker 2 Like, I didn't realize the amount of times that I would just casually,

Speaker 2 I'm a foodie. I write books about food.
So, you know, I called it, my excuse was being a foodie, but then someone challenged me once during the pandemic, like, well

Speaker 2 i dare you to to to not do that and we'll see if you're an addict and literally like i was like chris rocking eugen city like i need captain crunch i need captain and i didn't realize that

Speaker 2 that was my drug you know um

Speaker 2 and i didn't realize that this was my shield to keep people away from me wow i you don't you don't realize that at the time so

Speaker 2 and it's it's it's an everyday struggle. Like, just to, just to,

Speaker 2 you know, I want to be an example without being the

Speaker 2 guy that you like,

Speaker 2 you see on Instagram. And I'm going to be

Speaker 2 the, I don't want to be the hall monitor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You're not the instructor type. Yeah.
I want to lead by example. So, I mean, the fact that Chuck, Flavor, Iced T.

Speaker 2 LL in a few seconds are making it to 60

Speaker 2 is like, that's a true reason for celebration.

Speaker 2 But I also know that those individuals have also reached a crossroads in their lives where they have to, you know, I didn't know that Chuck D revealed to me that, you know, he does meditations

Speaker 2 and do these things that I used to laugh at. I used to laugh at all yoga meditating.
But then how do you, how did you find the balance? How did you, you know, one of the things I

Speaker 2 notice about us as people is we risk swinging wildly from one extreme to another. So I'll meet people who, like you say, they self-soothe, whether it's food or whether it's partying or whatever it is.

Speaker 2 And then I meet them and then now it's like they self-soothe by being the complete opposite and

Speaker 2 it's extreme and nothing is a joke, brother. Let me pray with you for a moment.
Let me meditate with you in this moment. And I don't, everything is the devil.
And yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, when people get a new toy? Yeah. Like, I had cousins come home from jail.
Like, and you know,

Speaker 2 when you do a bid in jail, like, you're, you're going to either find god or or uh you know have my family is muslim you know uh-huh like prayer rug in the middle of the street like all right all right here we go all right give you a salat all right now can we talk about the you know tv again

Speaker 2 um

Speaker 2 i was that person and then i realized like you you got to be the example instead of preaching the example i i wanted to ask you that about music do you do you are you able to listen to music without the like the rule and and i don't mean the rules of like what music is supposed to be or not be, but there are a few people I know of who can break music down.

Speaker 2 So, for instance, you have these playlists that you'll send out to people, right?

Speaker 2 And one of the reasons I love your playlists is because I love discovering new music.

Speaker 2 So, when you listen to music, I'd love to know, like, are you able to turn off your precision and your perfection? Or are there moments where

Speaker 2 it bites at you?

Speaker 2 I'm a stickler for detail. Okay.
And so the reputation of the roots being a band or whatever is often the fact that we can mirror mirror exactly what the song does. Got it.

Speaker 2 Kind of in a not in a karaoke way, but you know, the artist always says, wow, you guys sound just like the record. Exactly.
Right. And so,

Speaker 2 I'm

Speaker 2 always, I'm always on the band about like, no, the thing goes like this on the record. You know, does the average layman person care? Probably not.
Am I tightly wound? Probably so.

Speaker 2 But someone has to be the captain. So that's usually where I'll get the ridicule.
Like, I know on the other roots thread without a mirror.

Speaker 2 That's where I know that where the conversation is going.

Speaker 2 But the reason why... Well, the main reason why I did these playlists,

Speaker 2 I think I started doing this

Speaker 2 way

Speaker 2 back

Speaker 2 Blue Ivy was born when like 2013

Speaker 2 2013, I think. Yeah, I'm terrible with Euros.
Yeah, 2013, 2012, around that era. And so my gift to the Carters was like, look, and this is back when it was just iPods.

Speaker 2 I said, what I'm going to do is I'm going to fill up a whole bunch of music with iPods and in her crib,

Speaker 2 you know, just have this music playing

Speaker 2 beautiful. And then, you know, because I think if you can get kids before they're, and I don't mean like, I'm not the kind of guy that wants you to listen to the music I listen to.

Speaker 2 So it's just being exposed to, it's like languages. I think it expands your mind.
So I initially started making iPods for the Carters, but then Jay will be like, nah, we kept them things to ourselves.

Speaker 2 And then the other thing was kind of my occasional eye roll at Obama's summer playlists. Like,

Speaker 2 okay, all right, who's really feeding you this music? All right, let me

Speaker 2 nobody gives him credit. Come on, let me, let me,

Speaker 2 and I'll hit him up. I'm like, yo, dog, like, okay, who's your trainers doing this? Like, your interns?

Speaker 2 So, what wound up happening was

Speaker 2 initially, First Lady Michelle had me make her a bunch of playlists because she was doing like a book tour and wanted cool music to play when she would do her speeches, whatever.

Speaker 2 And then

Speaker 2 it just started expanding. So it's to me, I'm the guy that's willing to, you know, do the needle on haystack for the perfect song.
All those songs that I choose are songs that like

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 give me goosebumps. Like no song is on there by accident.

Speaker 2 Okay, not to put you on the spot, but if you were to choose five, just five songs where you go. See?

Speaker 2 No, no, no, just like, and it might be like, it might even be the top of mind that i'm looking for i know i'm putting you on the spot i'm gonna i'm gonna tell you something from five genres where you go

Speaker 2 you're on an island you're trapped this is it five songs for the rest of time you can't even make music

Speaker 2 five songs

Speaker 2 when off the clock i don't listen to music more than i listen to like uh ambient noises oh that is fascinating so right now like if you would say like what is my favorite song For me,

Speaker 2 fork tuning,

Speaker 2 fork tuning music is my all-time. It's not even music anymore.

Speaker 2 The sounds of

Speaker 2 like that to me is like

Speaker 2 because I need that. My life is so chaotic.
But, I mean, if you just want me to name like tangible songs or tangible music,

Speaker 2 I would choose

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 If you're a fan of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, uh-huh, and you know the story of how he struggled for 40 years to make the follow-up to the Pet Sounds album, he finally completed this album, I think, in 2009, 2010, or whatever.

Speaker 2 Like, finally, it's in its complete stage. It's called Smile.

Speaker 2 And there's a song called Wind Chimes

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 is just my

Speaker 2 relaxing place. So that's the relaxing one.
I love that. That's the relaxing one.

Speaker 2 Number two,

Speaker 2 Bill Withers has a version of Grandma's Hands on Live from Carnegie Hall. Okay.
1972, 73,

Speaker 2 that has a long monologue at the beginning of it. And when I was a kid, My parents and grandparents used to always make me perform the monologue.

Speaker 2 Bill is telling the story of what it was like growing up in

Speaker 2 West Virginia and his grandmom's house and going to church. And it was like the comedian thing, like white churches and black churches.
Black churches do this. White churches do this.

Speaker 2 And I used to do that routine when I was like three or four.

Speaker 2 So let's say the live version of grandma's hands. Okay, live version.
What does that do feeling-wise for you? It's probably the rosiest

Speaker 2 childhood memory I have. Okay, okay.
So it's like it's warm. Yeah.
It's like a warm feeling. All right.
Okay.

Speaker 2 There's a song called There Comes a Time by the Tony Williams

Speaker 2 group. Tony Williams was the drummer for Miles Davis.
He went solo and did a song called There Comes a Time. There Comes a Time

Speaker 2 was

Speaker 2 the first night of the roots,

Speaker 2 as you know it, when we saw the commercial and went on South Street to busk. Yeah.
It was such a victory night that at the end of the night, we took our $120

Speaker 2 and we went to Wawa and to get a hoagie and some lemonade.

Speaker 2 And we just sat in the car like feeling accomplished, thinking like, so we're going to do this next week or yeah, we're going to do this next week. We might make $200.

Speaker 2 And this avant-garde DJ had played Tony Williams, There Comes the Time. We just thought it was the oddest thing we ever heard.

Speaker 2 And it turns out we don't know it at the time, but that DJ will wind up being like the roots' Brain Trust and longtime manager until we pass away,

Speaker 2 Richard Nichols. So we will meet that person in about three months, not knowing that he was the DJ for Jazz 90 and

Speaker 2 beautiful.

Speaker 2 So that's the weird one.

Speaker 2 So we got calm. That's the weird one.
Yeah, we got calm, we got homely, we got weird. What's like a hype? Is there like a hype song?

Speaker 2 For my generation, when Rebel Without a Pause came out by Public Enemy, the song actually encapsulates the angst that teenage me feels inside that can't express it.

Speaker 2 This loud siren noise that keeps going. Like it's every parent's nightmare, but for me, it's like,

Speaker 2 yeah, this is how I feel inside. You know, so Rebel Without a Pause by Public Enemy.
Okay. That's like cathosis.
I like that. Yeah.
All right. The last song I'll say is a rather normal song, but

Speaker 2 there's a moment where

Speaker 2 in 1983,

Speaker 2 Prince releases a remixed version of Little Red Corvette.

Speaker 2 Now, are you familiar with the phrase? It's called code switching. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So code switching, for those that don't know,

Speaker 2 oftentimes

Speaker 2 if you come from one side of town,

Speaker 2 you might often have to chameleonize yourself to adjust to where you're going.

Speaker 2 Switching to that office voice. Right.
So if I'm back in my old neighborhood at home, good to see you again, buddy. Right, exactly.
At home, I know to lower my voice. Yo, what's up, man?

Speaker 2 How are you doing? Yo, I'll take a shrimp-fried rice. And uh, huh? What? Oh, we're that's what's up, yo.
Thanks, thanks. But when I'm at the office, hello there, how are you?

Speaker 2 Like, it's a level code switching. Prince, what makes Prince such a genius

Speaker 2 is often when he releases singles,

Speaker 2 um, he knew

Speaker 2 what he would have to do in order to gain the audience that he wanted. Oh, interesting.
Which is why songs like Raspberry Beret exist, which is why I like nice songs like Take Me With You exist.

Speaker 2 There's a level of

Speaker 2 winkage that he's doing to a wider audience that he's trying to grab. But he's also telling his black audience,

Speaker 2 I know where I came from. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 he'll often remix the song and blackenize it in very subtle ways that you don't notice it. Okay.
So what happens is 12-year-old me

Speaker 2 is thinking that he's hearing the album version of Little Red Corvette.

Speaker 2 But then suddenly in the three-minute period, the bass line changes.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, wait, this feels different. This is not the AM

Speaker 2 FM radio rock song that Little Red Corvette was. Suddenly, it's black as shit.

Speaker 2 So what I'll later learn is that oftentimes for for pop radio you'll want to stick to major chords okay because it feels safe and it feels inviting minor chords the black keys are often dark and that that's sort of up our alley you know it's funkier it has edge to it there's mystery to it there's there's bite to it

Speaker 2 And the moment I realize that you can turn any song into the major version, which is safer, or the minor version, which is edgier,

Speaker 2 that totally transformed me. So, for me, hearing Little Rick Corvette,

Speaker 2 the remixed dance version,

Speaker 2 just that made Prince God in my mind. That unlocked something in you.
In a way that no other artist could do that.

Speaker 2 Don't go anywhere because we got more. What now after this?

Speaker 2 You know, I'll tell you this, Amir. Like,

Speaker 2 there are few things that I have been to or experienced where there is more lore that is spread about them than your legendary game nights. Yo, people's

Speaker 2 the amount of lore and fiction and myth about your game nights is out of this world. People ask me questions.

Speaker 2 It's almost like your game night has become Illuminati because people will say to me, they'll be like, Trevor, I saw, I saw you made it into one of Quest Love's game nights.

Speaker 2 Pray do tell what happens in there. I heard, I heard that there are, there are people, and you're like, it's a game night.
It's just a game night. Someone once joked to me, they were like, you know,

Speaker 2 I can't believe you hit jackpot doing one of the most wholesome.

Speaker 2 It is the most wholesome event. It's so wholesome.
I'm embarrassed. The reason why I don't talk about it, the reason why I'm sort of like fight club with it

Speaker 2 isn't because we're doing this debauchery Studio 54 thing.

Speaker 2 It's Studio 54 levels of fun,

Speaker 2 but it's so damn square. And I think I happen to know that that's the specific reason why

Speaker 2 people come over. Because the thing is, like, okay, we'll invite about maybe, we'll try to aim for 60 people

Speaker 2 and we'll carefully curate things. And I got to go through, you know, some people have security details.
Some people have, you've seen the amount of people that have been here.

Speaker 2 But the thing is, is that

Speaker 2 it's such an unpretentious,

Speaker 2 normal

Speaker 2 moment. I'll give an example.
All right, so the first time that Taylor Swift came,

Speaker 2 it was literally to zero fanfare. Like, she just walked in,

Speaker 2 and I didn't even know, I didn't even know she was there until 10 minutes in. And I was like, oh, okay, she did show up.
That's what's up. She sits down at Bum B's table and plays Uno.

Speaker 2 And that's the thing. Like,

Speaker 2 what I realized, the reason why I threw game night is because

Speaker 2 I don't, I work so much, I don't prioritize joy

Speaker 2 and fun things.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I'll figure out a way to monetize my joy. Like, DJing used to be my joy.
It's still my joy. But now it's also your job.
But it's a job. It's an occupation.
Drumming is a job and an occupation.

Speaker 2 Journaling

Speaker 2 is a job and an occupation. But these used to be my passions.

Speaker 2 So, with game night, at least, there is a four to five hour period in which 60 strangers are amongst each other, just playing around.

Speaker 2 But then the next night, I'll get the text and it'll just be like, yo, man, like, dude, thank you so much. Like,

Speaker 2 I got to talk to JJ Abrams about what I thought.

Speaker 2 And this designer is talking to that writer.

Speaker 2 And it's not even an elitist thing because I have no no no the half of the room is just friends of quest love who nobody knows from anything or anywhere that it's just you know right that was the most fun I had was sitting at the table with with your boy I don't I don't even know where he's from but it also but it also tells me a lot about people

Speaker 2 the way Michael Ch hit me like yo dog man

Speaker 2 I was like, yo, you have fun? Because this whole thing was like, he couldn't, Michael Ch was one of them cats that couldn't quite realize, like, wait, so we're going,

Speaker 2 we're just coming to play games yeah and i'm like yeah we even had like one particular artist who's like security detail had to come and sweep the place and they asked us like so you where's your medic at and i was like medic it's like yeah you know medic in case something happens i was like i said dog it ain't that type of party like they're like wait you guys are really here to and the way they laughed like serial to play uno to play games yeah and i was like yeah and they looked at each other like

Speaker 2 wait that's all y'all doing? I was like, Yeah, we're playing games, and they couldn't believe it.

Speaker 2 And then they witnessed it and was like, Oh, this was fun, but literally, at the end of the night, I hit him and I was like,

Speaker 2 So, what'd you think? And he was just like, Man, it's like Trevor kept now.

Speaker 2 I know Che is the type of guy that will pull another rule out of his hat without establishing it, completely, completely, right? So, let's get into this.

Speaker 2 I like how people will be like, Your reputation is that you're a rule follower. Here's so am I.
No, but here's the thing that's more specific for me. Okay,

Speaker 2 I'm competitive. Okay, we start with this: I'm competitive, and the thing I never understand is this: if we cannot agree on the rules of a game, then how can we agree on who has won or lost said game?

Speaker 2 Right. The thing that gets me is, I'll be let's just agree on the rules.

Speaker 2 I'll be playing Uno with somebody, I'll be playing Crazy Eight with somebody, I'll be playing whatever card game it is, I'll be playing a game with somebody, and then they'll go, Oh no, that doesn't do that.

Speaker 2 So it's like, okay, wait, let me just look. Official rules, right? This is what I'm saying.
Official rules of UNO is that if somebody puts down a take-two, you cannot add to that.

Speaker 2 Now, I'm saying I play the game where you can as well, but let's, yo, man, I can play and one, I can play NBA, I can play, like, you know what I mean, three 3v3. I can, I can play every style of game.

Speaker 2 A lot of my black guests. All right, so I gotten a lot of pushback from my black guests.
Because we add, we stack.

Speaker 2 Right. So there's, there's levels of

Speaker 2 stacking. And I don't, I love stacking, but let's agree that we're stacking.

Speaker 2 I get it, yes, you're right. And so, let's agree, people.
That's all I'm saying.

Speaker 2 But sometimes, what happens is it goes halfway around the table, and then someone else goes, Oh, no, but we don't, you don't stack. And then everyone at the table is like, Oh, okay, no, not okay.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so okay, so here's what happened on that one in particular. So, we weren't playing one game.

Speaker 2 So, what I love about your game, nice, is you'll get to a table, you'll find a game, you don't even know what game you're going to play.

Speaker 2 So, you get to the table, there's a whole bunch of games laid out, and on this occasion, there was a barbie version of uno okay which i've never played before i don't think anyone's played

Speaker 2 every type yeah there was like a special type of barbie uno so so now there were new rules yes okay so now everyone's at the table going what do we do

Speaker 2 i now i'm not the kind of person who will pontificate on the possibilities of playing when I can just pull out the instructions. The rule books, right?

Speaker 2 If we don't know how to play the game, let's read the instruction. So I go, let me read the rules.
Michael Che goes, of course you're going to read the rules. Then I'm like, what do you mean?

Speaker 2 Of course I'm, do you not wish to know how to play the game? He's like, I'm sure we can figure it out. I'm like, we cannot figure it out.
I don't know what a Margo Robbie card does.

Speaker 2 I don't know if you do. He's like, we can figure it out.
No, Michael Che, we cannot figure it out. And my thing is, Michael Chase is so cool.
He's going to be like, he's going to ooze cool.

Speaker 2 But he's one of those people who will confidently walk down the wrong road. Right.
Just like, I'm the kind of person to be like, let's pull out a map and see if we're headed in the right direction.

Speaker 2 You and I are the same.

Speaker 2 I read the rules. And it turns out, like, the America Ferreira card and the Margo Robbie card are very different.
Exactly. And there's a lot of things you got.
The Issa Ray card has a different vibe.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? The Kate McKinnon card does a completely different thing. So these are all things that I was trying to explain to the group so we could make the game fun.

Speaker 2 Because if the rules don't exist, then the game isn't.

Speaker 2 But yeah, you got a reputation as

Speaker 2 the hall monitor. Man, he, he, even at the table, he was roasting me.
He roasted me. You know where I had every trauma from school come back.
I knew it.

Speaker 2 Where I felt like a nerd who had actually done the reading or actually

Speaker 2 teachers, pet. Teachers, pet.
That was him. Exactly.
That was him. Michael's like.
It was good for someone to have it instead of me because I'm always the teacher. You're usually that guy.

Speaker 2 So I was like, right, Trevor took the heat off me. This is like I'm here for game night.
I'm not here for socializing night. I'm here for game night.
The socializing is secondary to that experience.

Speaker 2 So I'm here predominantly for the game. I've realized, so

Speaker 2 moving forward, we decided that each table should have their own captain, and that captain will establish what the house rules are. That is what I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 So, next time, Trevor, you will have your own table. It's your.
I don't even need to be a captain, I just need the captain to know what the rules of the game are. No, you're a captain, dog.
Like,

Speaker 2 yeah, I'll take it. I love it, man.
Thank you so much. Thank you for being here now because honestly, this is wow.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 2 What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions and Fullwell 73.

Speaker 2 The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Ben Winston, Sanaz Yamin, and Jodi Avigan. Our senior producer is Jess Hackle.
Irena Henke and Claire Slaughter are our producers.

Speaker 2 Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown. Thank you so much for listening.
Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now.