Episode 1666 - Questlove

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All right, okay.

Yeah, let's do it.

Lock the gate!

All right, let's do this.

How are you, what the fuckers?

What the fuck, buddies?

What the fuck, Nicks?

What the fuck, Wits?

What the fuck, oh, Kratz?

What's happening?

I'm Mark Marin.

This is my podcast.

Welcome to it.

How's it going out there?

How is it going out there?

Oh my God.

New York was fucking crazy.

I did so much shit there.

So many different media hits.

Old-timey media hits.

I went to CNN in the morning and it was almost like there was no one there.

It was kind of depressing.

The building was kind of empty.

Then I went over to the Hearst building

and

did a thing for Esquire and a thing for Men's Help.

Same thing.

The building just seemed empty in these offices, just a lot of empty desks.

It was just,

I guess that's just where things are at was kind of...

Saddening.

But oddly, that Hearst building is pretty amazing.

And that Hudson Yard building, too, where CNN is and some other stuff.

I think HBO is down there now, too.

Pretty stunning buildings.

I've gotten kind of, sometimes I lock in to buildings.

I lock into public spaces.

And I got to tell you, man,

I can't shut up about Kit Kemp.

Yeah.

I will tell you about it, I guess, in just a second.

But today on the show, I'm going to talk to Questlove.

He's the co-founder of The Roots.

He's a six-time Grammy winner and a best documentary Oscar winner for Summer of Soul.

He's nominated for three Emmys this year, including one for his documentary, Sly Lives, aka The Burden of Black Genius, which I watched.

And I got to say, it was great.

It was great.

You know, Quest is one of those guys that you're like, you know, where do I start?

Where do I go?

But he kind of goes.

You just kind of sit down and he'll take it from there.

But that Sly Stone documentary was mind-blowing.

You know, Quest just used him as a portal to explore an entire time period and the impact Sly had on all of music.

And, you know, as time goes on and a guy gets the reputation of being a fuck-up or a guy that just burned it all down, which Sly did,

you forget that the phenomenon of Sly Stone was much bigger than the few songs you might know.

And the way Quest kind of goes into his work, his psyche, his time,

it's the people around him.

It was kind of amazing

how big he was.

And everything just kind of goes by the wayside.

You know, everything becomes nostalgia.

Everything becomes just a YouTube video.

Everything becomes,

I don't know, just sort of like, hey, that's behind us, I guess.

A lot of comics are doing this Riyadh Comedy Festival brought to you by the people that brought us 9-11 okay I guess that's nostalgia getting their check signed by the guy who buzzsawed a journalist and put him in a piece of luggage yeah I mean you know look at right money's money right I don't know it does anything matter anymore back to business folks back to business I um

was talking about Kit Kemp.

First of all, I can't shut up about Kit Kemp.

And sometimes I get very, I get kind of connected to public space or private space or whatever.

But I guess she co-owns the Firmdale Hotels.

And I stayed at the Crosby in New York.

And I love that fucking hotel.

It's a little pricey for me, but we got the HBO rate and they help, you know, they kind of picked up part of it.

And I just, the times I've been there, one time, DreamWorks put me up there and I stayed at a suite and I never understood interior design until I stayed at that place.

I mean, it was just everywhere you looked, it was just mind-blowing.

I feel like I've talked about her before and I don't know that there's any reason to talk about her.

I mean, she doesn't need promotion, but every time I stay at one of her hotels, like the Crosby, I just wander around going like, look at these chairs.

It's a totally different fabric on this one than the other one.

The walls, the wall treatments have fabrics.

Everything's different colors.

It seems like it wouldn't match, but it's fucking genius.

The aesthetic is like totally unique, but grounded in something kind of traditional, almost English.

But the colors and the fabrics and the wall treatments and the things on the wall and the chairs and the fucking table.

I'm having people go over there.

I swear to God, when I was over there, Bo and Yang came by because I interviewed him.

You'll hear that.

But like after we talked, I'm like, let me show you around the hotel.

Like it was like my fucking house.

Every room is different.

The headboards, the wall treatment, the, you know, the

fabrics on the couches.

I can't even, look,

I'm not telling you to stay there.

Just look her up.

Look up Kit Kemp hotels and just look at those interiors and tell me that your fucking mind isn't blown.

Just tell me that.

Would you?

Tell me it.

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Okay, so the screening at the 92nd Street Y was great.

A lot of fans came.

I watched my special again on a big screen.

Obviously, the special is out now on HBO, and HBO Max seems to be getting a lot of good feedback, which I'm happy about.

I like hearing about it, but I do like, I like when real critics assess my work.

People have

really a depth of analysis and thought.

and reference.

I enjoy reading it.

Even if it's not good, I generally learn something.

There's a difference between a piece of criticism and a fucking review.

A review just picks these points.

It's usually slightly stilted or not at all to the writer's point of view, but it's usually only a few paragraphs.

And you can kind of tell what their angle is, even if it's a relatively good review, if they're just kind of, you know,

going through the paces.

But I will say this, the New York Times, Jason Zinnerman, did a beautiful piece, not just about the

special, but sort of about the weaving of the special with what I do on the podcast.

And, you know, he's been sort of on top of my shit for a long time.

He knows what I do.

He, you know, he knows

my work and he's been there for a long time.

But this is a, it was a beautiful piece and a real honor to

read it.

Catherine Van Arendonck over at

Vulture, she also did kind of a sweeping piece about

me and the special, but knowing my work, going back and sort of like making me even look at things a little differently.

That's what I like about a good review.

And The Atlantic did a very nice piece, Vikram Murthy.

Again, people who know my work, who think about my work, who can assess it over sometimes decades.

I'm not just tooting my horn about good reviews, but these were thorough.

So I can, learning someone else's point of view when it's know, kind of laid out there and thoughtful is it's helpful to me.

I don't know how it lands.

I don't know how people frame it.

I know the way I think it should be framed generally.

But by watching it for the 15th time, well, not that many, but probably the fourth or fifth time in a live audience on a big screen, you know, that's when it starts to break down for me.

I'm like, you know, then it gets nitpicky, you know.

But I think it I think it looked great.

But afterwards, after the screening, Jim Gathigan moderated a conversation with me, and that was fun.

It was fun.

And I believe, if I'm not mistaken, we are going to put it up for Thursday's show.

So thanks for watching it if you watched it.

I know that the Theo Vaughn clip has gone viral.

I love that bit.

I imagine Theo can take it.

I don't know.

I thought it was pretty good.

I thought it was a solid, kind of acute

busting of balls, but it was a joke and it was funny.

So we'll see.

But that seems to be getting out there to the right and wrong people.

But all in all,

when I got home on Saturday, I was wiped out.

It was a long bit of press and a long week of press.

And I was just kind of beside myself, starting to reobsess

on

my life.

on whatever's

under my toenail, which I think is just a bruise, but I'm probably going to go in and look because people make me paranoid.

But

now I'm looking at it right now.

I'm pretty sure I dropped something on there, but I always think cancer.

Yeah, and my cats.

And my cats.

That's back to life.

Pick your anxiety.

Or why not just enjoy it?

Why not come home

the day your fucking special premieres?

It's on Friday, and and not be a fucking anxious, exhausted, fucked up wreck of a person.

Huh?

Why not do that?

Well,

that would be a nice way to treat yourself, Mark.

Why do that?

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All right.

So look, Questlove is a genius, great musician, great producer, great film director now.

He has done a lot of stuff.

And it's hard to find an entry point.

But like I said before,

he kind of just got going and I just went there with him.

But I'll tell you one thing, that Sly documentary

is great.

And he's nominated for three Emmys this year.

Best documentary or Nonfiction Special for that one, Sly Lives, Best Music Direction for SNL 50, The Homecoming Concert, and Best Direction for a Special for Ladies and Gentlemen, 50 Years of SNL Music.

Man, that's a lot of,

that's a lot of weight.

Woof, but exciting.

This is me talking to Questlove.

This this is a full circle.

I don't even know if you know how much of a full circle moment this is.

For you?

Yeah, for me, because

your

obsession

with the SNL

ecosystem,

I kind of rode your wave

into that.

Even though, like, I believe

this particular part of your podcast started, like 2008, 2009.

Nine, yeah.

Yeah, so I think between

the oral history book

and

a year before your podcast comes on, of course, like I'm getting lured

into

the world.

Yeah, I'm getting lured into what I call 30 Rock University.

And

yeah, I'll say that your podcast was a really major, major part of my,

like

it was it was an education it was a crash course that i needed and it helped oh in ways you would imagine like and if i'm really honest about it

i think the first person i wanted to know

once i was done uh

my part of the doc you know there's six docs done for

SNL.

For the music part.

Yeah.

Is that nominated for an ME2?

Yes.

It's nominated.

What was it, like 50 years of SNL music?

I did 50 years of SNL music.

Also got nominated for

the Friday night music concert they threw

at Radio City.

What's my third one for it?

So I.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, they'll kill me.

Dude, that's.

Sorry, Disney.

Yes, like.

Thank you.

So, yeah, but

when I was finished,

even more than trying to impress

Lauren and the

and the anyone in the 30 rock ecosystem yeah

I'm I'm a part of your world which are the people that are affected by the 30 rock ecosystem yeah so I think in my mind I wanted to create something that lived up to the lore and the standard because all the obsessions you had like no one was happier about your finally getting to Lauren than I was

I feel like this even way better than you getting chosen in 95.

Sure.

Oh, yeah.

No, the journey was something.

And like you,

if I'm honest with myself,

I mean, of course,

I'll say that in 2008, because of the way the roots operate, the roots are essentially

hip-hop's version of fish or the dead.

Yeah.

We were a 290-year tour bus living

hip-hop jam band.

By our 18th year,

you know,

I always joke that if you can navigate through the

Japanese subway system by yourself without like a label system, like you've been around too much.

Yeah.

Like that's how much we travel the world where we could just show up by ourselves like it was nothing.

Then, you know, around that time, we were just wondering, like, is there anything else for us?

So when Jimmy had approached us about coming to 30 rock,

I kind of think

my willingness to

risk it all, because by that point, year 18, we just got to

a nirvana place, if you will, like financially and

money on the right, exactly.

And why would you, as soon as you get to the mountaintop, want to turn your back and try something

untested?

And I think my decision

was a very, very slow cook game

to just be

a musical guest on a show that I've been watching since I was five years old.

But none of my, I played none of my obsession cards with, the only thing that gave me away was when the first thing I did was I arrived at Lauren's office with a giant bag of popcorn.

Yeah.

So instantly, Jimmy's like, oh, he's a comedy nerd because he knows about the, if you know anything about Lauren's atmosphere during SNL season, you know that there's a popcorn machine in his office.

And, you know, so I brought him a bag of popcorn, which was instantly thumbs up from Jimmy.

Like, oh, you belong here.

But in my mind, I figured, okay.

We'll come here for a little bit and then eventually I got to figure out my way to get up on the eighth floor.

So it's kind of weird that I've been a part of SNL's whole system in every way possible, except for the one way I want to be, which is what Performance is just a musical guest on the show.

Like, we've, I've, we've backed three acts on there.

I mean, technically, I guess you could say, yeah, technically, the roots were the musical guests for the 50th anniversary, but I've been a punchline, I've been on a sketch, a weekend update, I've been part of at least two Lonely Island canceled bits of the Roots have never played the next The roots yeah that's that's just only because I

you know I was raised in a really weird household that didn't want me to watch television but

what was the reasoning on that

oh god all right so

you know I was I was impressionable as a kid you you remember the old Hawaiian punch commercials sure

where uh punchy yeah the

hawaiian native,

would

go up to some poor

sad sucker of a tourist guy.

You know, hey, how about Nazis Hawaiian Punch?

And he just punched the shit out of him with a bunch of fruit.

I love that commercial a lot and unknowingly asked my mom to participate with me as Punchy and her as the.

I was like, mom, been down.

Now I'm going to say, how about Nazi Hawaiian Punch?

You see?

And she said, sure.

And cut to them taking the TV away.

That's it.

However, because my parents were musicians,

I wasn't allowed to watch TV, but I was allowed to watch PBS,

any educational shows.

And if it were music, they would wake me up.

This is how liberal they were.

Before the 80s, they did a total like...

Flanders Christian turnaround by 82, but from birth until 82, I was born in 71.

They became born again?

Yeah, well, everyone did.

You know, like Donna Summer became a Christian.

Like, anyone that my parents were like hip.

It took a lot of coke to get Donna Summers there.

Well,

yeah,

I just think that once you're turning 40 in the early 80s, like they believed in the original make America great again.

Like, right.

We need to atone for our sins.

Like, everyone became a Christian.

Like, once you're

saying secular.

I hate that term.

Once you're a pop singer, BJ Thomas was on it.

Donna Summer was on it, like the 700 Club or the PTL Club.

And now I'm a born-again Christian.

So

there was an uncool shutdown period.

That was called the post-disco repentance.

Well, my parents were part of that.

But what they would do was in the 70s, like they wake me up.

I'd have to go to bed every night at 8.

However,

if the Temptations were on the tonight show, the Jackson 5 on the tonight show,

and most importantly, like Midnight Special would come on at 12.30.

On Fridays, Don Kirsner's Rock Concert was on at 1 a.m.

Most of Soul Train was a 12-in-the-afternoon experience for most of America.

And Philly was a 1 a.m.

experience.

And so they'd wake me up at 12.30.

So I'd go and turn on SNL, of which Weekend Update was like a two-segment thing in the 70s.

And then Jim Henson's Muppets.

And then the musical guest would do two songs.

I'd watch those religiously.

Soul Train comes on at 1, 2 a.m.

back in bed, up for church at 7.

And that was my life for the first like eight years.

So I remember

all those SNL.

Sure, the early ones.

Yeah, like I just watched everything religiously from 75 on.

So, yeah, I will say that next to you, I was probably

your fandom for that institution matched mine.

That's why I felt like I have to come on this podcast just to get closure just to just to bond with exactly and get closure with me.

But when you took the gig over there, like, you know, given that you guys were at the top of your game, I mean, was there a sort of a band discussion that got heated?

It wasn't heated.

The thing is, is that,

you know, the roots, Tariq and I started the roots in 87.

Yeah.

And we were grouping name only.

And the thing was, like, at our high school, it was like fierce competition.

Right.

Which high school is that?

The Philadelphia High School of Creative Improvement.

And this is what year?

I came in 87, graduated 89.

So by this point, boys to men.

So hip-hop was competitive as hell.

Oh, very much so.

Yeah.

Very much so.

Like, it

for me, that was one of the first public schools I went to.

Yeah.

Like, previously before performing arts, my parents had me in these like college prep, you know, future Jeopardy contestant

type of schools.

Because you showed proclivity in the memorization area.

Exactly.

I was, you know, the kid that uses the nine-syllable world and then gets tossed in the trash can like a second later.

I'm like, nerd.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, that's.

And I get taught.

That was me.

So at the time, like anyone who's running jazz right now, like went to my school.

Boys to men were pretty much

came out the gate, ass stars.

So Tariqa and I really didn't make noise until maybe two years after we graduated.

We were busking on the streets of Philadelphia, got a deal.

Busking, how?

Like, what were you playing?

So, okay, so

my dad's plan was for me to either go to

Curtis Institute in Philly or Juilliard or the New School for jazz.

And when I did my Juilliard News School audition, I took the train up.

Tariq came with me that weekend.

I had a friend that lived up there.

So we spent the weekend in New York.

And when we

came back home, this is like the black version of the Bugle Boys Gene commercial.

Yeah.

The world's most beautiful girl comes up to me and says, Excuse me, are you the drummer in the spikely

Levi's commercial?

And my dumbass said, no, I'm not.

And she's like, oh, okay.

She walks away all salty and speaks looking at me like,

why would you tell her that you wouldn't like, you know, like, why would you get her number?

No, she.

Okay, because Boys to Men had chosen me to be in their very first video.

Yeah.

They had their first single single was Motown Philly.

So I was in that video.

Playing.

Right.

What I should have said was, no, you're thinking of, yeah.

I had a very distinctive hairstyle, similar to what the kid wore in the spikely thing.

So it was easy to get the two of them mixed up.

But what she wanted to say was, Are you the drumming of Boyston Motown Philly video?

And then she could have been, you know, wife and kids or whatever.

Whole different wife.

Right.

Instead,

I said no.

She got off the train and Tariq was just like ragging me all weekend, like, you dumbass, dumbass.

So the next day,

crash out at my crib.

Next day, Soul Train comes on and that commercial comes on.

And we had the Eureka slow motion discovery.

Like,

why don't we do that?

And so literally

two hours later.

I grab buckets and my drumsticks and we go to South Street in Philadelphia, which is like

the East Village or

what's the beach in California where everyone's like a place where population is and counterculture.

So you're playing the buckets.

I play the buckets and he rhymed for about an hour straight.

And if we don't make $120, then that's the only time we'll ever do that.

Then it becomes, hey, remember that time we

did that dumb thing.

Yeah, we went on South Street and made 40 bucks each.

But we made $120 and it was like, we're rich.

Like that was date night money.

Yeah.

So then

it was like, do we do this next week?

And the difference between doing this next week was I told one of my friends in jazz class, like, yeah, man, I, you know, I went busking and whatever.

And he's like, whoa, you did.

Can I, can I join you?

I said, yeah, I don't care.

Cause he had a car.

He had a Josh Abrams.

He's like a big deal in the jazz world now.

He had a large.

I think I saw him.

What's he play?

He's an upright bass player.

Yeah, I think I saw him up at the Dizzy's lounge.

He, yeah, Josh is a thing.

Yeah.

He's a thing.

So he shows up to my house with his upright bass.

Yeah.

And I grabbed my buckets.

He's like, whoa, he's like,

why are you bringing your buckets?

Get your real drums.

And I'm like, ah, man, my.

My dad's going to kill me.

He's like, well, your dad's away for the weekend.

Like, he's not going to know.

I was like, yeah, you're right.

So then I took my drums out.

And that's when the roots, as you know, it now

really started to exist.

Cause the second we did that, then suddenly

the doors were open.

Whereas, like, you mean guys would want to play?

Yeah, like we, well, for the most part, we would play on South Street for four hours.

Yeah.

And then it's guaranteed that

Somebody, there's five colleges in Philly.

So somebody from Temple or UPenn or Drexel or St.

Joseph

will come to us, give us a card and say, hey, play Art Keger for $75.

A lot of.

For jazz?

Well, a lot of, and this is the part that's sort of cringy.

We would get a lot of,

well, I don't like rap music, but I like you guys.

So

it was kind of like a reverse rudolph and red-nosed reindeer where we got to, the odd guy out gets suddenly to play, like

our flyer was for JC Dobbs.

I looked at it.

Nirvana

will come to do that.

And this is a club.

This is like pre-teen spirit Nirvana.

Bleach.

Yeah.

And

like, literally, the lineup is like the future of music right now.

Yeah.

We got to play clubs that your average Philadelphian, especially in hip-hop, like there was no outlet.

So Playing On the Corners was like YouTube for us.

Yeah.

About a year of that, then we get into the craziest bidding war ever.

And we wind up choosing Geffam Records in 93.

For the first record?

Yeah, for our, well, I mean, but our first album was our demo.

Our second album was like our major label debut.

The demo was, that was Origin?

Organic?

Organics, yeah.

Organics.

And that was, did you want that released?

We didn't know.

Like, we

made a single and we had like an eight-hour session in the studio.

We made the single in 45 minutes.

And it's like, well, what else you got?

Started making up songs.

And next thing you know, we just had an albums worth.

From our busking days, a gentleman named Jamal Latin Takuma.

He's an

avant-garde.

He's part of the kind of the Black Rock Coalition of Vernon Reed, Living Color.

Yeah, yeah.

Progressive Jazz.

He did some festival in Germany and had a budget, which allowed him to bring musicians from around the world.

So he's like, come to Germany.

So we decided to

really capitalize on this and

turned those slew of songs into our first CD, which also turned into our demo for labels.

So once we get back from Germany, it was just one gig.

We made it like it was like, oh, how many in the ensemble initially?

I'll say that core roots, by this point, we were

a foursome.

it's like a bass player a drummer and two uh mcs um eventually became five people uh a gentleman named scott storch

who you know pretty much wrote the all the hits for the 90s you know for eve and yeah and everyone um he was our fifth member so

from that demo alone got the attention of like eight record labels and then we chose geffen

and then something catastrophic happens in April which is

the death of Kurt Cobain

kind of pushed us into panic mode because we chose Geffen

one for the at that time they had like an unlimited budget you know it was like Nirvana yeah Guns N' Roses Aerosmith yeah they were making billions and so they started a black label division

And first

Aerosmith had went back to Columbia.

It was that like multi, that billion-dollar deal forever.

And then it was obvious like Guns N' Roses wasn't going to have a follow-up to Use Your Illusion anytime soon.

And then

April Kurt Cobain happens, and my manager was like, I get the feeling that they're going to drop the entire black department before this thing even starts.

If you remember the movie Ghost,

the way that

Swayze convinces Whoopi Goldberg to go to the bank to close an account,

they had so much money that we basically controlled our budget.

Like, we didn't have a staff or anything.

It was like three or four people, not a full staff.

So we had the credit cards.

And so basically, when we turned in our album, we closed our account

and

we

stole our own money.

And we decided we were going to pull a Hendrix.

And so we brought eight one-way tickets to London.

And we lived in Europe for about two years.

We wanted London to be our hub.

You were trying to avoid them coming after the money?

Well, no, we

like by 93,

the venue structure for bands had completely shut down.

Yeah.

Like bands were becoming a novelty.

Not necessarily, I mean, by then, you know, 93, there was still like Grunge and Rock was still active.

But, But, you know, by the time we got a deal, the roots were one of five black bands left.

In the 70s, there were hundreds.

And now we were one of the last five.

Because it all shifted to

pop more.

Well, one, economic-wise, it's easier to control a solo artist.

Okay.

Really, for black music, the downfall had it happened in the 80s.

Michael leaves the Jacksons.

Lionel leaves the Commodores.

Cameo started off as a 17-man group.

Now they're a trio.

Yeah.

The point is sisters whittled down instead of four or three members and now they're doing pop music.

So there's something that happens in the 80s in which all the funk groups, all the soul groups,

all the captains of those teams go solo and they go pop.

And so, and the idea of a band just wasn't an appealing thing.

And economically.

What was the model for that, though?

What was the pressure on them to do that?

Who started?

Was that a post-disco thing too?

Like to separate them?

Okay, so in a kind of

Malcolm Gladwellian explanation

way, I'll say that a lot of our 80s icons were born in the second half of 1958.

Madonna, Prince, Springsteen, Jackson.

all,

you know, in 1958 born.

I will say that Michael's probably the perfect example where once Jackson 5 hit in 69

he's 11 but they're playing it like he's eight yeah

so he's

precocious and smart enough to be an eight-year-old that has the wisdom of an adult yeah

but he's also innocent enough to not be threatening He's not hide your daughters

threatening.

So basically the Jacksons were the first group to truly enjoy

the accolades and whatever was denied to whoever came before them because of, you know, like, again, Chuck Berry's not able to sleep in the hotels or eat in the restaurant.

He's performing.

Right, exactly.

So the timing of Thriller coming.

When people speak of Michael's off-the-wall album, it's the quality of it.

Oh, man, this is an amazing record.

The productions and Quincy Jones just da da da da.

When people think of Thriller, they talk about the quantity.

How many awards did it win?

How much money did he make?

How many copies did it sell?

And that sort of starts the wheel turning and everyone that, oh, I can make money and make a living and da-da-da-da.

Sell these guys.

Yeah, and there's a diminished return thing.

And I'm not trying to paint Thriller as

Thriller's, you know, in hindsight,

even though Thriller changed all of our lives.

Yeah.

I would almost be in the middle and say it did more damage than good.

Yes, it was revolutionary and changed everything.

Changed videos, changed marketing, but then it became the

carrot on a stick that even he himself, Michael, couldn't

try to outdo.

Right.

And then we'd see how that ends.

You know what I mean?

And so I'll say for the most part,

the idea of black musicianship really just started not to matter as as much in the late 80s.

Isn't that crazy?

Because like, when did you, but like, starting out in jazz, and I know you started out as a kid, but I mean, was the destination, like, how you did start with your dad, right?

So I started out in DooWop.

Right.

My dad was a doo-wop legend that was on chess records.

So he had his, his, his group was Lea Andrews and the Hearts.

They, they were, they had like three regional hits.

Do ops made a big impression on a lot of people.

Well, I mean, that's the thing.

Like by the time the 70s came around, the first wave of nostalgia period.

Yeah.

American

graffiti, Shanana, Planana.

Yep, right.

At Woodstock, Laverne and Shirley, Happy Days, Greece.

So my dad was...

instantly on the bandwagon of he retired in 1965.

He met my mom.

They opened up a clothes boutique.

And then his old manager called back.

It's like, Lee, you'll never guess this.

The 35-year-olds today still like the music from when they were 12.

You can go back on the road.

And he's like, get out of here.

I can't do that.

And once there was enough safety for him to shut down his clothing business that he had with my mother, then it's like, oh, I can actually make a living.

as an adult doing the stuff I was doing when I was a teenager.

Being exploited, probably.

Well, yeah, I mean, mean, that exploited.

It's a singles business, right?

Well, it was a singles business.

But he pretty much, his market was

for the Northeast, that was a very big for do-up.

So we always had the Catskills.

There was a big market in New England.

Well, it kind of started in Philly, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

Started in Philly, but then there's also New York, Catskills, New England, Atlantic City, especially.

So any place where there's legalized gambling.

Yeah.

Puerto Rico, Vegas.

And occasionally, Dick Clark would throw these like extravaganzas at Madison Square Garden.

My dad and 14 other acts doing three songs each.

And

so that was like from 72 to 75.

And then

my dad sort of nuanced his way to a nightclub act.

And that's where I came to play.

you know, babysitting really wasn't a thing until the late 80s.

Yeah.

Meaning my parents didn't trust any stranger to watch me.

So you had to be a part of the act.

In order to get into the club.

Well, just to keep an eye on me.

So they made up, they made up jobs.

So I'll say that

around seven or eight, my dad kind of trained me and my sister.

Like I was a stra,

it was very normal for an eight-year-old to come into a nightclub establishment with some measuring tape, ask for uh a ladder i pull out a razor blade cut out light gels put place light gels yeah yeah put electric tape down ring the monitors out uh i'd run the sound i was the richest

like nine ten year old ever i'd made uh i'd make about a hundred and twenty dollars a week yeah between like

79 to 83.

And then one day my dad's drummer got sick.

He had a car, a motorcycle accident.

We were at Radio City.

My dad was like, well, you know the show.

And he's laid it because

he doesn't have to pay a drummer and a band leader like $600.

But did you spend time on the drums?

I started drumming when I was two.

Okay.

I got my first set when I was seven.

But I didn't know that my entry was going to be

Radio City Music Hall, like leading a full orchestra.

But he's like, you know the song already.

Like, it's a 20-minute show.

Go ahead.

So I did it.

And then he, my first gig with him was at Radio City.

My last gig with him was at Madison Square Garden.

And then the next day, I got on a plane and we moved to London.

You know, it's weird about Dewop.

Like, I think Dewop had a profound impact on Frank Zappa.

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, it's like all the humor in Zappa.

It's all Duopa.

Yeah, absolutely.

See, even I thought it was

um

I thought it was more novel than anything and then when I was working on my first film Summer of Soul yeah

which at the time we were calling Black Woodstock yeah um my first battle research was I watched everything about actual Woodstock before I did my film

and I found out the story was that

Sean Anan came as a recommendation uh from Jimi Hendrix.

I was like, really?

A serious artist like Hendrix?

He's like, no, man, it's these guys that do the music just like the 50s.

Like, I couldn't rap that.

So, once I got to play with the Isley brothers, so like, he knows it.

Yeah, but in my mind, I think

I was looking at my dad and his peers kind of the way that like

roots kids.

Look at us now.

Right.

Like, I know they're backstage watching, like, man, this ain't NBA young boy look at these old rappers on like yeah yeah yeah sure

but um i didn't realize like how

heavy nostalgia culture was and that was the first wave of nostalgia but also like so like rock and roll starts what 57 58 depending if you believe it's bill daley or ike turner right and then uh they they it it was invented in their lifetime So whatever came out of that momentum profoundly affected them.

So it's like, it's, it's almost like a childhood, you know, it's part of you.

It's not even nostalgia, I would think, for Hendrix.

Yeah, looking in the rearview mirror is everyone's favorite pastime.

Yeah, but like it moves you.

The music kind of like brings back something.

I guess that is nostalgia.

But I mean, like, a lot of Jimmy's stuff, you know, kind of grew up in that, that early RB stuff, right?

Yes, absolutely.

Play him with.

Yeah, matter of fact,

the story of him sleeping on the

Isley brothers, I guess, discovered him like on a park bench, sleeping out at Cafe Wood and heard him play guitar.

Yeah,

and bring him home to Jersey.

And then he becomes their so that gave you a new respect for your dad?

It did.

I mean, at the time when I was doing it,

I wasn't looking down at it.

I think maybe the first time I had questions, like my first day of school.

My first day of school, music class, our

homework.

So what I remember about my first day of school was that

this is the week that stevie wonder releases songs in the key of life

like album releases were like an event yeah

and when this album comes along

it it almost felt like i would say it was almost akin to like black version of war of the worlds yeah like We brought the record, we all sat as a family in front of the stereo and just sat and listened to it from start to finish and i've never seen a book i've never seen liner notes before yeah pictures some like reading the liner notes and everything about what what's a harp what's a what's a synclavia like ask my mom what's this word and reading like all the musicians and that was our homework we had to purchase that album bring it in the next day for further like instruction and I believe the next homework assignment was bring in your favorite 45.

Where were you going to school then?

This was the

private version of the performing arts school in Philadelphia.

And he bring any favorite 45?

And so I brought in Frankie Lyman and the teenagers, Why Do Fools Fall in Love?

That's a good song.

Right, but here's the thing, though.

So when I submitted my 45 in, my teacher's a little perplexed, like, oh, this was a hit when I was a kid.

I was like, huh?

Yeah.

I thought all doo-wop music was like new.

Yeah.

No, my parents were just hiding hiding like disco duck by Rick D's from me and he was born to be alive.

Like all those disco songs.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They, they,

they did a great, actually,

I believe my keyboard player now

still hasn't broken the news that Michael Jackson is no longer with us to like one of his youngest kids.

Oh, my God.

So it's all like, I even see my band members like,

and I'm, I'm just like, yo, man, you're going to do him a disservice.

Like, this Nas album came out 35 years ago, yo.

Like, what

he brought his kid to a Wu-Tang show, and his kid's like seven years old.

I'm like, dude,

are you ever going to tell him the truth that this song is like 30 years old?

Like, his kids think that the hip-hop they're listening to is brand new.

But that's what got him, so he wants to make sure it gets in there.

Yeah, parents are dirty like that.

So, yeah, when I was young, once I got into school,

then suddenly someone drew a timeline of like, this is old music and this is new music.

But I was too late.

It was too late then.

You missed a chunk.

Yeah, but then also I became,

I pretty much, I'll say that I was, I was Lester Bangs by

11.

Oh.

And especially because I was reading periodicals.

Like I was reading cream at 10.

You know, I was bored at home.

There's nothing to do but read all these billboards and rolling stones and stuff.

And so, like, I had.

Your dad had them?

yeah, because my dad had them.

Industry magazine.

Yeah,

I'd read them, read them all: billboard, cream, rolling stone, all those periodicals, cash box.

And so, I'll say that I had an adult's knowledge, or at least adult music snob's knowledge of music by the time I was like 12.

Yeah,

and I was trapped.

Like, he had successfully raised

a clone, yes, a music snob clone.

So, well, where does jazz come in, though?

Okay, so I went to private school up until the 10th grade.

Yeah.

Eleventh grade, I begged my parents, like, I want to go to

a real school where kids are playing instruments and acting.

And I wanted to go to the

public

school version.

The Philadelphia version of fame.

I wanted to go to that performing arts school.

To be honest with you, there was a girl who danced on a very popular local television show.

The same show that Kelly Ripper danced on before she became famous.

It was called, well, it was local.

It was called Dancing on Air, but it got syndicated to Dance Party USA.

So it was a popular local dance show.

And

there were two girls that me and my best friend were into.

So we wrote them letters in the summer, like, dear,

would you go in our junior prime with us?

Whatever.

And my girl responded, responded, his didn't.

And that was my further motivation to make the sacrificial friendship bond.

And I said, you know what?

I'm going to transfer

to her school.

And then I'm going to hook you up for your junior prom.

But really, I just wanted to go to that school to go to, you know, private school.

He never got hooked up with that girl, but I got into that school.

And that's how, like, I went to performing arts.

And literally, it was like

fame.

Like, kids were breaking out in the production.

Boys to men were singing in the bathroom, testing the acoustics and all that stuff.

And

there was a Jets and Sharks or Bloods and Crips version of gangs in my school.

And the conservative side

was

Christian McBride and Joey D.

Francesco.

And these guys were like

typically Miles Davis would pull Joey out of school for like two months to tour with him.

The Marcelluses would use Christian McBride.

These guys are like 15 and 16 and already like young lions.

So in order to get their respect, I had to learn their language.

But then on the left side of thing, there was a cat named Kurt Rosenwinkle, who is also just, he's on Verve Records, like a genius musician.

And he was more Zappa, cap and beef arv, experimental.

Yeah.

So I'm like serving.

I joke that I was, I was on the side of whoever, whatever gang's winning.

Like Richard Pryor once had that joke.

Like, I joined two gangs and whoever was winning, that's the side I was on.

So just to fit in,

I had to

crash course jazz.

But on the other side of that, during lunch breaks, the cool kids table were the rap kids, and they were all the ex-graffiti artists of Philly that got arrested and had to,

you know, when you got arrested for a graffiti in Philly, you had to like paint walls and do respectable art.

And then maybe one out of one out of eight would be like, wow, you have a really good eye for art.

Hey, why don't you go to performing arts school?

So Tariq Schrider, Black Thought, my partner in the roots, was a graffiti artist that got caught and was a really brilliant, gifted visual artist.

And he goes to performing art school.

So all the thug kids are in hip-hop.

And so when you're looking for what's my table

in the lunchroom,

I was allowed to sit with the cool kids because I was willing to beat the lunch table with spoons and my fists so that they could freestyle for like hours at a time.

Yeah.

I didn't have to say nothing as long as I just kept the beat going.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They would just rhyme all day.

Yeah.

So

that's kind of how,

you know, that's kind of how the roots got started.

But you were never a jazz head.

My dad was big into

respectability politics.

You know, there's always that adult's like, you know, tuck your shirt in and, you know,

stop showing your boxing underwear.

And, you know, thinks that every rap song you listen to is something my dick bitch and you know, whatever.

Phil Florenfilth.

he sort of looked at hip-hop that way.

And so

he wanted me either in classical music or jazz music because that's respectable.

Right.

And of course, you know, his thing is he's thinking about my survival.

Right.

But as much as you can, when you've

agreed to let your son pursue a musician's career and support it, it gets a little tricky to sort of, given that there's no security in any of it,

to find a place for him.

People think i'm joking but my dad didn't find out about the roots until our second record

was he okay with it by then once well no it was it was like

uh i think my cousins gave me away they're like uncle lee you know

our our version in the new york times which was uh the philly inquirer yeah you know that

comes in with like, you know, I made the front page of the Sunday paper.

He's like,

so

what is this?

And I played off like, oh, you know, me and Tariq got some project.

Yeah, whatever.

And I didn't break the news to him that I wasn't going to Juilliard or new school or whatever.

Yeah.

But I'll say that,

and again, his thing was always about safety and survival.

And a lot of his fear, like his family did not support his,

you know, as much as we talk about like conservative movements in America.

And I know like most people think think like when you think of the conservative right, you think of like whoever's watching Fox News or whatever.

I assure you, no one's more conservative than the black Christian family.

And for him,

it was just

definitely by our fourth album,

The Things Fall Apart record.

That's when he was like, okay, he's safe.

Yeah.

Number one, it's like, well, here's your keys to your car, and here's your house, your new house, dad.

yeah you know what i mean that but

mostly um

yeah yeah he he just that was the one big hit on there

uh well that's where we won our first grammy yeah like geffen we we were probably the last group that

had the system of like slow rollout

and

you know yeah we will

We'll work this slowly.

Of course, we wanted success instantly, but it took four albums for us to build,

you know, like our fan base.

Yeah.

And

a lot of

blood and sweat behind that.

But it was the right move.

Like, if you ask me now,

was it better to take this tortoise and hair route?

I'll say that, yes, it was absolutely.

Well, you were getting all these other skills.

Yeah, but I mean, at the time,

it was the tortoise in the hair.

Like, you're watching, you know, the Fujis surpass you on the racetrack, and then you're watching Alcast surpass you on the racetrack, and then you're watching Kanye and everyone else, and you're like, oh, we're just never going to make it.

You know, we're slowly going to get there.

But

I will say that we're still actively here,

still acknowledged and literally better than we were when we first started.

Most people peek out.

you know, every group's like, oh, I like the first five alchemy.

It's kind of interesting, though, given your father's sensibility around security, that that must have played into the decision to be the band, you know, when to make the business decision around

being

the show band.

Oh, for the tonight show?

Yeah.

So, yeah, after 18 years of just 200 gigs a year,

you know, we it wasn't joking.

You know, Celine Dion had managed to figure out like a residency.

Like we were always like, man, just there ever was a way for us to just

make the living we're making now but just in one place and not having reasonable hours well yeah like I'm the only non-married member of the group because you can't have any sustainable relationship yeah

you know you can't have a sustainable relationship

and really

be an effective

member of this life.

You know what I mean?

And so

we,

when this opportunity came up,

Neil Brennan, co-creator of the Chappelle show.

Yeah, I know, Neil.

Had

said to Jimmy, quote, Jimmy's like, well, what about music?

Who should I get?

And Brennan's quote was, well, ask the roots.

dot dot dot dot dot because they know all the great musicians and the best musicians around and jimmy just cut it off at the ellipse ellipsis yeah asked the roots dot dot dot so he asked us and i mean i'll be honest with you we just gotten to the mountaintop of really good money like the idea of touring and and having maybe five to six figures in your bank account when you get home was a new idea um

i didn't think we were gonna

take it.

And then Jimmy did something miraculous once, which was

he came to see us in UCLA, and I had done some college interview inside my trailer.

And 20 minutes later, I'm done the interview, and I come out my trailer, and I see Jimmy and the rest of the roots

in a kind of an Adis Enough

bring-it-on human pyramid.

Yeah.

And the fact that Black Thought was on the bottom row getting

his like $2,000 Japanese denim dirty.

Yeah.

I looked,

I was like, what did this guy do to disarm the roots?

I've never seen someone disarm us in record time.

They're all smiling and joking.

And I'm like looking at my manager like,

we're not getting rid of this guy no time soon, right?

He's just like, no, I think we're stuck.

So

we definitely weren't going to accept the gig, but he just, you know, people ask me all the time, like, is he always like that?

Is he always on 100?

He is always

on,

he's the spike in any punch.

I think he's, I like doing his show more than any of them because he's a great audience and he's like engaged.

We're still, we're still,

I feel like we are the

talk show of.

We're the pop culture offspring that grew up watching Letterman.

And you know what I mean?

That's that sort of thing.

Now we're the generation after.

So for me, it's still

like you would think that we would slightly maybe perhaps like, yes,

is it new like the honeymoon was your first three years?

No, everything was exciting and new.

And oh my God, dude, Bruce Springsteen's like right there.

Oh my God, Prince destroys your guitar, dude.

Wow.

No one caught it when it hit the ground.

Like all these things are happening.

But even now, like 16, 17 years later,

still

find it

like I love coming to 30 Rock.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And especially now that I can sneak up to 8H and just sit there and watch that whole world.

Like, that's, and you mentioned that, like, just watching how the whole place operates.

Yeah, yeah.

That's the only, like, you know, most people come, they want to hang in the green room or in the middle of the day.

But also, you like do all this other stuff, too.

Yeah, I take it in.

I, and you know, you're filmmaker, Grammys, producing, all of it.

And I want to say

that, you know, I watched the slide doc.

I thought that, like, you know, you did an amazing thing

to sort of, you know,

honor and almost establish that guy's legacy publicly.

And, you know, because I don't, you know, I know the songs and I know him.

But we more or less know of the fuckery.

Right, a little bit, but I knew he was great.

But, you know, for you and the way that you put it together, you used him as a portal to

sort of like explain the expansion of music through this one guy.

And it's all justified.

I think most of the time,

and I go through this myself, where,

you know, oftentimes

when people talk about

the hard-traveled road of successful people.

A lot of the times you're expecting a defensive response like, oh, the world's tiniest violin.

Oh, woe is me.

The rich artist.

Right, right.

And

the thing is, is that in my career, especially with my

canon as far as the artists that I'm associated with,

as far as

many of the acts whose records I've been on or produced or drummed for or whatever,

they kind of have one thing in common, which is

a tendency to subconsciously or maybe purposely self-sabotage.

And I'm often asked like, well, why is this person like, you know, the term like, you only have one job.

Like, all you have to do is show up.

And why is this person always later?

Why is this person...

Why is this person dead?

Why is this person on drugs?

Why is this person always fucking up?

Why is this person?

And I really, I got tired of answering that question.

And I figured

this is probably the closest way that I can explain to you

what a person feels like

if they are a successful, unwilling participant.

And my main goal was to get

all of these artists

to sort of be a proxy for Slide to answer these questions.

And how did you frame it?

The burden of black genius?

The burden of black genius.

Yeah.

And

first of all, one of the hardest things,

the one thing that isn't clear in the doc is the

staggering amount of no's

that I got from the music community in terms of being a talking

at the end of the day, yes, getting Andre 3000,

D'Angelo, now Roger, like getting the talking heads I got was enough, but there's at least

15 other artists that

either agreed and stood us up or

last minute

because vulnerability is such a hard, hard

thing to

be.

And I know it's one of those easier said than done things.

Like if you're on the outside looking in, you're just saying, like, wow, I would do anything to spill my guts and show the world my insides and be a goldfish.

But, you know, for a lot of these artists,

there's nothing normal about this level of

stardom.

And Sly was the first,

even though I spoke earlier about the Jackson 5 being the first recipients,

really the reason why Thriller was allowed to happen was because Sly dropped the baton

on the floor in 1974.

Michael picks it up in 82 with Thriller, but Sly was the first person that out the gate post-civil rights period that had the freedom to do whatever he wanted.

Every creative idea he had was like an establishing rule.

Like everything that he did 50 years ago, like we're still using now.

Like the first to use a drum machine, the first to really take advantage of multi-track recording, like the bedroom musician doing everything by himself.

He was the pioneer of that.

Such an amazing poet.

Like his, his pin game was

out of this world.

But also the thing you were saying before is that, you know, he

was the eye of the needle in terms of the history of music up to to that point.

Yeah.

He was.

Yeah, because he was a DJ and because he took it all in and because he had this brain that separated sounds and melded it into his own,

but it's all sourced.

Yeah, he started out as the classical prodigy and

choir church leader by the age of six.

Yeah.

Was by 19

almost to the level of Casey Kasim was.

Like he was a popular DJ and

Yeah.

And what's weird is that he

in 62 as a radio DJ

will basically raise the counter culture tweens that we will later know as hippies.

So all those hippies that you see in like the Summer of Love, 67, 68, they're in 1962, they're 12 and 13 listening to Sly.

in the same way that like Robin Williams was in Good Morning Vietnam.

That's how Sly is

He's playing piano on top of Ray Charles, and he's making his own commercials up, and all those things, like, that's how his mind works.

But, you know, the one thing that

a lot of the world is

unaware of is that when you are an isolated success,

the first thing you feel is guilt that it's happening to you and not anyone else.

You know, so it's hard to bask in the glory of comfort when

even now, like I

like what Slide go through, what Slide goes through in this doc is kind of like

what I went through after the Oscars in 2021, like literally just this insane amount of guilt that

you feel.

And what about all the other guys are, you know, yeah, when people ask me, like,

what did you feel before the slap happened you know oh

my right my

and they thought most people thought i was just like you know ducking commenting on the slap like oh i really wasn't paying attention but oh because you were the oscar right after chris got hit i no that was my oscar oh so and that's the

let me let me tell you how uh my ex-girlfriend said

She said, congratulations.

You got exactly what you wanted.

And I said, what do you mean?

She's like, for for the last two years, you've been struggling inside your own body to accept this new life that you have.

And you made a deal with the universe.

And you said, man, if there ever was a way for me to quietly win this Oscar

and

not make anyone uncomfortable with my success, like, what's the quietest way I can win this Oscar

and it not bother anyone?

And it's like

she says that

Smith, yeah, you can slap right Chris Rock.

She's like, you can either manifest your dreams or you can mana fuck your dreams.

Yeah.

And she's like, you chose to manafuck it

and you got exactly what you wanted.

Because sure enough, when the slap happened, everyone stopped watching TV, went to their phones, like, what the hell happened?

Came back, commercial,

and it was almost like I'd never won the Oscar.

And so

in that entire year, like, I

then knew how Slystone felt.

It was just a level of guilt.

And

at one point, I wanted to,

like, I wanted to, like, I think I'm the first person that, like, prayed that I would get canceled or like just make the stop.

Like, I'm not used to

this level.

Well, did you feel like, like, okay, for you.

It's been a real slow burn for me, dude.

And I don't think I hit that.

Did you imagine that you get to this

level of, especially because you didn't design this?

Since the age of two, I was raised to be on a stage leading my band.

I want my success to look like this.

And then, like, if someone comes to you and says, like, when I'm busking on South Street with my friend with a bucket and drumsticks, if, if some sort of Jacob Marley figure,

you know, comes up to me and says, hey, okay, so it's 95.

Okay, you don't know this yet, but in 27 years, you're going to be

an Oscar Award-winning film director and documentary maker.

And I look at you like you were crazy.

And he's like, no, well, that's not the crazy part.

You'll also be the next Doc Severson and Paul Schaefer.

No, I'm not doing that.

Like,

I'm doing a band with my best friend.

And so

it's hard to

own yourself, you know, when, like, I feel that now, because I'm having a lot of anxiety because so much is going on.

And, you know, I'm not at that level where I'm winning Oscars or anything, but it's uncomfortable for me.

And I just talked about it for the podcast tomorrow, to acknowledge that, you know,

I'm doing good

and I actually feel good about myself, but it's alien.

Is it hard to feel good in the worst times ever?

Yes.

Well, that's a whole other layer.

So that's the way the universe is working with me, the way that I keep secrets.

Like this is the

okay, just maybe 20 minutes before I got here.

Yeah.

Um, I just, I got a random call that, like, uh, dude, it's your turn.

Like, the Simpsons just called you.

And I'm like, what the hell?

But my whole thing is,

I got to keep it a secret.

Like,

I don't feel, not that I don't feel comfortable.

Yes.

I've done enough work in therapy to talk myself off of like many a ledge.

Yeah.

But,

yeah, I mean, every day I kind of struggle with when something really good happens to me.

It's, it's, there's such a gutted feeling.

And

don't let no one find out about it.

But what's, Zap you identify what the source of that is?

Um

I realized, so there was a point where I kind of had

I had a therapeutic breakthrough

during the pandemic, which helped me complete Summer of Soul.

But then I thought I was just doing

a niche documentary that no one's going to see anyway.

So, you know, three months later, and then I'll go back to the roots album that I've been working on for the last nine years.

And then, you know, once Disney starts calling you, like,

you realize that you have a chance to get on that stage to accept that award, right?

And I'm like, all right, get out of here, get out.

So

once those doors doors open, which I totally wasn't prepared for,

I'll say that maybe the first four months, there was an anger feeling

because I'm like, damn,

since the age of five, I've been prepping.

Like, I've studied every album, every engineer, all these liner notes.

Like, Why can't I get success on the terms that

I want?

I want to be a successful musician in a band with my best friend from high school.

Okay, I know what you're talking about now.

And I'm like,

I didn't even go to NYU.

Like, what the fuck?

Yeah.

So there was that.

And then.

I know that feeling because when I got the podcast and that became successful, I'm like, I'm a comic.

Right.

And people go, I really like your show.

I'm like, my comedy?

They're like, oh, you do comedy?

And it's like, God damn it.

I went to see The Weekend at MetLife Stadium in New York.

And, you know, his audience is Jen

Alpha, Jen B.

Yeah, you know, a bunch of kids born in 2003 or whatever.

And these kids walk up to me.

It's like, yo, you were the guy in the SNL bit with

Pete and Timothy Chalamet, right?

And I was like, yeah, I was...

I did that too.

Yeah.

They're like, cool.

And then they just walk away.

And so sometimes I do feel like

someone joked, I think Chappelle told me, is like, Amir is sometimes being me is sort of like people only recognizing Michael Jordan for the Haynes commercials and nothing else.

There was one time where I got a lap dance.

I was at a

bachelor party in Vegas for a friend.

I was getting married.

So a girl walks up to me, starts crying.

And I was like, wait, what happened?

She's like,

you just don't know.

Like,

I grew up as a latch key kid.

And I'm like, where's this going, lady?

Where's this going?

And she's like, you know, 27.

She's like, but man,

that song that you guys did on Yo Gabba Gabba,

that came out when I was 12 years old.

And

when I seen you, I just started crying because it made me miss my grandma.

We used to always sing that song.

And I'm like, check fleet, you know what I mean?

Like,

it's like, that's what I'm known for.

So

now just stop fighting it.

Well, I think it's hard to acknowledge that it's all you.

It's all you.

Because like, even if with the Sly Doc is that you found a way to channel all of your, you know, not just your historical wisdom, but musically historical wisdom.

And also, you know, confront the question of the burden of black genius, which most of the guys didn't really know how to frame or what you were trying to say.

Right.

But, but then, you know, the arc of Sly's career, you know, there, and there's also that other thing where, you know, once you appeal to all these white audiences, and then you have to deal with that guilt of selling out or Tomming or whatever.

Yes.

So then, you know, you got it.

And then he comes back around, re-delivers himself to the black community, and still holds on to all of it.

But I thought it was a way for you to channel all the questions about yourself and

also to really place

the impact of a very specific guy who was fundamentally a black musician on the entire fucking world of music.

But I think that in looking at yourself, that the only way that I accept it is like, you know, what I am pretty good at this other stuff.

My mom, when my mom first seen it, she said, I see what you did there.

She's like, you told Sly Story to tell your story.

Yeah.

And I was like, busted.

So,

yeah,

I used this story to tell my story because, you know,

I figured we might as well show the first domino falling.

And so

it was hard, though.

I will say that

unlike Summer of Soul,

extracting that much pain.

out of people and telling those stories

um

There's a lot of stress.

I didn't realize.

Okay, so when

I used to watch the Sopranos,

there's a moment where Dr.

Melfie

has to talk to her therapist.

And I didn't realize how meta it was.

Like, oh, damn, even she has to have a therapist.

to get rid of all the baggage that she takes on from her clients.

And it was one of those episodes where like Tony may or may not have just admitted that he had to handle a situation and the stress that she, but that's how I felt.

Like there was one point where I got a second therapist

just because

the like getting a second therapist and subsequently working on SNL was almost like my

joy space of trying to wash the sadness of the three-year sly period where

you you it's almost like you take take on yeah yeah yeah all the pain that he went through just to tell his story and so

yeah it's it's it's not for the faint of heart but you know beautiful work though thank you i mean like you know it's like one of those things where i'm like thank you you know for for planting this guy's flag and then for planting your own flag and for giving me a new understanding of you know, a fundamental of modern music.

I mean, like, it's all there.

But, you know, you do that with music, too.

I mean, that's the one thing about, like, I'm not a huge hip-hop guy, but the integration of the textures of all music's preceding you.

I mean,

everything is some sort of mashup of the history of how we got here musically.

Well, yeah, I mean, literally, hip-hop is Warhol's version of taking everything that's before you and recontextualizing it.

Yeah.

You know, and that to me, you know, oftentimes,

I mean, people my age now are the establishment, so it's easier to convince them.

But, you know, the generation before,

you know, when you're trying to convince like Led Zeppelin's lawyers

that one snare drum sound, you know, from physical graffiti shouldn't equate 100, you know, percent publishing, especially in light of like, wait, didn't you guys steal this from this blues artist?

Like the irony of you calling us out for stealing, but it's just, I think all art is derivative.

And

everything's just remixed and redone again.

But I've also learned

how to be a suit.

So that's the smart thing.

And that's the thing I feel guilty of.

When before Bismarcky passed away,

he one of his last words to me is like, damn, Quest, when'd you become a suit?

And, you know, we were joking, but when I went home that night, I was like, ouch, Bismarck.

Yeah, but also a suit.

No, but it's in service of maintaining your,

you know, the ability to manage your talent, to use it in different places.

At some point, you have to delegate.

At some point, you have to manage, you know, the situation so you can execute how you want to execute.

And when you have a lot of things that you do, you got to be a suit sometimes.

Yeah, but, you know, sometimes it makes me feel like I'm not an artist or

I might not be seen as an artist.

Well, that's crazy.

You know, that's it.

Well, that's a voice in your head that you somehow nurture and keep just

do you feel like an artist now?

Like,

you're so responsible and you've done such a service in terms of conversation and communication.

Dude, I listened to that Robin Williams podcast at least five times a year.

Yeah.

I'm actually working on a project right now that is kind of close to the storyline of Awakenings.

And I think every person on this, I've played them the infamous Yo, Bobby D, like the Robin Williams story of

Bobby D breaking character.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, that's my all-time favorite story.

But even for you, like, do you feel closer to Lenny Bruce or Carlin?

Or are you

the next Lauren Michaels?

Well, no, I don't have a business sense.

So, like, I'm definitely

do you believe that?

Yeah, well, I'm not a producer.

You know, I still work in the zone of immediacy.

But if thrown into the river, would you learn pretty damn quick?

I don't think so.

And the thing, but I understand what you're saying.

Like, because I, you know, I'm now on this Apple show, which is a cute show, and families love it.

And it makes me feel good.

You know, I've gotten to a place where I'm like, well, these people seem to really enjoy this.

Right.

And that's necessary.

And the podcast brings people, you know, an intimacy with talented people that ranges the full spectrum of experience.

And then I do this special that's coming out Friday that, you know, is the best comedy I can do.

And it's right up there, you know, with, you know, saying what I need to say and how I want to say it.

And, you know, there's just different parts of me that seem at odds with each other.

And sometimes I wonder, it's like, oh my God, all these people that like the Bad Guys movie or like Stick, they're going to watch the comedy and they're going to be like, holy shit, who is this guy?

And it's like, fine, I, I, I, I have multitudes.

is there an itch that you still want to scratch not really

i guess are you you're satisfied i'm satisfied in in the terms of like my this output that i've done you know the podcast you know as a body of work i'm i'm proud of uh you know even as we head out of it the comedy i've never been better so i've let go of this idea that i have to be singular and and it's helpful that you know this idea of integrity or selling out or whatever i never sold out because no one was really offering me that much money, right?

If any.

So I've always been able to do it the way I want to do it.

And I'm doing most of what I'm doing at a pretty good level.

And they are all parts of what I wanted to do, but they do seem separate sometimes.

So there is

a satisfaction destination.

It's slightly.

It's just starting to happen.

Don't ruin it.

It's important for me to know this because, you know, right now

I am pivoting to script it.

Yeah.

I'm pivoting to production.

Yeah.

I am going to attempt to scratch the itch that is,

you know,

does a world want a 17th Roots album?

Like, nothing scares me more when I go to concerts like, and now, you know, here's the song from the new album.

You know what I mean?

That's when it's like, all right, let me go

to the bathroom or get some popcorn.

But

there's still a musical itch that I still,

I don't know.

It's like getting a bunch of

walks and singles and maybe a double.

And it's just like one grand slam.

But I also know that I'm insatiable by nature.

And,

you know.

I think, you know,

you'll do the music if you want to do the music.

You just got to, you know, you know, kind of temper your expectations if you're going to put that out there and not beat yourself up about it.

And this other stuff is new and exciting stuff.

Are you in the space where if you want to stop, you could?

No, I don't know that I can stop.

I do fantasize about it, but I do know that

I can only do what comes to me

in an organic way.

I don't put stuff on the docket that I can't handle, but I do find like I've been playing a little music publicly, and I find that you get to a certain age where when things are new, they're scary, and you want to be good at them immediately.

But, you know, once you start to get a groove going, you're like, well, this is as creative as anything else I've done.

And this is, you know, a new place for me.

And I'm putting my heart into it.

And I have a certain amount of control over it.

So what am I going to beat myself up for for not doing the other thing at whatever level?

Wisdom.

Okay.

I could take that.

Well, it's good to talk to you, buddy.

I want to thank you for,

you know,

this podcast

has definitely been

a lighthouse for me and

the way that I've just taken in every episode and

learned from you.

I thank you for,

this is definitely a destination that I've I've been dreaming about.

So now I feel like I made it.

I'm so glad we got it in, man.

Thank you, man.

Thank you.

So good.

All right.

There you go, man.

It weighs heavy on all of us.

Just, you know, who are we?

Do we deserve it?

You know?

Again, he's nominated for three MEs, including Best Documentary for Sly Lives.

I highly recommend that.

Hang out for a minute, folks.

Hey, folks.

On Thursday, we'll play the live conversation I had with Jim Gaffigan at the 92nd Street Y in New York, right after we screened my HBO special for the live audience.

What does 25, 35, 45-year-old Mark Marin think of

on a couple things?

The success you've achieved,

the

whether it be the podcast, the acting career, you know, the, you know, the

stuff that happened to you at 40?

No.

No, but what, what does, do you sometimes look back at like,

what does, you know, but you and I also, we connected on this anger thing.

Like, people probably don't know, but I was like,

just a simmering cauldron of rage when he was younger.

Very frustrated.

And so, but some of it is.

But

like, I was always a, la la la la.

And yeah, I was just sort of like, that guy's going to bust.

And I was just, I just was the guy like, he's going to murder someone.

And I did.

But I wasn't caught.

No.

That's Thursday's episode of WTF.

To get every episode of WTF ad-free, sign up for WTF Plus.

Just go to the link in the episode description or go to WTFpod.com and click on WTF Plus.

And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by ACAS.

Boomer lives, monkey and the fond of cat angels everywhere.