Questlove (2013)

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

We’re very happy to have this gentleman with us, to my right. You may have seen his picture on one of these walls somewhere across town.

Questlove

I’m just like, “You guys gotta be tired of seeing me.” [laughs]

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

He is an accomplished producer, musician, band leader, DJ as well, amongst other things. So please give a warm welcome to Questlove.

[applause]

Questlove

Thank you.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Thanks for being here tonight.

Questlove

Thanks for having me.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You do a lot of different things.

Questlove

Yeah, I try. I don’t know what it is. I think that now that I kinda have normalcy, or whatever. Well, this is the most normal, routine thing that I’ve ever done in my life, as far as waking up in the same city, five days a week. So I guess, now I have a routine that actually enables me to do more things than possible.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Right. So you’re saying that being on the show, being based here in New York, regularly, is actually a change that’s kind of stabilized things for you.

Questlove

Yeah, I think in my head, when we were approached to do the show, I think we were kind of fooling ourselves. We talked ourselves into, like, “Yeah, this will be like a retirement plan for us.” Because again, there’s no precedent for any group or band or... First of all, any group or band to really stay together for that amount of time. And not just because of the whole westernized sort of, the Western colonization of the world. In other words, when I first started traveling back in ‘93, ‘94, like when you went to Germany, that was a different experience. And when you went to Argentina, that was a different experience. And when you went to Japan. But now it’s like, when I first went to the Middle East, the first thing I saw was a KFC, and the first thing on the radio was “Sweet Home Alabama.” And so, it was like, “Oh, OK, well, every place is the same.” So, I mean, after having that experience for about 20 years, then we just figured that it’s time to raise our families and just be normal. Most of the guys are married and with children, and because I took on so much, I can barely remember to call my family at night. Even for me, I thought, “OK, well, coming to New York will make us normal.” But what we underestimated was that this actually has made us more prolific, and we’re now more busy than we’ve ever been.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

And for those who do not know the TV show, that you are alluding to, that would be?

Questlove

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Soon to be The Tonight Show.

[cheers / applause]

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You know, everybody in this room is a creative person, makes music as well. With that in mind, what would you advise for them, as far as maintaining creative focus through these types of scheduling sort of things? They may not be on TV every night, but they might have a day job, they might have all sorts of other stresses sapping their creative energies. How do you maintain that type of creative focus?

Questlove

I think, even though the one thing that I manifested, I wish I knew when I was younger and applied it, the one thing that I wish I knew was the power of practicing. In terms of that whole Malcolm Gladwell 10,000-hour theory. I mean, I clocked in my 10,000 hours as a kid, practicing. For those of you who don’t know, in the book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, his theory is that all the people that we admire in the world, we tend to think, like, “Oh well, this person has God’s gift, and this person’s touched by God, and Michael Jordan just is a better player.” When really that’s not the case. The case is that, the thing that they all have in common, and he breaks this down, is the fact that each of these people put in at least 10,000 hours of preparation into their craft. Which basically means that for four to five years in a row, you’re gonna have to do what you wanna do in this life for three to five hours, six hours a day. David Murray, the saxophone player, he’s like one of the greatest saxophone players that I’ve ever known. “How often do you practice?” He’s like, “Aw man, I’ve been slacking. Now, I probably do like six, seven hours a day.” I was like, “What?!” He’s like, “Oh man, back in the day, yeah, I did about ten hours.” And I was like, “Ten hours?” Like, yeah, he would get up at six and basically just shed until about four in the afternoon or whatever. And that was just practicing. Then he would go to his gig at night. I can’t stress enough to people that they have to practice and be a master of their craft. And I know that’s kind of hard in today’s society, with so many options, but yeah, now I wish I would’ve practiced six hours a day.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Yeah, but you got started pretty young.

Questlove

But there’s cats like Chris Dave that have me losing sleep. I mean, I don’t feel at this place where, like, at my age, that I feel like, “Oh, let me start competing with,” whatever. Just, I think everyone thinks in their heads, “Well, this is about as far as I can take it. This is about as far as anything can go.” Like in my head, I thought, “OK, my little post-J Dilla approach to drumming, this whole drunken-style-but-staying-on-beat thing,” like, “OK, I got this mastered.” And then you hear someone else. Like, if my style is a drunken style of drumming, then Chris Dave is like speed, or 8-ball. It’s heroin and cocaine mixed together. To me, it’s just, I think practice leads to that perfection. People always say, like, “Practice makes perfect.” But my dad would say, “No, perfect practice makes perfect.” But he was also a Joe Jackson-esque drill sergeant. “Whiplash” was his middle name.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

For those who don’t know, your dad was a musician, or performer.

Questlove

Yeah, my father was Lee Andrews, he was an artist on Chess Records. If you’re familiar with Cadillac Records, the movie with Beyoncé, based on the life of Marshall Chess, my father was a doo-wop singer on that label from like ‘56 to like ‘60. And then, you know, he retired once the British Invasion really wiped away the doo-wop era in America. First there was doo-wop and rock & roll, and then the British Invasion came. And, of course, with the British Invasion was The Beatles, who just re-defined everything.

But with that first wave of nostalgia, when I was born in the ‘70s, there was a nostalgia period for oldies doo-wop, and then my father got back on the bandwagon, did these little shows. There’d be like nine groups at Madison Square Garden, or on Long Island, or Radio City Music Hall. So, I grew up in a backstage environment, watching acts that were big in the ‘50s, having a revival period. And my father managed to make a living out of that from, yeah, pretty much my entire childhood and all the way up to The Roots.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

What were the best things about having parents who were musicians, who were working actively in music?

Questlove

Probably the naive thing about me is that I’m presumptuous. I just assume that everyone knows Stevie Wonder’s discography. I assume that everyone knows Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders, and has Sun Ra’s records. You know, when I was a kid, all I had was music. I guess, from my parents’ point of view, it was like, “Let’s keep him off the streets.” ‘Cause I grew up in West Philadelphia, which I guess, it was kind of middle-class. I mean, it wasn’t North Philly. If North Philly was in New York, if North Philadelphia was, like, Bed-Stuy, then West Philadelphia, it could’ve been a Williamsburg. You know, it was right on the heart of the University of Penn, an Ivy League college. So, I mean, it wasn’t that bad. But towards the early ‘80s, when the crack era started, that’s when the violence started seeping in. So my parents were very strict as far as me being home. Their whole thing was like, “You better be home before that ‘Oprah’ theme starts.” So, right before... [whistles the theme], like my ass better be in that house. Not at 4:01, or 4:03, like right when that horn starts. And I just spent a lot of my time lost in my father’s record collection. So, you know, that kind of informed me, as far as the tools I use today.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Were there any negatives of having folks in the music industry, in the music business? Or do you look back at it all in a positive light?

Questlove

You know, there’s positive and negatives. Is this a plug? My book comes out in three weeks. Here it is. I just got it today. [holds up book / applause] Anyway, so I guess in re-capping this period in my life, I realized that I also became very insular and kind of standoff-ish. ‘Cause, you know, I just didn’t have any social interaction with many kids. I grew up with adults. I grew up with adult records. Like, when I was three, I knew Sun Ra’s work at the age of three. The best story of all was, like, the first day of school, my first homework assignment, the teacher says, “Bring in your favorite 45”. Today, you play an mp3 that you like on Spotify, but, you know, 45s are miniature records that you play singles on. I’m dating myself. Yeah, I’m old. My parents tricked me into thinking that a lot of ‘50s stuff was contemporary. So I thought Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers was a contemporary group, like “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?,” which came out in, like, ‘58. Everyone else, the kids were bringing in “Disco Duck” and “Stayin’ Alive,” contemporary stuff at the time, that I wasn’t aware of. Not that I wasn’t aware of, but I just thought that everyone knows about “Splish Splash” by Bobby Darin, and that type of stuff. And I was in for a rude awakening my first week of school.

I mean, I guess the setbacks are just, I don’t know if that’s normal or not. I mean, if it’s normal just to go in a dingy basement and practice all the time. I’m not saying that I was in there 24/7, but there was a point where I just didn’t wanna go outside, because I didn’t play basketball or do sports things. I just knew music. But, you know, the plus side of it is that - I mean, not the plus side - but at least for my life, if you combined all the people born between ‘65 and ‘79, between my grandmother’s block and my parents’ block, it’s like maybe 33 of us, I’m the only one of three people breathing or not in jail. So, I don’t know if that’s the price to pay or not, to be isolated and alive, or dead.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

How did your parents react, then, when you started expressing interest in hip-hop?

Questlove

Hip-hop specifically?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I guess so. I mean, unless there was another turning point before that.

Questlove

People do not believe this story, but my father’s dream was for me to be a session drummer. His favorite drummer was Bernard Purdie, a well-known session drummer that’s on a lot of soul records of the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. And even when I met Bernard as a kid, Dad used to always, “Come here, Bernard! Tell this boy how you keep food on the table.” And Bernard used to always say, “The two and the four.” And I didn’t get that. “The two and the four.” Because in my head, even now, when you watch drummers... there’s a website called gospelchops.com, where, you know, musicians are about flash and everything, and more style over substance. And, you know, I’m entertained by gospel musicians at all. You know, some of them have been kind of upset at my statements about gospel drumming. [laughs and addresses Just Blaze] Oh shut up, man! Of course, this guy produced “Show Me What You [Got].” Actually, you started it. You enabled the gospel drumming musicianship!

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

How would you define the gospel drumming musicianship?

Questlove

OK, I’m gonna show you probably the definitive moment. When I heard this, Just Blaze, I was like, “Dammit, Just Blaze, there was no way you thought that I could ever match this.” [comments from Just, sitting in the audience] Yeah, because I had to practice all night!

(music: Jay-Z – “Show Me What You Got”)

Questlove

[comments over music] All right, turn it up for me, please. So, the gospel drumming’s where there’s just drum fills all over the place. I mean, it’s the opposite of breakbeat drumming, which is being very in-the-pocket, very dry. Like, I think there’s an art to being boring. Or what people would see as boring, and there’s an art to that. So yeah, I did take Bernard Purdie’s words literal. But my whole point was that my dad wanted me to be a session drummer, and I guess his dream was for me to have just a roster of clients that I had to drum for. “Yeah, Dad, I’m doing Anita Baker’s session next week. Yeah Dad, I’m with Luther Vandross.” Dah, dah, dah.

The thing that people don’t believe is that I managed to keep The Roots a secret from my father to the beginning of our second album. My father did not know about Organix, and I was halfway done through our second album, Do You Want More?!!!??!, before I had to tell him, “I kinda have a record deal.” “Record deal doing what?” “You know, I got a band.” “With who? That hoodlum Tariq?” You know, he thought... [Black Thought] was a hoodlum. “That hoodlum boy you hang with.” You know, ‘cause he just thought that hip-hop was just, “Bppt bppt, bitch, suck my dick and bppt my dick and dah dah.” He didn’t see it as an art form. You know, I’d blast Public Enemy’s Nation of Millions, and he’d just like, “Ahhh, there’s no music, that’s not art, it’s not music.” So we just never bonded on that level, so I’ll say that in terms of hip-hop, it was a harder sell for my father. And even deep into our second album, it was still, “You gotta get a real job one day. You gotta get a real job one day.” I think he just put his fears of his stalled career, he projected that onto me. But, you know, he’s not saying that now. He’s extremely happy with how things turned out.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You mentioned, actually, in that little gospel drummer interlude versus the style of breakbeat drumming, you’ve said that your style initially with The Roots, was to emulate breakbeats, to really kind of play like you would be looping a drum.

Questlove

Yeah.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

That must’ve been, in some ways, really counterintuitive, as a musician, to restrict yourself. Or was it?

Questlove

I’ll say in the beginning, I didn’t know any better. For the Organix record, and for Do You Want More?!!!??!, I thought of myself as a breakbeat drummer, but I really wasn’t. I guess I should [demonstrate]. [moves to the drums]

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Yeah, go for it.

Questlove

OK, so when I first started drumming, my idol was a drummer named Steve Ferrone, from a band called The Average White Band. Steve was actually from the Bernard Purdie school of drumming. Bernard had pocket, but Bernard’s trademark was always this particular fill. So I’ll play a groove... [plays a groove] And then he’ll do like... [does a hi-hat-heavy backbeat fill] So that particular fill, I was obsessed with that fill. And then Steve Ferrone would just take that fill and just really like...[plays a more syncopated version of the Purdie fill] So anytime I was on stage – my father just wanted his music dry and in the pocket. So, night after night, I would have to play this for, like, an hour, for my dad, like... [plays a very straight 4/4 beat] And always run the risk of being fined 10 dollars if I dared... [plays the same beat with a slight fill] Any of... [another fill] Or... [another fill] I was drumming for my dad from like 13 ‘till about 20-something, and if I ever did a fill like that, I just ran the risk of him turning around and giving me that look. Like, “Keep it in the pocket.” Even if he was wrong, he was still right.

So when I started drumming with The Roots, I started at a time in which the renaissance period of hip-hop was alive and kicking. I always thought that hip-hop was five-year cycles of a particular period. So you could say that ‘77 to ‘82 was the, well, I guess the initial period, the fossil period. So that, to me, was like the recreational cook period of hip-hop. Which, things were more post-disco-sounding. [plays a simple beat and mumbles a simple “Rapper’s Delight”-style rap over it] So then from ‘82 to ‘87, the golden age of hip-hop, ‘82 to ‘87, that, to me, was like the Cokie 900 stage, the 40-ounce stage of hip-hop, which was quasi-advanced. I mean, you had cats like Teddy Riley coming in to do “The Show” by Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick. And you had Larry Smith’s work with Run-DMC. [sparse beat] Like, the idea of big drums, very sparse. The classic period of hip-hop, which I consider ‘87 to ‘92, which is the crack era, ‘cause Chuck [D] and Hank Shocklee actually wanted their music to reflect the drug of the time. When he said that, I was like, “Oh, OK.” So every period of hip-hop is the drug of that moment. So, ‘92 to ‘97, the fourth age, which I call the renaissance period, at least it was the renaissance for the East Coast. So you had cats like [DJ] Premier, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, Shaheed, Diamond D, digging in their parents’ record collections for jazz records. And there’s one particular break that Tip and Ali used to fine effect, was “Blind Alley,” of which... [moves back to the couch]

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

“Blind Alley” by the Emotions?

Questlove

So when “Blind Alley” was initially used in ‘89, ‘88, by Big Daddy Kane, it was a straight-forward break.

(music: The Emotions - “Blind Alley“)

Questlove

So what happens in the renaissance period of hip-hop is now people are chopping breaks and almost making up new grooves. So you don’t have to take 16 bars of a song. You can now take a smaller portion of it and make it different. So pretty much what I consider the heartbeat, or the pulse, of that initial renaissance period, in the early ‘90s, was based on Tip and Ali chopping this break up. Sorry, I know I’m embarrassing you, Just [Blaze]. [loops a small portion of the beat] So suddenly, this was the pace of every song worth its grain of salt in ‘92. I mean, every classic song damn near had that pace, what you call the “Blind Alley” break. So, when I was first drumming in The Roots, every song was based on... [motions back to the drumset plays a similar beat] Tariq could rhyme over that for days. But the thing was is that I wasn’t thinking like an engineer, because I didn’t know how to engineer and how to mix and those things. And not to mention, I didn’t use a click track. Like, I had too much ego. And they would always say, like, “Well, why don’t you use a click track?” And I was like, “Nah, nah, I don’t wanna do no click track.” And so a lot of our records would fluctuate. So it might be a... [plays beat that slows down and then speeds up] You know, I might get excited in the studio and start speeding up. But that proved to be nightmarish to DJs. And so when we’d get these feedback reports from DJs, a lot of them would just say, like, “I can’t blend any of the music because the beat fluctuates.” So suddenly I became the bad guy in The Roots. And at that point, it’s like some sort of conspiracy theory, people are like, “Well, OK, fine, we’re just gonna become a regular rap group and rhyme over regular breaks.” And I’m like, “Wait, I’m not about to be fired in my own group,” or this whole coup d’état moment, where you guys just decide that, “It’s Ahmir’s drums’ fault that we’re not being accepted.”

So, I had to take extra precautionary measures on our third record, Illadelph Halflife. I went into the studio, like, maybe two months before we actually officially started and I felt like Jack Nicholson in Batman. I was just like, “Wait’ll they get a load of me.” My whole thing was, like, I just said I wanted to be the coldest, most emotionless, just an absolute machine. And I spent hours, hours, and hours, I probably did another 10,000 hours. I wanted to learn everything about engineering. I wanted to know what this frequency does, what this mic does. So I would do a break... [plays a simple break] I’d do that for, like, four minutes and then sit at the engineer’s desk and go through each microphone and figure out, “OK, how can I make it sound dirty?” At the time I was working with Bob Power, and he was explaining to me, “Well, if you put compression here, or if you try the same break but put a blanket over your snare.” I did every conceivable experiment until I felt my drums were dirty and cold. And then suddenly, you know, when people started hearing the final mix, they were like, you know, “Is that a machine, or is that a real human being?” Then I started feeling proud, like, “Yeah, see, I showed you guys.”

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Did you use a click track during the recording of Illadelph?

Questlove

Yeah, I would use a click track sometimes. It was, like, half sampling myself, half using click tracks. But I just wanted to sound as lifeless as possible. “Lifeless” just in terms of not standing out like a sore thumb. ‘Cause I just felt like The Roots were that group that had to show their ID every second. Like, “driving while black.” We were like, “driving while Roots.” No, I mean, back then, you had to show your hip-hop ID. You know, like, the first time we met Kool G Rap, Tariq’s idol, he’s like, “Wait, wait.” This was like our second album. He’s like, “Wait, y’all got a demo or something? Who are y’all?” We were like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. So, for me, I wanted to be ice-cold. And then I met D’Angelo and J Dilla, who then made me just dismantle everything that I knew about being cold.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So you mentioned Dilla and his influence on your style. Can you do a little sort of before-and-after, perhaps?

Questlove

Well, yeah. So, I mean, by the time of Illadelph Halflife I just wanted to be extremely cold. [plays sparse beat] Even now, it’s hard for me to play perfect, because I’ve been kind of re-programmed to play the opposite way. I met Dilla at our very first New York show. The Pharcyde had come to see us perform, and at the time he was producing The Pharcyde’s second album, LabCabinCalifornia. I had never heard of it, but I knew that Q-Tip was supposed to be producing the second Pharcyde album, and when I’d started asking Tre and Amani, like, “Yo, let me hear the Tip stuff,” and he’s like, “Oh no, we’re working with Tip’s guy right here.” And I just, like, I dismissed him. Like this little scrawny kid, like, “Enh. OK, this is not Q-Tip. Where’s Q-Tip?” So, cut to about three weeks later, we’re in North Carolina, with The Pharcyde, and we opened for them, and I had to leave the show as soon as they get on, so I can do a college radio interview, and the first song they open with is “Bullshit.” No, no no, the title’s called “Bullshit.”

[laughter]

“He called them bullshit!” So, as I’m leaving the club, I’m hearing the vibration of the kick drum, and it was the most life-changing moment I ever had. Like, I had to get out of the car and run back in the club to make sure, like, “Did I hear that?” Whereas this part is normal... [plays a metronomic, simple beat], it sounded like the kick drum was played by like a drunk three- year-old. And I was like, “Are you allowed to do that?” So it was like... [plays the same beat on hi-hat and snare, but with a kick that’s all over the place] And I was like, “What the hell is that?” So the next day in Atlanta, I’m asking him, “Yo, what was that drunken song that y’all were playing? What was that?” He said, “Oh yeah, that’s ‘Bullshit.’ It was produced by Jay Dee.” And I was like, “Who is that?” He’s like, “Q-Tip’s guy.”

And they let me hear the beat tape, and I just never heard someone not give a fuck, and that, to me, was the most liberating moment. Like, “Oh, so, all this pleasing my father, being perfect...” [plays a straight beat], “I can now...” [starts mixing up patterns] Now I got to undo all the education and all the hours of preparation that I did. I got to undo that. And it was hard to do. And then, by the time that D’Angelo and I started the Voodoo record, which was like mid-’96, that was the hardest thing ever, because he wanted me to drag the beat, but then he’d drag the beat behind me. And so now I gotta program my mind to think, “OK, this is the metronome... [plays a steady beat on the rim] and now he wants me to play...” [puts kick and snare in and around that beat] You know, I started having issues. Like, “Well, what if other drummers [hear this]? The musician community’s gonna laugh at me.” And he’s like, “Nah, man, trust me. Use the force.” He used all these Star Wars analogies with me. Like, “Use the force, man.” And I’d never seen Star Wars.

[laughter]

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

How long did it take to undo essentially your entire life’s training?

Questlove

I will say that it took, from ‘96 to ‘99, that was probably the most drumming that I’ve ever done in a studio setting. So you’re talking about spending months at Electric Lady Studios. Studio A was D’Angelo’s studio, but because he’s notoriously a night person, he wouldn’t even get to the studio until like 6 PM. His hours are like from 6 PM to 11 AM. So he would let Common do his work. We worked with Common in the daytime. So, to do Like Water For Chocolate, Common’s album, we would start at like 10 in the morning, get done around 6. If we had to do more stuff, then we’d go to the B room. So now Common has the B room, D’Angelo has the A room, and then in the C room, it’d be like accessory stuff. If I gotta do Nikka Costa’s record, or Bilal’s record, or Erykah [Badu], her album, Mos [Def], [Talib] Kweli, everyone would use the C floor. So at one point we just had that entire studio on lockdown, and everybody was just going into each other’s sessions, doing stuff, and so just during that whole time period is how I managed to turn, like... [straight beat] into... [drunken beat] There was one song, the very first song we did for Voodoo was a song that didn’t make the record. It was called “Bitch.” He was like, “Look, man.” He told me to play the track as he demoed it, which was like... [sloppy beat] for eight minutes. And I did it. And then he was like, “No, no, man, I want you to do it drunker than that.” And so, I don’t know, by 2000, then I just like... [plays a very drunken beat], which sounds crazy now, and contextualized in the music that he was creating, it makes sense.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

But you’re saying, though, that Dilla, he influenced your style in terms of dragging the beat, but then D’Angelo had that concept independently of that as well?

Questlove

He did. If you listen to “Dreamin’ Eyes Of Mine” on Brown Sugar, it was more of an accident. Like, I’ll say that with D’Angelo, and with the RZA as well, it was more like a happy accident. Like, “Oh, well, that’s hip-hop. I’ll just leave that glitch in there.” But you think like, “Ah man, you purposefully did that.” Dilla was a cat that I know that actually programmed his drums with no quantize. He would turn the quantize off and make it imperfect.

In the case of D’Angelo, like a song like “Dreamin’ Eyes Of Mine,” that’s the first time I ever heard like that whole... [plays a drunken beat with cymbal ride] And when I asked Bob Power about that, I was like, “Yo, how did he make it sound so messed up?” He was like, “Enh, because he didn’t read the manual in the book.” So, you know, but it had personality to it so I just gravitated towards it. No, those two were definitely like-minded. It’s not like they were together and D’Angelo knew about Dilla’s shit or the opposite. They just happened to come from the same tree. And that allowed me to experiment.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

But, I mean, you said that Dilla’s drag had profound influence on those D’Angelo sessions, because of all the work that was going on...

Questlove

Absolutely.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

...but did they actually work officially on anything together, you know, in a session?

Questlove

I’m trying to think if I have the demo or not. [moves back to couch] There was one song that, at the time when we were waiting for Ms. Hill to return the favor. He had sang on Lauryn Hill’s “Nothing Even Matters” – sorry for the hiss level for those that collect Dilla cassettes, the original ones. He loved the sound of cassette hiss. He would actually program cassette hiss, for some reason. There was no reason to sound this lo-fi.

[searchs for and plays unreleased Dilla beat]

So this was one of them. There was like four options. So this would’ve been one of the beats, but it didn’t wind up [being released]. It’s in the vaults. Lauryn never showed up, or she never showed up to the studio.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So that was supposed to be Lauryn, D’Angelo, produced by Dilla?

Questlove

Yeah. And instead we, at the last minute, decided to cover “That’s The Time, I Feel Like Makin’ Love.” So that’s how that song got on the Voodoo album. However, on Common’s “Time Travelin’“ is one of the rare times that the four of us were in the room at the same time recording. ‘Cause even if we did do things together, it was always like an overdub. You know, we’d have an initial track, and then somebody would overdub their parts later. But for this particular song, for “Time Travelin’.”

(music: Common – “Time Travelin' (A Tribute To Fela)”)

Questlove

[comments over music] Yeah, this is probably the only song that the actual, initial four Soulquarians are playing on. James Poyser is on organ, this bassline that you hear, Dilla was playing that on the Rhodes. This was a D’Angelo session, so he kept playing that bassline for, like, 20 minutes straight. And then I ran in afterwards. I was like, “What are you doing?” He’s like, “Nah, I’m just messing around.” I said, “Keep on doing it.” We rolled the reel, and then I played drums and then James Poyser started playing organ, and then D’Angelo walked in and started playing the marimba. So that was probably the only time that the actual four initial - James Poyser, J Dilla, D’Angelo, and myself - the actual initial Soulquarians were in the room at the same time, having a jam session. And then Common was there, like, “I’ll take that.”

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Is there supposed to be a Soulquarians sort of reunion thing happening? Is that rumor or is that possible?

Questlove

I mean, aren’t we always together? I mean, I’m a workhorse. I love being pro-active and working. So a big disappointment of my circle is the lack of, or just the frustrating thing about it is that the vision sort of fell off the rails. Like, yeah, we had the sort of Illuminati meetings of, “And I’ll work on your record, and you work on my record and dah dah dah dah... we’ll have our own empire!” What wound happening is that all of us got successful. You know, I had no clue whatsoever that Things Fall Apart... that a million people would collectively like that one album. I just thought, “OK, we’re doomed to be in the sort of 200, 300 thousand underground hell.” And the same for Common. Common didn’t think he’d ever have a platinum plaque, and Mos especially didn’t think that. We just thought, like, “OK, Erykah and D’Angelo are the only two people in this circle that have some sort of mass appeal, and then we’re all just like the misfits.” And then all of us got successful, and everyone just abandoned ship. And not even on a disgruntled thing. I just think that maybe self-saboteur people are afraid of their own shadow. And what you would wound up with was just a whole bunch of people afraid of their shadow and not being active at all. I mean, yeah, we talk a good game, but someone has to show up to the studio.

So I mean, there’s always gonna be talk of “Yeah, let’s work together,” but that’s the thing about like working with Jay-Z. That whole process of the Unplugged record, and anything else that I’ve done with him, he’s one of the coolest people to ever work with because for the first time in my life, I wasn’t beating my head against the wall in frustration. Like, not using Jedi mind tricks. Like, “OK, well, I want him to do this, so let me suggest the exact opposite, so that way he’ll do what I really want him to do.” It was none of that. He was open to idea A and idea B, and which one is better.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

And yet, that was kind of a difficult decision at the time for you guys to even work with him.

Questlove

I was laughing. I forgot who I told that story to, but yeah, I remember there was a time in life when, like... I mean, dream hampton had to really talk me off the ledge and make me call him back, ‘cause I was just like, “Nah, man, he’s the Antichrist.” Like, “Jay-Z? I’ll lose my career if I ever work with that guy!” Like, “No!” And, you know, it’s just like, “Dude, just talk to him. He’s a nerd like you are. Just talk.” And, you know, I was amazed. And I still say that, you know, he’s one of the easiest, most pleasant people to ever work with.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Well, I mean, I think to even put that in context, you have to kind of look back and think about this whole “underground versus mainstream”-thing that was happening in the latter part of the ‘90s that was really pretty fierce.

Questlove

There was a hip-hop apartheid going on between the haves and the have-nots. And I guess in ‘97, the ‘97-2002 stage, which I guess, some people say the Crystal period. Some people call it the ecstasy period.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

It was both.

Questlove

Yeah, it was ecstasy and Crystal together. But it was more the “cult of personality”-period. And I call it “the cult of personality” because probably the most notable event in ‘97, the departure of [Notorious] B.I.G. is one factor. And then Puff’s uprising. Like, there was a difference in attitude towards the idea of Puffy’s solo record, when B.I.G. was alive, and after B.I.G. was alive. When B.I.G was alive and people were like, “Yo, you know, Puffy’s gonna do a solo record,” the industry was like, “No, that’s not gonna happen.” I don’t know if any of you saw Huffington Post’s feature on Paris Hilton signing to Young Money yesterday, it was kind of the shock of that. I guess, Baby and Wayne signed Paris Hilton yesterday as an artist, to Young Money. And I’m not comparing this to that, but it was sort of like the shock of, “Wait a minute, CEO is rapping. Oh my god. That can’t happen! That’s not real, is it?” But of course, you know, on the heels of B.I.G.’s death, you know, I mean, “I’ll Be Missin’ You” was a mighty shield. Like, you really can’t throw snark at someone when their first single is an homage to a beloved figure. So it was like, that pass was given and it’s kind of like how he nuanced his way in.

Jay-Z, of course, by the same token, his story is the aspirational figure. People love the narrative of “I won.” I guess the problem of the “winner take all,” aspirational story is kind of the undertone, which is basically, “I made it, and you ain’t shit.” And so the have-nots in the underground were sort of just seen as a very unattractive dweeb. You wanted to associate yourself and live vicariously through the winner, not the loser. Or the one that wasn’t winning. And so when you add all those elements in, by this point, Jay-Z’s at the height of his power, and it’s like the few people that were... I mean, it was a civil war between... it was like apartheid, definitely.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

But I mean, even in your band’s history, you had some history of... it was interpreted as taking shots at B.I.G. and Bad Boy, with the “What They Do” music video.

Questlove

I was about to say, I forgot about that video. Yeah, the story behind that particular chapter is hilarious. Should I read a passage? No?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Buy the book.

[laughter]

Questlove

But, I mean ...

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You can summarize.

Questlove

Well, yeah. I mean, I guess that the video was interpreted as a “shots-fired”-thing. I know it’s hard for people to believe, video is the one area that I hated the most of Roots’ albums. Mainly because we really weren’t embraced by MTV or BET. So when it was time to make videos, that was the one area that I really wasn’t involved in. So at the time, with the director that we were working with, I didn’t realize the hot water that we were going to get ourselves into. Like, at the time, on paper, it looked funny. Like, “Oh, this is going to be hilarious.”

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

For those who haven’t seen the video, it’s poking fun at these things that were going on in hip-hop at the time, with the rented mansion and the models and the champagne.

Questlove

Yeah, it was kind of a lesson of what is real life, and what is this fantasy world that we created for ourselves? And when the finished product came, it was hilarious. But it was also seen as a shots-fired moment, of which people started to take sides. Like, you were either on the side of the haves or the have-nots. And so for Jay-Z to sort of cross that line and offer an olive branch or cut the velvet rope, that was a major thing at the time. And I was that close to not taking the phone call, because I was afraid of the perception of how I would look doing that.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You mentioned a term, “self-saboteur.” Do you feel that that applies to you in any way? Have you, with maybe having some hesitance in taking that phone call, when it obviously changed your career?

Questlove

Absolutely. Especially in that time period, yeah. I think that when people don’t know how to deal with relative success, they don’t necessarily know how to deal with it or how to handle it. A great example is probably our sixth album, Phrenology. There’s a term called “the departure album.” And usually any artist that has some sort of artistic peak, when... there’s only one artist that I know that even dared to attempt to capitalize on the “lightning in the bottle” moment for their career, and that was Michael Jackson. Whereas he acknowledged that Thriller sold 40 million units and he wanted Bad to sell 100 million units. And he went in every day with the intent on, “I absolutely must sell this many units.” The average artist does the opposite. They do the departure record. The first departure record was Sgt. Pepper’s. The Beatles were tired of being The Beatles. They said, “Let’s make a disguise record; let’s do the opposite of what we should be doing.” And it backfired and actually became a standard. Marvin Gaye was tired of being Marvin Gaye. He wanted to get fat and grow a beard. He was tired of being the prince of Motown. Backfired. And What’s Going On winds up being a standard. Prince makes Around The World In A Day after Purple Rain, because, you know, the pressure of following up this massive album was too much for him, so he makes the complete opposite record. I mean, there’s a gazillion... Steve Wonder, Songs In The Key Of Life, can’t follow. Too much pressure, so he makes Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants. Like, the closest to a kind of Pink Floyd [record]. Yeah, it was an experimental record. I mean, you could say the same thing for Kid A, by Radiohead. Coming on the heels of OK Computer, which was one of the most critically acclaimed albums of 1998.

So, in our case, yeah, at the time, I just felt like, “Wow, let’s just do the record.” I don’t know the psychological thought process that leads one to say, “OK, let’s take everything that we worked for and just throw it out the window. Let’s make the complete opposite album.” To some critics, of the Christgau cloth, in the post-Village Voice Christgau cloth, it was like, “Oh, this is an artistic statement.” It was seen as a bold move. But, you know, if I’m probably honest about it, yeah, it was like, “I don’t know what to do. And we’re scared that we can’t follow up this record, because we didn’t plan this success, so let’s mess it up before they mess it up for us.”

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I wanna ask you one thing before we open it up to questions. You teach a class at NYU now on classic albums, and I know from following your career, it’s very important to you to monitor how your music is received, critically. And you’re a fan of music journalism, and you write quite a bit. And I just wanted to know where that comes from. Why is this something that is so important to you? I think the quote was that if your Metacritic rating ever fell below 80, you’d be devastated. What is that about being received that way? Why is it so important to you?

Questlove

At the time when we got signed, our critical acclaim is what kept us alive. It’s a very stressful thing to go week after week wondering if your label president is going to press the guillotine button on your career and slice your neck off. So we knew we couldn’t sell units. And so the thing that was the most important to us was to be critically acclaimed, critically lauded. When we exiled to London, it was a state of emergency. When Kurt Cobain had taken his life in April of ‘94, that was like a state of emergency meeting for The Roots, because we felt like, “Oh crap, we’re gonna get dropped.” Because by this point Aerosmith had left Geffen, Guns N’ Roses wasn’t going to follow up. Now Nirvana, their cash cow, was gone. Three marquee acts: gone. And this is how we got signed, [via] all the profit money that they made.

So we took our money, got a flat in London, and our mission was to find an agent that will keep us working constantly, like doing 200 dates throughout Europe, just so that we could build up the acclaim, so that when it’s time to drop The Roots... because by that point Geffen had dropped 12 acts shortly thereafter. They kept the GZA, they kept us. You know, our shield was gonna be, “But we’re critically acclaimed! Don’t drop us!” I got the scrolls right here in my afro pick. It’s like, “We’re critically acclaimed!” And that was our saving grace. And then, when each album comes out and it’s critically acclaimed, it’s kind of an embarrassing thing for a label like, “Well, we don’t want to drop them because they guys are getting critical acclaim.” So I always just held on to that version of the report card. You know, just like a student wants to get straight As. But that’s something realistic I can aim for. You know, I don’t think that we’re gonna go diamond one day, or that type of thing. But you always want to put your best foot forward. I mean, now it’s just kinda hard because everyone’s a critic on the Internet. So there’s no pleasing people.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

There is no universal critical acclaim.

Questlove

Yeah, I mean, I’m not as obsessive as I was before, but yeah, like ten years ago, I could see myself having a nervous breakdown if we got a bad review.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

And now you’re teaching this class about classic albums at NYU. For anyone who can’t afford the tuition, what is that class like?

Questlove

I was on NPR’s website, and they do this experiment where they teach what they call a Millennial – someone born in the mid-’80s to late-’80s – where they have the Millennial generation take works of the canon. The idea of a canon, things that are assumed classic. Your parents bring youin this world and tell you The Beatles are the best thing ever. Like, you just automatically know that The Beatles are great, you know that Picasso’s great, you know that Miles Davis is great. You accept these things without really investigating, because you’re told instantly these are great. And so they wanted to get the perspective of someone who’s 16, 17, 18, listening to these records. So, you know, they do various classic albums. And one week they had an intern do Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation Of Millions, which, for me, that was a life-changing moment. That was my version of hearing Never Mind the Bollocks: Here Comes The Sex Pistols for rock fans. For hip-hop, that was like my moment of, “Wow, this can change my life.” And it’s not that he really trashed it, but I was heartbroken. And, you know, initially, I got angry because of the passive way that he just dismissed this record. And I was ready to jump in the line of the firing squad that was ready to like, “You fucking idiot! You young kids!” I was ready to do that, and I realized it was my fault. And the way I came to that conclusion that it was my fault is because a lot of times I just assume that these things are known. Like, I can say “Impeach the President” to you, and you know instantly what I’m talking about. But if I say a term “Impeach the President” to these people, they might think I’m talking about getting rid of Barack Obama, you know, and not using terms of a well-known breakbeat. And it’s just assumed that hip-hop is so magical that it will just trickle down to the next generation, and that’s not the case. So with DJing and with teaching, I feel like that’s me paying it forward. So I had written a response that was more compassionate than judgmental, and that’s when Jason King of NYU reached out to me, and I accepted. I had a few offers from other colleges, but NYU was the closest to 30 Rock that I could get to, and so...

[laughter]

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Who has questions at this point, for Quest?

Audience Member

Hey, you spoke about there being a point in your career where you weren’t sure that you were going to be a successful artist.

Questlove

Right.

Audience Member

And I was wondering if you could speak about maybe the turning point, and also, what were the contributing factors for that turning point?

Questlove

See, here’s the thing: I don’t know. This could be low self-esteem talking, this could be one that’s overly cautious about things, or you guys could see this fake modesty or whatever, but in my head, like I always felt like... if you know the infamous fable about the tortoise and the hare. Like, The Roots have this tortoise-and-the-hare journey, where a very slow turtle that’s running to the finish line, slow and steady, while the rabbit’s on the side of the road losing its breath. That’s what I feel like our journey is. We’ve been running this race for so long that I don’t know if there ever is going to be a finish line. There’s something that my manager calls a “Bentley moment.” And he always says, “Oh, you and Tariq are just disappointed because you never had a Bentley moment.” And I guess that supposed Bentley moment is this idea of a tickertape parade and us in top hats and celebrating, and that type of thing. Like, we’ve never had that, because we’ve just always been this kind of working-class, blue-collar band. I mean, that’s celebrated in rock a lot. I know a lot of rockers who are working-class bands, and they’re billionaires, but they still have this working-class mentality. So I guess to answer your question, I still don’t feel like I’ll ever have a moment where, like... [sighs] The same reason why he asked, like, why do I wake up in the middle of the night and look at my Metacritic rating to make sure that it’s still acclaimed? I guess the thought is too traumatic to lose this stuff. And so yes, even though technically, I’m monetarily at a great place, and, you know, there’s some achievements that I feel like, “Oh, that was nice,” I still operate under that mentality like, “Aw, this can end any moment.” And I don’t know if I’ll ever feel, like, successful. I know that’s sad to hear, but I don’t know.

Audience Member

Do you get your success by your record sales?

Questlove

I know now that it’s very unique for an artist to be on the same label that they were when they first started. I mean, at the end of the day, we have always been on Universal Records, be it Geffen, MCA, Def Jam, whatever. Like, we’ve always reported to 1755 Broadway on 56th Street. So I am proud of the fact that there are 16 documents that say “The Roots” on them. And I’ll have that, “Oh, OK, we did something”-moment when I look at our 16 - oh, I’m sorry, it’s 15 now - our 15 albums. I know that’s a hard achievement. But I don’t know if there was ever a moment where I just felt like we hit jackpot, because the way that my life is, there is a “Oh man, you guys are amazing!” moment, and then there’s that “Pssht. You ain’t shit!” moment. Like, today I had a really good “you ain’t shit” moment. I did something with Kevin Hart today. And all these kids ran up and just thought that I was his bodyguard.

[laughter]

And so you they were asking me, “Can you take a photo of us?” And then there were some people, like, “But don’t they know who...?” And I was just like, “Ah, they don’t know.” And it was just that silent, sad moment, “I didn’t make it big enough,” or whatever. So I mean that always keeps you in check. So there are moments where it’s like, “Hey, you can talk to Stevie Wonder sometimes,” but then there’s moments where you gotta be Kevin Hart’s bodyguard. So, it keeps you in check.

Audience Member

What do you call the five-year segment between 2008 and 2013, and how do you feel about the hip-hop era?

Questlove

I felt that 2007 to 2012 was the sizzurp period, and now we are in the molly phase, the 2012 to 2017 is apparently the molly phase is the way to go. It’s weird, because as a DJ, and now what was once just a hobby, something that I did after Roots shows just to pass the time, now that is officially my bread and butter. It’s kinda weird. I’ve learned, maybe last year, to just do away with the idea of “this is good music, and this is bad music.” Because, you know, personally for me, I know what I personally like, my personal tastes. My personal tastes don’t match my professional tastes. You know, last year I had absolutely no shame whatsoever in playing “Gangnam Style.” You can laugh now, but nothing beats the feeling of watching a thousand execs at the Viacom Christmas party dance on tables. So it’s like, well, is that a bad song, or is that an effective song? And so that’s the conflict I’ve been having: my personal taste versus my professional taste. Because a lot of the music that I won’t listen to on my personal time, I need that to work for me.

It’s something that I’ve been wrestling with. So I don’t know, I don’t believe in good or bad music anymore. I just believe in what’s effective and what’s not effective. And as far as my actions are concerned, as a DJ I was never against one particular side of music. I think that people feel like, “Oh, well, you guys represent this particular type of brand of music,” and whatnot. I’m more or less trying to fight for just a good balance. You know? I’m cool with hearing French Montana’s “I Ain’t Worried About Nothin’.” But I’m also trying to find a way to see if maybe I can get somebody to be onto a group like Hiatus Kaiyote, or the Dirty Projectors, or like something else. You know, bring a balance to it. So I’m more concerned with showing a balance out there. So I guess that’s the main challenge that I’m dealing with now.

Audience Member

Thank you very much for being here and speaking with us today.

Questlove

Oh, you’re welcome.

Audience Member

So, I find it really interesting, your early influences in music in general. When I was younger, I was really into, and still am into, Mississippi John Hurt and Blind Lemon Jefferson. The thing that I really, really got from these musicians was their ability to create this powerfully emotive rhythm. And, for me, when I listened to Things Fall Apart for the first time, that was the album that really got me into hip-hop music. I didn’t really listen to any hip-hop music or anything within that realm, and for me, it was because it had that same emotive, powerfully evoking feeling within you can create something really powerful with just rhythm, with nothing.

Questlove

Thank you.

Audience Member

And I love that.

Questlove

Wait, you just compared Blind Lemon Jefferson to [The Roots]. Wow, that’s a compliment. Thank you.

Audience Member

So, I wanted to know, as an early musician, it’s really easy to identify what your weaknesses are. “I need to work on this,” they become very simple. But as you’ve grown as an artist and as a musician, what are your weaknesses now, and how do you identify what they are with so much success?

Questlove

I’ve learned now, and I’m trying hard, because there’s a project I’m working on that actually requires me to master my weakness. One of the hardest things to ever do in music is to effectively write something simple that sticks. I mean, for all the talk of, like, think of the most complex thing. Like, people can talk like Stravinsky’s Rites Of Spring, people can talk about On The Corner by Miles Davis, or anything Rahsaan Roland Kirk does, or any of the M-Base jazz movement stuff. People can talk that into the ground. And that’s almost easy to achieve. But how many people can effectively write “You Can’t Hurry Love”? Like, that, to me, is one of the hardest things to write. Very simple, effective, three-minute pop songs. And now that I work at Fallon and I have to immerse myself in every type [of music] like, I have to pay attention to Fun, and to Taylor Swift, and what’s the... [mouths The Lumineers’ “Ho Hey” song]? You guys know what I’m talking about. You guys aren’t high and mighty. [laughter] Exactly, The Lumineers. The ability to do something short and effective is probably one of the hardest things ever. There’s a project I do once a month, I did it today, it’s for an organization called Flavorpill, and they have me DJ for one hour. Which is one of the hardest things ever, because you have to start at the climax. You can only DJ for one hour, between the hours of 12:30 and 1:30. It’s like a lunch break for professional people. And at the time, when I took it, I was like, “Yeah, I’ll do it.” And they explained it to me like 15 minutes before, “OK, when you start, you gotta start at the climax and keep the energy up. You only got one hour.” And that, to me, was the hardest thing, because normally when I DJ, it’s a four-hour process. Like, I’m used to building this slow climax to the top, and by the second hour I got them. But again, that’s the one area of my life, like something simple and effective. There’s a project I’m working on now that requires very simple and effective music, and I’m losing sleep over it. I’m doing everything in my power not to put any dissonant, chromatic ninth chords in it, or this time change and this particular thing, like, just to be simple and no-tricks. It’s hard. It’s hard. It’s difficult.

Audience Member

Hey, man.

Questlove

How you doing?

Audience Member

Yeah, good. How are you?

Questlove

I’m all right.

Audience Member

Cool. I’m from New Zealand. It’s an absolute honor to talk to you.

Questlove

Thank you.

Audience Member

I was just wondering what the experience was like working with D’Angelo and people like Roy Hargrove and Pino Palladino and just full-stop, really. What’s it like working with them?

Questlove

It’s like some of the most magical moments of my creative life were spent working with those guys. I mean, just the amount of hours, it’s like no matter how many times I tried to get people to see, like, what magic it was... I mean, I could play outtake after outtake of every late jam session that we’ve ever had in our studios, and it doesn’t translate the same to the average person. I guess that’s just a shared experience that the three of us will have. To me, that was going to college, you know? I don’t know if I’ll ever get that moment back. I mean, we still play and jam with each other, but just for that particular period, between ‘96 and 2000, and touring, it was amazing. And yes, before you ask, he... all right, yeah, like ten songs are now mastered. It’s way ahead than what I’ve previously been saying in the press. But I know for a fact that there’s only one song left to be mastered on that record. So it’s definitely a fourth-quarter release for that record.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

What’s your impression of the record?

Questlove

I can’t wait. Like, even if the songs had been done and you’d seen them on YouTube... I mean, we started either “Back to the Future” or “Died a Thousand Deaths,” I think, I started that in 2003. So this album has taken 11 years to make, but the amazing thing about it is that it still sounds like it came out tomorrow. Like, it sounds like it’s a true funk record. I don’t even know if you can say that Voodoo is a funk record. Like, that was a vibey record. You know what I mean? A head-nod vibe record. But his rule for this album was, “You gotta do the complete opposite of what you did on the Voodoo album.” Which, most of my Voodoo stuff was just rimshot funk, not hitting the snare at all. So I was trying to think of new ways to drum that I’d never done before. And a lot of the drums that I’m doing now are more tribal. [motions to drumset] I guess, it’s going to throw people for a loop. So, I guess, for those that were confused when Voodoo came out, compared to Brown Sugar, this is gonna make Voodoo just sound like normal. I mean, I sat there and was just trying to figure out, like, “What kind of drum beat have I never, ever played before?” So you have to sit there and you have to do the exact opposite. So, for me, OK, I play with the snare... [beats the snare] So my first thought was, “Well, the exact opposite of this... [steady snare] is this... [detunes snare] And then I just thought of everything. If my average pattern was this... [plays a simple beat, with the eighth note on the hi-hat and a rimshot], what’s the exact opposite? So now, what was once eighth notes here... [plays the same pattern], eighth notes are now here [on the kick]. And what was once quarter notes here [on the snare], quarter notes are now here [on the hi-hat]. So if the pace of Voodoo was this...(demonstrates old style), the pace of... Damn! I can’t say what the title is. Then the pace is – and it’s not James River – the pace is basically [eighth on kick, quarter on the hi-hat]. There’s one song in which he uses James Gadson. James Gadson is one of my earlier drumming heroes, he used to drum for Bill Withers in the ‘70s. He has one of the best songs on the record, the song’s called “Sugar Daddy.” And what’s amazing about is that... OK, so James Gadson’s sitting at the drum set and listening into his headphones, and they’re playing the track to him, and instead of just drumming it out and figuring out what he’s going to do, he’s doing the hambone. The hambone is something that tap dancers and hoofers used to do. Back in the post-minstrel / vaudeville days. “Hambone, hambone, have you heard?” [beats his thighs with his hands] “Papa’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.” So basically Gadson’s sitting at the drum set, like [hambones], and then at one point he’s like, “OK, then I’ll...” You can hear him thinking on the track. He’s like... [hambones with kick drum] So he’s just thinking. But what he doesn’t know is that they’re recording him, right? So he’s like, “Right, right, I got something.” They’re like, “No, you did it already.”

[laughter]

So there’s a track where the beat is like... [simulates] And I heard it, and oh man, I was just seething with jealousy. I’m like, “Damn! He has the most innovative, like, frickin’... like, how can I compete with this?” James Gadson is playing his body on this track, unintentionally, and so I was like, “All right, well, he won this record, so I’m just gonna be the co-star.” So that just informed everything else that I did on this record, which was the exact opposite of... [beats his thighs with his hands]. So this album is very different, very different. In a great way. In a great way.

Audience Member

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Questlove

You’re welcome.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Anybody else? Who’s next?

Audience Member

Sorry. Thank you for the lecture today.

Questlove

You’re welcome.

Audience Member

Two questions. The first one is: how did you come about the name Questlove? And the second one is: What is your most memorable moment about the great, late J Dilla?

Questlove

All right, the short version of my moniker is that I hated hip-hop titles ‘cause I always felt like it dated someone. Like, you know where ‘Def Blah Blah Blah’ is from. And you know what era ‘Young Sa-Da-Da’ and ‘Little Ah-Na-Na’ is from. And ‘MC Da-Da-Da-Da’. Like, it instantly gives you away, because if it ever becomes outdated, you’re stuck with that name. I mean, Will Smith can be Will Smith, but he was still the Fresh Prince. So you know that’s like 1985, ‘86.

[laughter]

So at the time, when we were just going through name titles, I just told Tariq, “I don’t want a name title. Just, I don’t know, give me whatever.” So I took, ‘ffft pop’, a question mark symbol. And at first journalists kept calling me Mark, because, “Question Mark, right?” And I was like, “No, my name’s not Mark.”

[laughter]

So by the second album, I picked the world’s worst, pretentious frickin’ acronym. I tried to make Brother Question into a title. It was like the Beat Recycler of the Rhythm. But again, journalists, were like, “Brother?” It’s like, “The interrogative thing, like, why do you keep asking me?” He’s like, “No, the question mark at end of Brother? You’re ‘Brother?’“ [laughter]

And so by Illadelph Halflife, I was like, “All right, I just gotta get a normal name.” So I figured, “OK, I’ll take an old school name.” In the old school, your last name was either Rock, Ski, or Love. Run from Run-DMC’s Run Love. The Human Beatbox from the Fat Boys was Buff Love. Joe Ski Love. So, you know, Questlove sounded better than Questrock or Quest-Ski. And actually when LL did our show last year, I did not know that “Ski” - a name that often a lot of rappers used - I didn’t know that was a subliminal cocaine reference. He told me that his grandfather did not want him to title himself, his name was gonna be J-Ski. But because his grandfather knew that “Ski” was a sort of a recreational coke reference, he was forbade to name himself J-Ski, so he just went back to LL Cool J.

As far as Dilla is concerned, I always tell this story. We were snowed in in Detroit, working on Common’s Like Water for Chocolate record. And the airport had shut down in Detroit, so I had to sleep on his couch. And Dilla and Pharrell are the only cats that I know that keep business hours when they make music. Like, he got up every day at seven in the morning like it was his job. Got up at 7 AM and he was done at 5 PM. Pharrell does the same thing. Pharrell does not work after, unless it’s like a special circumstance, you know? Everyone else, musicians do late hours and this type of stuff. And so he was passing the time. And to pass the time, what he does is he practices. [moves back to couch] And the way that he practices is that he’ll try and work on beats and ideas that other producers had done, but never with the intention of getting out there. And so at this particular time period, I was at his house, and he kept playing Roy Ayers’ “Aint Got Time.”

(music: Roy Ayers – “Ain’t Got Time”)

Questlove

Which at the time was only used by Pete Rock, on an interlude for their second album, The Main Ingredient, back in 1994. This loop.

(music: Roy Ayers - “Ain’t Got Time”)

Now, the only reason why this loop is a prime loop was this is the only part of the song in which Roy Ayers isn’t talking over the music, because again, when you’re adhering to the regular rules of hip-hop, when you’re listening for breaks, you’re only listening for the part that’s open. So when he’s talking, you’re not even thinking about that. So in other words, he’s talking all over this record. And there’s not a clean four bars to take from it. So, mind you, I’m upstairs on the couch, just watching cable, and I keep just hearing nothing but the bass. And this was one of the rare times that he was working all night. He worked until like one in the morning. Went to sleep. And I woke up and I heard the bassline going, and suddenly... the thing that I’ll miss the most about him is the sound of “Woo!” Like that was his idea of, like, New Year’s at Times Square at midnight. Whenever Dilla said, ”Whoooo,” you knew your mind was about to be blown. And Jesus, when he played me the end result of what I’d just heard, I just, “Oh my god! Like, how did he do that?” What he managed to do was find every microscopic period of that song that had no talking on it, or singing.

(music: Roy Ayers – “Ain’t Got Time”)

This was the original. So suddenly he takes, on his MPC 3000, on 12 pads, and this is before ProTools. Now on ProTools you can cut and paste and stuff and manipulate how you want it to sound. This is done in like ‘99. He just [made this beat] by hand, I watched him.

(music: Jay Dee / Roy Ayers – “Ain’t Got Time” reconstruction)

I mean, if you really break down... The shortest version is, it’s the equivalent of someone solving a 10,000-piece puzzle in record time. This sounds normal to you. And that’s the thing. Like, he made it sound fluid. He made it sound like it was an actual loop. Like, you can’t even hear the microchops in it.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

How many pieces do you estimate constitute that?

Questlove

I think he went over, I have to say probably 15 pads. Just 15 pads of just half-second chops. And perfectly executed.

(music: Jay Dee / Roy Ayers - “Ain’t Got Time” reconstruction)

And man, when I heard that, like, everyone has that one hip-hop moment where they almost come to tears or something. I was just like, “Oh my god, this dude is like the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m witnessing a miracle.” But him being him, his main concern was, “You can’t tell nobody.” And I was like, “Huh?” He’s like, “Nah, man.” He always, like, if Premier used a break, he would try and emulate it. “Oh, how would I do if that were me?” His favorite thing was to take whatever Pete Rock or Premier did, sometimes Tip, and figure out how he would do it, but he would never let those tapes out. Those tapes are somewhere in a storage unit. And I’m like, “Well, why?” He’s like, “No, I don’t want people to feel a certain way.” Like, he knew he was on some next shit, but he was so humble about it, he didn’t want to alienate [other producers]. You know, he didn’t want to violate that 40 laws of power, where I think rule number one is that you’re not to ever let the teacher know that you’re smarter than he is. And so accidentally, that beat winds up on a B-side of a beat tape that he gave to Kweli. And it wasn’t even there. It’s like the tape is running in auto-reverse, and the beat comes on. And he had long erased it. Kweli and Mos took the cassette and just looped his beat tape. Like he made a gazillion beats that he just erased, like, “OK, well, that was that. No need for the world to hear that miracle.” That’s how he was.

Audience Member

Thank you.

Audience Member

Hey, man. I guess my question pertains more to what you deal with at NYU more so. But a lot of us work with dudes who are older and have these record collections that are just incredibly deep, that it’s a totally different game than anything that we’ve been on. And sometimes you sit back and someone will play this record for you and they’re feeling something else there that you’re not grasping. Like, you can see what they’re seeing in the music, you know, but you just can’t feel the same emotion. And in my opinion it’s like, you didn’t come up through this time period and so you didn’t see the progression that this took, and the step that this just crossed all these boundaries. And that’s really tough for someone like us, who grew up just knowing all of these things existed. It’s hard to wrap our minds around, that this didn’t exist before. And it’s like, I don’t know if my question is like, is there going to be a way that we can see it in that light of that way?

Questlove

When I chose the records that I chose for this particular [seminar] people ask, like, “Why did you choose the eight records that you chose?” Week one was really just a practice week, was the three James Brown Live At The Apollo records. Week two was Lady Soul, ‘68, Aretha Franklin versus Mary J. Blige’s My Life. Week three was Marvin Gaye’s Here, My Dear. Week four was Off The Wall, Dirty Mind was week five. Week six was a twofer: Nation Of Millions by Public Enemy. Week seven was Paul’s Boutique. And then the final was Three Feet High And Rising. The prime reason why I chose those records was one, I had access to the session reels to those albums.

My former crate-digging is now collecting sessions, the reels. And often, the very first question I ask my students... OK, I did something stupid, I went and brought them all iPods. I was feeling generous one Christmas, and actually regretted it once they showed me what the price was. But I got them all iPods and put all the records for which I was teaching on there. So they had it ahead of time. And the curious thing about Off The Wall, again, the whole idea of this course is dealing with the idea of a canon. The idea of assumed greatness. And it starts out the same way: “Show of hands, how many of you like this record?” And of the 25 students, off the bat, I’ll say that a good ten were like... [thumbs down] You know? And then we’d kind of have a discussion. And a lot of them just felt like, “Well, you know, this is what Mom and Dad listened to when they were young,” and, “Michael Jackson’s cool, but it’s no Aphex Twin,” or whatever they have to compare it to. And I figured in that time period, and the course is like three hours long, I figured that maybe in this particular case, you have to contextualize, and you have to be very careful in how you contextualize why something is great.

Now, fortunately for me, I knew that what probably blocked them from seeing the greatness of Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall was who they were informed of who they thought Michael Jackson was. You know, my experience with Michael Jackson is actually growing up seeing this ten-year-old wunderkind through the years. And there was a period in life where he absolutely could do no wrong, and I was there to witness that. Whereas most of them, born in ‘90, ‘91, ‘92, have a whole ‘nother image that’s not as endearing or sentimental as my version of growing up with him. And I was losing the battle for about two hours. And the whole point of the class is not for you to see my way or the highway. I want them to come to this discovery on their own. I tried with each song. I put up “Working Day and Night,” and they thought, “Ah, that’s cool,” you know? And when you listen to ProTools, it’s just way different than listening to the actual song. And I had 20 minutes left, and I finally found jackpot. I totally forgot that Bruce Swedien had left all seven vocal takes of “She’s Out Of My Life” on the reel. And the back-story of “She’s Out Of My Life,” of course, is really Mike’s first adult heartbreak. His slowness and an emotional connection with whom he was dating at the time: Ryan O’Neal’s daughter, Tatum O’Neal, who was four years younger than him, so she was 15. He was 19, but she was more experienced. And, you know, he was sheltered, he was sheltered from human interaction. So I could see how he might have been slow at relationship development. And it just so happens that, at the time when he’s singing these lyrics - not written by him, written by Tom Bahler, who was breaking up with Karen Carpenter at the time - each take, I just played the solo of each take, and it was just more heartbreaking than the previous take. I mean, by the time you got to take #4, people were starting to well up. That humanized Michael Jackson, it was a breakthrough moment. I mean, I don’t know if this will happen again next semester, but I was just lucky that the records that I chose I had the session reels to, and they found interesting things when you showed them the skeleton. And you have to start with the skeleton for them to see the flesh afterwards. I hope that answered the question.

Audience Member

Kind of. I mean, without the reels, am I gonna ever be able to grasp the shit that I see? Like, the people that I work with play these stuff, and it’s just, like...

Questlove

Well, again, that’s why I take the responsibility for that Nation Of Millions faux pas on the NPR thing. Like, we need informed, articulate, knowledgeable teachers that know how to relate and communicate with students. And I don’t know if this is a thing that can instantly happen, you know, off the bat in a three-hour period. When I was a kid, I thought that jazz music was punishment. “Love Supreme? What the hell? I don’t wanna hear this!” And it wasn’t until I was older, I finally had that moment. But that’s hard to say. Things are subjective. What I think is the greatest thing, you might not see it that way. But I got lucky. Maybe I’ll get resistance next time. Hopefully not. But I would have another answer next year.

Audience Member

Cool. Thanks.

Questlove

Y’all don’t want me to go to work tonight, do y’all? I got 45 minutes to be on-stage in Brooklyn.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Take one last one?

Audience Member

What’s up? All right, last question, here we go. So you DJ, The Roots, Late Night Jimmy.

Questlove

I got 12 jobs, yes.

Audience Member

I’m curious. How many hours a night do you sleep now? Was it less or more than when you were just The Roots?

Questlove

You know what the funny thing is? For people, that’s the question I get the most: “How do you sleep?” I think that the smoke and mirrors of the whole idea of “Questlove doesn’t sleep” might be just based on the fact that I’m the guy that will wake up and think of a funny tweet, and tweet. I have a computer right next to my bed, so I’ll just [tweet] and then go back to sleep. And people [say], “When do you sleep?!” But on the average, I manage to get six to... all right, five to six hours, seven sometimes. I get it at night. I’ll go to bed at 3:30 in the morning. I’m usually up at 9:30. What you really wanna know is when do I get time to just be normal? And that’s the main demon that I’m wrestling, because when I was in my twenties, I was like, “All right, I’m gonna settle down, fall in love, dah dah dah, 24.” And then, you know, that doesn’t happen. “All right, well, 28, I’ll do that, kids and whatnot. 28, that’s the year.” And then I met the children of my band members, I was like, “Oh no, hell no, I’ll wait until 33.” “Uh, 36, 37. OK, OK, final offer: 40. That’s it.” And now I’m trying to wait until 43. The lesson, above all, that I’m learning is that you’ve got to be careful for what you ask for. And you got to be content with a lot of things. Yes, I literally have 12 occupations. The downside of that is that I hate holidays, because it is quiet as a mouse at my house. Like, I don’t have a family... I mean, I’m not saying, “Oh, I have nobody...” but, you know, I do kinda miss the [hectic times]. I hate when Kirk’s wife brings him homemade Jamaican food. And Tariq and Michelle are having date night. Big deal! So those are the things that I don’t have. “The grass is greener on the other side.” That is the main lesson that I’ve learned in life. Like, there’s seven Roots at home right now with their children, looking at me, like, “Aw man, Ahmir’s about to go to Brooklyn Bowl tonight, be out until three in the morning.” And I’m looking at them like, “Aw man, she made you what? Homecooked food?” I mean, it’s the trade-off. So I get sleep, but I’m no closer to going to the altar than I was when I was a one-year-old. But that’s not a “woe is me” statement more than it is a “be careful for what you ask for” statement. Or lesson. So that’s the important thing.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Well, we’re glad you made it here.

Questlove

I’m glad I came. This is the first time we’ve really had... or the second, sort of...

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Well, we sort of did one before. But this was more official. But everybody, let’s say thanks to Questlove for being here tonight.

[applause]