Questlove (2005)

Monk One

Welcome to our first session, my name is Andrew Mason and the brother to my left here is Mr. Ahmir Thompson, Questlove, welcome.

[applause]

Questlove

Am I allowed to clap for myself?

Monk One

Yeah, definitely, give yourself a hand. So you have had quite a journey today, where did you wake up this morning?

Questlove

I didn’t go to sleep [laugh].

Monk One

Ah, OK, so there you go.

Questlove

Yeah, I don’t sleep from fear that I might miss out on something.

Monk One

Ah, never sleeping.

Questlove

Yeah, pretty much, stayed up until 4.30 and then I went to the airport, I slept on the flight out here. If I have a bed head, forgive me.

Monk One

Yeah, that’s right. Tonight you will be doing the do at the War Room, I believe.

Questlove

Yeah. I’ll be there.

Monk One

Good. So, your band The Roots has just released a retrospective, 2-CD set, is that right? Did you ever think when you were in your Square Roots days that you would be putting out a double album best of?

Questlove

It’s funny, we started the group, I guess in name only, 1987. I guess, for those who don’t know the history of the group we started, I met Tariq Trotter the first day of school, September of ‘87. It was the first day of school, both of us were in the principle’s office. How many people of you people have seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? You remember the scene at the very end when the girl from Dirty Dancing... Jennifer Grey, was talking to Charlie Sheen on a cupbin or whatever. That’s pretty much how the meeting was between Tariq and I. I was in the principle’s office to get an ID so I can get free school tokens, and he was getting suspended on his first day of school. He was doing unmentionables with a female in the girl’s bathroom. So it was just like a polar opposite thing, you know what I mean? And, of course, this freshman guy’s coming in and getting suspended on his first day of school for doing whatever - that built his legend up, and you know, sitting there for half an hour, he was kind of ragging on me, but then we knew that we had sort of hip-hop in common by talking about different things, and I guess when he got reinstated back into the school, like four of five days later, he used to always walk up to me and say like, “Play, ‘Kick The Ball.’” To him “Kick The Ball” is a song by the Krown Rulers but to me “Kick The Ball” is “God Made Me Funky” by The Headhunters. So even though we were talking two different languages pretty much, like that is how we communicated. It was like a novelty thing, because the fact that hip-hop production was so spare and so simple back in 1987, 1988, the majority of it was just breakbeat driven, it wasn’t too melodic, so he’d just run up to me like, “Yo, do “Top Billin,” and, you know, like this you impress the girls, like he knows everything, play “Top Billin” so I had to play it on the locker room.

Monk One

So, “Kick The Ball”, for the people who don’t know, is sort of a legendary early golden era Philly rap record.

Questlove

Yeah, the Krown Rulers.

Monk One

By the Krown Rulers, and it made use of the “God Make Me Funky” breakbeat by The Headhunters, which also Steady B used right around that time.

Questlove

Yeah, well, De La Soul also spoofed it on 3 Feet High And Rising with “Take It Off” so...

Monk One

That’s right

Questlove

But, you know, when we started the group, it was a name only between ‘87 to about ‘92. Then, by that point I graduated school and I got accepted into Juilliard and Tariq went to university and we kind of wondered where our future, you know, what lies ahead. Because pretty much in Philadelphia there is zero outlet whatsoever. I mean, we have Ruff House Records, but besides that internship and that type of stuff really there wasn’t anything going on in terms of doing anything musical, no open mics, no such a thing like the [Lyricist Lounge][https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2015/06/lyricist-lounge-oral-history] or anything like that. So in 1992 we kind of asked ourselves like, “OK, what are we going to do with our lives?” And that was when we decided to actually take it to the streets and just become street musicians and set up and see what happens. And once it caught on - and we eventually met our management some four months later - and the whole idea of making a record, I mean, that was 1992 and in my head the future was 1998, I couldn’t even see that far. I figure, that’s actually one of the main problems with music or maybe life in general, like, not too many people play chess to the point where they actually think about what are they going to do. I had no thoughts of, “OK, 1993 I have a record deal. Will I still be here, will I still be relevant in 2003?” That was too far to think about, like I’m thinking the world might implode, could be like The Jetsons, 2000 seemed like future. So in no way could I think at that point that in 2006 I would be releasing my 11th record. You know, that type of thing, especially in hip-hop, like you are done in four years, so...

Monk One

That’s right, yeah. I remember when the Fat Boys and Run DMC, they were the only ones that had actually multiple albums out.

Questlove

Yeah, so once we didn’t catch on like wild fire, because when Do You Want More?!!!??! came out, and I’m not saying things like, well, no one thinks like me in hip-hop or that type of thing, but I was so obsessed with making critically acclaimed records and that type of stuff. Like, I would go to the library, I would read Vince Aletti reviews in Rolling Stone. Even if you were to go to my house right now, the house that I grew up in, my father left my room unscathed since when I had been there last and pretty much like there is about 400 reviews, you know, Rolling Stone always do the main review and they would do like a illustration thing. I put all those up as my wallpaper and I would always leave a space for if The Roots would eventually make records and I would write our record reviews and I would envision, “OK, this is our first album, this is going to be our second album and then the fourth album would suck and they only give us three stars”, and you know, that type of thing. That’s what I was always thinking about. So once it didn’t catch on because I just thought that, if it seems new, if it seems fresh, they are going to love it. Because when De La Soul released 3 Feet High And Rising, I mean, Nelson George, he danced a jig, he wrote like this marvelous... I mean, I thought it was my group, and I was reading Billboard magazine. Nelson George at the time was one of the head writers for black music at Billboard magazine and pretty much he had a very influential voice, as far as like being critically acclaimed. I guess, between him and Greg Tate, those two were like the gatekeepers of black reviews. And if Nelson George or Greg Tate endorsed your record and then all the other critics, Robert Christgau, all those cats from the Village Voice, all the hip cats would then acclaim your record. And when he wrote his review on 3 Feet High And Rising, I thought, “OK, well, this is our chance”. So, not that I was trying to make 3 Feet High And Rising, but I just figured, this seems like some pretty new in 1993, let’s see what happens. And one thing I didn’t take into account was the release of The Chronic had really opened the floodgates to how we thought at the time. I consider The Chronic to be like sort of a double-edged sword. Dr. Dre’s The Chronic was an album that, I guess, for the first time in hip-hop’s history allowed an artist with street credibility to actually do big numbers. And to me, that was like the equivalent of Eve biting in the apple, you know? All that naivety was gone, and all of a sudden you realize you are naked and you know certain things and there is a formula for it and as a result everyone followed suit. So when we didn’t hit, then all of a sudden I started to panic and I started to say, “OK, what are we going to do in 1998? What are we going to do in 2001? What are we going to do?” I still think like, “OK, 2015 – what are we going to do?” You know, it’s a chess game.

Monk One

So, now the chess mentality you are approaching things in that way thinking some of the moves ahead.

Questlove

Mhm, it’s a little scary because there is never room for a rest. I’m just neurotic by nature, I would say that I have been the neurotic one of the group, I’m the anal retentive one. I’m the one I’ll cry and I’ll curse our record executive if the fonts aren’t right on the record. I’m the small detailed guy of the group.

Monk One

I think people can recognize that looking at the liner notes.

Questlove

[laughs]

Monk One

Has it always been that way from the beginning? I mean, the dynamics of the group, you know?

Questlove

I know it makes me seem like a control freak. I think I just make a product that I would like. You know, I am that kind of guy. I like great liner notes, I like the science of a record as opposed to, you know, people can listen to a record on the surface and I’m more interested in what was the time of the record and how many beats per minute was it, you know? I don’t know the method to my madness, I don’t know why I take interest in small details as opposed to the big picture. That is how I’ve always been.

Monk One

It seems to be important in a group to have somebody at least who is going to take that role and kind of being responsible for the overall picture.

Questlove

I just think for The Roots, there is almost like a triple standard at least, that’s how I felt, especially in the beginning. A lot of people felt that: “Oh man, you guys are killing the culture.” Like a lot of surface critics, whatever would say, “Wow, you guys don’t use a 1200, you’re trying to kill the culture by not using a DJ,” or that type of thing. I just always found out that I could never leave any detail to rest whatsoever, and a lot of early press that we had to do, I found myself almost quite adversarial to almost defensive. You know, the house band in hip-hop wasn’t always samples and even going even back to – not many people know that – the irony of “Rappers Delight” was that they displayed seven, eight, or nine things that would set the pace for hip-hop in the next 25 years, from scatting, the sampling - the percussion break of the very intro of the Sugarhill Gang was from another record.

Monk One

Alan Hawkshaw’s Discophonia.

Questlove

Yeah, exactly. The irony of them interpolating, getting a band to interpolate a break, then sampling another record for the intro and the strings from Chic, those were sampled, you know, not used with a drum machine, but still the idea of sampling, them scatting, jazz rap, doing long, long... You know, there is a lot of firsts on that record, just besides of that being the first hip-hop...

Monk One

Biting.

Questlove

Oh, biting someone else’s rhymes. Yeah, you know, the list can go on and on.

Monk One

Definitely. So, you mentioned De La Soul, how do you feel the Native Tongues thing influenced you? Because I think that The Roots are seen as a continuation of that lineage.

Questlove

I’ve always had a love for hip-hop and a love for records in general, but when De La Soul came out, I think, at one point in every teenager’s life there is always a group or an event that will shape and mold them into whatever they become as an adult. And I know that for 1977 a lot of angst-ridden kids felt that the group for them was the Sex Pistols. For me, it’s like I’ve seen three cats that actually looked like I did and had the same mentality. I think there’s no one that is really involved in hip-hop that can’t say that some way or another Public Enemy’s It Takes A Nation Of Millions record didn’t affect them in some way, especially if you are involved in production. So I would say that’s the first album that really got me, because I was hearing my father’s whole record collection in 70 minutes. I could say, “OK, that’s David Bowie, that’s Cymande, that’s James Brown, that’s The Honey Drippers,” because they crammed so much samples and so much outside work inside of their songs, then it just became a name-that-tune thing. So when De La did it and the way that Prince Paul’s mind works, like, he was going even further than where Public Enemy was taking it, they took some rock breaks here and there, but it was primarily soul as the basics, you know? Ultimate Breaks and Beats stuff, James Brown, Mandrill, Jimmy Castor Bunch, that type of thing. Whereas De La Soul, I mean, they could take Marlo Thomas’s “Free To Be You And Me,” they could take it from [Schoolhouse Rock][https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/08/schoolhouse-rock-and-hip-hop], you know, because the household I grew up in, I grew up with three very distinct record collections. My father was very big on anything from the ‘60s and ‘70s primarily in pop, so he would always play Abbey Road, he put me hip to Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys. Songwriters... he liked Tapestry by Carole King, Just As I Am by Bill Withers, so that was my father’s music. My mother was very much into soul, into funk, my father’s stash was like 5,000 deep in the living room. My mother’s stash was maybe 200 or 300 deep in another part of the living room, but that was her stash. So that’s where the Earth, Wind and Fire, the Funkadelic, I think, she just chose her albums based on how crazy the cover looked. So, Rufus and Chaka Khan, Marvin Gaye, you know, like the soul stuff. My sister, who musically is a total weirdo, I mean, my sister was raised on AM radio, so that’s where a lot of the space in between Pet Sounds and Chocolate City by Parliament, my sister was in between there. And she’s closer to my age, so she would play like a, there was a song by Little River Band “Reminiscent” or something like that, “You Are The Biggest Part Of Me,” really like AM radio, oh man like...

Monk One

“Brother Louie.”

Questlove

Oh man, that’s a racist ass song, man [laughs]. I just listened to the lyrics like two weeks ago. No, I’m playing, I like that song. So my sister was always the thin line between that. She was big on Phoebe Snow, James Taylor, Ambrosia, but then, depending on who were her best friends for the week was in high school, then she would bring in David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust stuff. A lot of her friends also had influence on whatever guy she liked. If she was dating a football player then, maybe he would leave his, I still have it, one of the guys she dated, his name was Fletcher, he used to always play “Showdown” by The Isley Brothers and he left the 8-track. That, and Heatwave’s “Too Hot To Handle”. So I still have those two 8-tracks and that’s it. Pretty much my whole childhood was all those records - of which most of those records weren’t just your traditional or like Jackson Five, Stevie Wonder. Most artists say, “Yo, Stevie Wonder was big in my life and so was Michael Jackson.” You know, I had that, but then I had all the stuff in between. So all that stuff in between was on that De La Soul record. And it was done in such a smart-ass way so that it just drew me totally into it. And that’s when I knew, OK, this is what I want to do for a living.

Monk One

De La was really unapologetic about using whatever worked, I mean, whether it be Steely Dan or...

Questlove

Then they were.

Monk One

Then they were? What are you saying?

Questlove

Erm, even though De La Soul Is Dead, their follow-up record, is the better album and my favorite of their nine albums, I definitely think that they took a lot of flack. And they told me a lot of stories, things that I take for granted now, the fact that our audience is 90, 92, 93% white, that was very foreign to them. So you can imagine the whole psychological mind blow that it is to come... You think you are doing a black art form, people just don’t study on the social and psychological aspect of how the world is run. That could be a genuine surprise to them. Like: “Wait a minute, I’m doing an art form that comes from the slum.” I mean, the reason why hip-hop was even invented is the social conditions and the economic depression of how times were forced them to create this art form. You know, Flash tells me, “My parents couldn’t afford to give me music lessons, but I knew how to be an engineer, so I built speakers and I became a DJ.” Thus hip-hop was born. In your mind as the creator you are thinking you are creating an art form that is going to speak to your people, and then a whole other culture comes and gravitates towards it, that can be mind-blowing. And in the beginning, the beginning for De La at least in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, Cypress Hill, too, they were telling me, they caught a lot of flack for, you know, “You guys are selling out because there is a lot of white people in the audience, you know?” Stuff like that is nonsense to me.

I understand now why this music speaks to a vast array of people, but in the very beginning you don’t understand that. If anybody ever wants to see where the music is heading or that type of thing, all you need to do is check out another genre, which is easy. If you want to know the future of hip-hop, just look at jazz. You see that jazz was sort of an underground phenomenon for the first ten years, rather taboo-ish, same thing with hip-hop, “It’s not going to last, it’s going to be a phase,” that type of thing. [For the] first 20 years periodicals were calling them heroin addicts, druggies, and you are the devil, and the government was against it, and same with hip-hop, it was a threat, you know? FBI lead us to N.W.A., that type of thing. Pretty soon it’s going to become your parent’s music. [I’m] going to be 40 in five years, I’ll be a parent, you know, it’s definitely like you can see the parallel levels of hip-hop and jazz. So the fact that blues, jazz, rock, the fact that they were black art forms, that eventually you can look at it two different ways, either abandoned by the people that created it, or gravitated towards another group of people that keep it alive today. And it’s absolutely no surprise to me, but because of the time period in ‘89, ‘90, ‘91, kind of to my dismay, De La Soul felt it was somewhat necessary for them to sort of kill that particular part of their lives and sort of have to prove that: “OK, we are real hip-hop, we are going to kill our image.” As a result, it’s not quite the same. I know it’s too much to ask a person who is 35, 36 to make the same records that you made when you were 19, 20. But a lot of people ask that about my own group: “How come you guys don’t do the same records like when you were...” So I understand that you just can’t do the same thing over again.

Monk One

But as far as De La goes, what influence do you think the change in the sampling laws and the lesser role of Prince Paul in the group had in changing that as well? That’s got to have had a big influence in the sound.

Questlove

Again, everything that I state here is just my personal opinion, it’s not law or whatever. It’s kind of dangerous to me when you mess with a formula. Like, it’s good to grow and to explore, but I think that it was more important for them to break away from the chains of being dependent on one particular person to navigate the ship to whatever the destination is. And in the case of De La Soul the navigator was Prince Paul, a producer coming from Long Island who was absolutely just zany in his ‘everything-but-the-kitchen-sink’ approach of music production. And, I guess, at one point even Dave and Pos said, they didn’t want to be puppets for that long, they felt as though, “OK, well, we were crawling in the beginning but now we know how to walk, so let’s do it on our own.” Same thing with Lauryn Hill, like Lauryn Hill’s whole thing was that, “Well, I need to show the world that I am not the tambourine playing foil of Wyclef. That I have my own ideas, that I want to execute, that I want to display.” So the lines get a little blurred when you are trying to do your personal agenda as opposed to what your audience sort of expects from you. So that’s like an artistic tug of war thing that you [have to cope with].

Monk One

How do you deal with that, knowing that obviously you are a person who pays attention to reviews and that kind of thing, knowing what people expect? How do you relate that to what you might want to do creatively as an artist and does that give you a writer’s block or does it make it difficult for you to proceed?

Questlove

The reason that we have been here for so long, I mean, there is a pro and a con to it. If this is a mark of success [shows an imaginary point], you know, if Jay-Z is here and Dr. Dre, Eminem, like people that are above the Mason-Dixon line, then we are sort of bubbling under [shows a point a little bit lower]. It has always been the thing like, “OK, any minute now, you guys are going to blow.” I think, it has hurt us and helped us at the same time. It helped us because we never rose above what I personally believe is a particular watermark, us surfacing under that level. I don’t know, I think it actually kept us here longer and kept interest in us. And creatively, I just felt we really had nothing to lose. If there is one Roots album, which we felt like we had something to prove, then I’ll be honest and admit that our third album, Illadelph Halflife, was that record. Because Organix, which was perceived as the audition record or the demo, we never considered the only people that we needed to reach with that were the record executives that wanted to see what the group was about, so once we got a record deal it was cool. Because the market place changed so drastically with Do You Want More?, I would say towards the end of it Do You Want More? was sort of like a - if you guys have ever seen the scene of Reservoir Dogs, the movie, where there is what they call the Mexican stand-off, the very last scene in the film where like this five guys in the room are holding guns on each other? Just to be on the roof for two years plus the psychological grind of sort of, you know, you arrive at a venue that holds a 1,000 people, only 40 show up, there is not a way that you can’t help to think, ‘Oh god, I am a failure’. Not to mention you watch other acts, without ease they have made it, they are on TV, they are on the radio, they are getting love, and you are like, “Wait, aren’t we good?”

Monk One

You are on the outside looking in.

Questlove

Oh my god, yeah. I’m happy in retrospect that we went through that period, but that was the most confusing moments ever. Like we thought, “OK, all we had to do was be good.”

Monk One

Is this post-Do You Want More?

Questlove

This is post-Do You Want More?, pre-Illadelph Halflife. Do You Want More? was completed April of 1994 and released by Geffen in the United States in January of 1995.

Monk One

How long were you working on that?

Questlove

On that album?

Monk One

Yeah.

Questlove

We started December of 1993. For those who have Do You Want More?, the version of “Say What Man” on that album, I mean, that was essentially our first song, because we recorded, I guess, our celebration “Alright we got a record deal”-party. I included a song on the Homegrown retrospective, it’s like one of the most embarrassing tapes ever. But I thought it was important that we should show every aspect of The Roots, even the horrible cringe, “Oh god, I can’t believe I made that.” Like, we thought we made it, “We made it, we made it, we made it!” And then nothing happened. It was like, “It’s your fault.” Then they said, “Well, the drums sound too live, we need the sound more hip-hop.” And then I was like, “You don’t talk anything except how dope you are as an MC,” it was a very tense felt time. So when we got to Illadelph Halflife that was our conscious effort to make a real hip-hop album. That was the time I felt the pressure like, “OK, we have got something to prove.” But because that album was such the polar opposite of the album that came before, then I just said, “OK, why don’t we do just this from now on? Why don’t we just reinvent ourselves every album up?” And sure enough, for every album that comes out, I expect a particular fan base to be sort of turned off and alienated. For all the people that cry, “Oh no, Do You Want More? is like the definitive Roots album.” No, when it came out, Organix had such an audience to it, like all the boho-jazzy, the incense-lightning, you know, all the poet beatnik people, all the black Jack Kerouac people, we thought we had them. When they first heard “Distortion To Static” they were turned off, like, “What is this crap, are you guys rappers now?” That’s what they would say! “You guys are rapping?” And they hated it. And sure enough, when Illadelphia Halflife came out all the Do You Want More? _supporters were like, “This is garbage, what are you, Wu-Tang?” And then when _Things Fall Apart came out they were like, “This soulful stuff, what is with the hard Wu-Tang stuff you were doing?” You know, like for every album.

Monk One

Then you are a rock band.

Questlove

Yeah, for now. By the time Phrenology came out a lot of people of all The Roots albums, I think, for now the one they ask about the most, which is basically, “What were you guys thinking?” And my whole thing was I now know and understand why certain superpowers in the world of music are corporations. It’s a shock for people to find out that, “Oh, Dr. Dre doesn’t do all the beats that we see on his records?” No, there is Mike Elizondo, there is Scott Storch, he has underlings doing work for him. Same with Babyface, you think it is a coincidence that you haven’t heard...? You know, 10 years ago Babyface was monopolizing the adult contemporary world. And then, all of a sudden like that you think he decided to retire? No. You can’t be a superpower and dominate just one area. And for us, our dominating area was the stage, you know? These albums that we released were basically, you know, when you go to a club and someone hands you a flyer? Like, these records were flyers to the big picture, which was The Roots show. And for every album that came out, that meant that we had to devote two years to performing the world four times over at least before we even thought about stepping in the studio to do another record. That said, because we hit some sort of touchdown or field goal with Things Fall Apart. 800,000 units for a group of our calibre I consider like Thriller numbers. Not to mention on how we won that Grammy, I’ll never know, that’s one of the biggest mysteries of life. My theory was that, again, the Mexican stand-off theory, Dr. Dre was nominated twice, Snoop and Eminem, Puff, R.Kelly, Janet Jackson, Busta Rhymes, and the one is The Roots? Everyone had a gun to each other and offed each other and then we were like the last men standing like, “OK, we’ll take this, thank you.” [laughter] So that said, I mean, after five years of knocking on the door, rejection, ‘94, ‘95, ‘96, ‘97, ‘98 and finally 1999 is like, “Hey, come in!” And all of a sudden D’Angelo wants you to copilot his record and Erykah Badu wants you to work on her record, and Common wants you to work on his record, and here is Bilal, and here is Mos and here is Talib Kweli, and here is Slum Village, and here is... You know, and you have to be on the road for two and a half years, and you have a home life, some of us have kids, some of us have wives, girlfriends, whatever, some had to take a backseat. So the thing that took a backseat after Things Fall Apart was the idea of us going back to the studio to make another record. But a funny thing happened on the way to, which was neo-soul fever. And it was like, “OK, well, Jill [Scott] is out, Musiq is out, Bilal is out, and all these artists are out,” and it was like, “What do we do?” And it was a risk, but I knew something told me that the oncoming millennium, and it is at least from 2000 to 2010, something told me that this was going to be the age of irony. That’s all I thought about it. I thought, “OK, we can capitalize on it, maybe do another song, trying give Roni Size a call, hook up with the 4Hero cats and take this drum ‘n’ bass thing a little further, that’s where I want to go. Maybe have another musician or two.” But I think somewhere in 2001 I was just, like, “Yo, why don’t we just throw all this away and do the anti-Roots record?” Like, I had a feeling that no matter what we release, one we are going to take a beating because by that point we were just getting so much critical acclaim that I started feeling guilty, you know? And then on top of that, there is just no evidence of a reward, like, “OK, we went gold and there is a Grammy, but financially it was the same situation, socially it was the same situation,” you know? OK, maybe I was cool because by this point people started recognizing this [points at his hair]. But Tariq goes to a club, there is stories out, they still made me stand in line. So it wasn’t like they were rolling out the red carpet or anything. So I felt like something was in the air and I felt like we were going to take a beating. So if you want to call Phrenology that Eminem moment in 8 Mile where he decides, “OK, well I’m going to beat you to the plinth and beat myself up before you got a chance to do it,” now whether that is psychosomatic or being a self-saboteur, I don’t know, like get a psychologist up here to over-analyze the situation - erm, we just decided let’s make the anti-Roots record. And it was a Hail Mary, I swear, and not to mention of all things in October our label announced to us that we are closing our doors. So we are not going to have a label in two months, we already had a nightmare of a six months first single that situation with “Break You Off.” And now we are not about to have a label, so the only thing in our minds, like the album is coming out in November, which is really scaring me to death because November 17th, 22 other albums... this week right here is the most important week in the music industry. This is black Friday, like this is the week where the industry expects you to go out and buy...

Monk One

Spend your Christmas money.

Questlove

Yeah, and there is 22 other records coming out, so how are we going to compete? So like we thought about all this way months ahead of time, so pretty much we knew that Phrenology was going to be that Hail Mary throw.

Monk One

For the people who don’t know the terminology Hail Mary in American football is when you just throw the ball up and hope somebody catches it somewhere. You don’t have a plan about what you are going to do, where it’s going to land and luckily someone caught it.

Questlove

Yeah, and then it was like, “Ah, we meant to do that, thank you.” [laughter] But if we would have failed, “Yeah, OK.” And then the opposite side of that coin, you know, Common’s Electric Circus comes out a week later and just that crucial seven-day period was, I mean, a lot of people had their questions about his album in general. I mention it because I was heavily involved in it. But not many people know that was a very crucial seven-day period of the album’s life. We just got lucky because the people at our label decided to approve budgets that lasted all the way up until April. And then they all got fired. But we still had that budget money, so we could still make “The Seed” video in January, even when there was no label. And we hired the right people, independent promotion people to promote that single even though there was no label. Common let seven days go by and had no legs to stand on, so he had to let the album drown, and as a result he is very apologetic for Electric Circus, you know, “OK, I’m sorry about that.” So it was, too, a Hail Mary throw, so luckily The Roots...

Monk One

Yeah, Electric Circus was the one that did not land.

Questlove

But that’s funny because of the two that’s my favorite album. I mean creatively, if we are going to judge on strictly creative work, I love that album to death. But that was a very, very trying period, you know? Two Hail Mary throws, and luckily someone was there to see the ball and catch it.

Monk One

Now you mentioned Dre earlier, Dr.Dre, and the fact that other people make his beats. For one of the people who is working with him a lot is Mr. Storch.

Questlove

Scott Storch, a Root.

Monk One

A former Square Root, right? A Root from the very early days.

Questlove

I mean, Do You Want More? is very much Scott’s record. He was a Stevie Wonder-ophile, he discovered Innervisions. Even though I knew what a Fender Rhodes was, a majority of the hip-hop nation wasn’t even hip to adding outside instruments to their production work. I will give you that specific moment. There is a song by The Pharcyde on their debut album Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde, it’s called “4 Better Or 4 Worse”, and J-Swift, the producer of the song, used a live Fender Rhodes. The week that it came out, literally changed the game for a lot of people. Even Pete Rock was like, “Yo, what’s the name of that whole dreamy sounding keyboard thing? What, Fender Rhodes? Damn, I have got to get me one of those.” Yo literally, I was in front of people, when he first heard “4 Better Or 4 Worse.” Q-Tip knew about it already and the ending result would be the Midnight Marauders record. If The Low End Theory was the upright bass album for Tribe, then Midnight Marauders was the Fender Rhodes record. And for us, when we first heard that, because there was not much Fender Rhodes on the Organix record, we were still just drums, upright bass, and that was it, but when Scott bought a used one, and we just sat there and listened to everything, like, everything that we have had done. Like, “Yo, try this on that,” you know?

Monk One

And “Distortion To Static” has that intro that’s all Rhodes, isn’t it?

Questlove

Yeah. I mean, pretty much that was the sound of The Roots for a good four to five years, and then Phrenology came and kicked it off the latch.

Monk One

It seems like Scott decided to approach things in a different way from what you all had done, what you have been telling me about. He has really gone into the behind-the-scenes-production side of it.

Questlove

Yeah, Scott got involved with the Dre camp during the time we were doing the “You Got Me” record. I don’t know to what level our keyboards player Kamaal was socializing with Eve, Eve, the rapper, back then she was the Eve of Destruction. She had caught the ear of Dr. Dre and he signed her to Aftermath in late 1998. So I know that Scott was begging like, “Yo, introduce me to Dre, introduce me to Dre, let him know that I… introduce me!” She introduced Scott and the very first thing Scott played for Dre he was like, “Go, play something.” I think the very first thing that Scott played to Dre was the “Still Dre” [hums the melody]. Scott has a very choppy melodic style about his songwriting approach, very staccato, very rhythmic, still melodic. So I knew he was with Dre and loyal to Dre for a good three to four years and then he did a small apprentice thing with Timbaland, I know that Scott did it without credit. I know that he did “Cry Me A River” for Justin Timberlake. I know he did “Hola Hovito” for The Blueprint album for Jay-Z. I mean, that is pretty much the name of the game, Kanye West did it for Bad Boy. If you are a beatmaker and you make the hot beat, the hot song of the moment, everybody is going to come after you. And you want to capitalize on that, you know? But I think it’s virtually impossible for one human being to work and produce that mass volume. The supply and the demand is just too much, it’s like a flood, and you are running trying not to drown. So the next logical thing you can do is either find minions [laughs] or find workers, so to speak, to help you keep your brand name alive, and eventually, I guess, you can step out of that. That’s how 90% of the hip-hop nation gets their start. Not many people know that Pharrell and Chad were apprentices of Teddy Riley. Like, Pharrell wrote “Rumpshaker” for Wreckx ‘N’ Effect and “Use Your Heart” for SWV, before they finally got put on as The Neptunes. Like, that’s the name of the game.

Monk One

And the engineer that originally worked with them back in that day and still working there...

Questlove

Oh, Andrew Coleman.

Monk One

Andrew Coleman, who is, if you read the fineprint in The Neptunes notes, he is on all of them. And he is sort of the hidden ingredient.

Questlove

Yeah, he is. I worked with Drew a lot, when I worked on the N.E.R.D. record, pretty much all that. In Virginia Beach it is a really small community, so the studio they were using at the time used to be Teddy Riley’s studio, so it just changed its owners.

Monk One

So you weren’t tempted at any of these times when Scott was having hits with Dre and Timbaland and all that, to call him up and say, “Scott, The Roots need a little help. Hit us off with one of those. Give me a “Lean Back,” man.”

Questlove

Ha, ha.

Monk One

Got another one of those?

Questlove

It sounds like that, right? With Scott, it is still a lot of a given that we work with each other on the next album or whatever. The main difference between Scott’s involvement with The Roots pre-Tipping Point and Tipping Point was that I opted not to go to Miami where he resides now. Scott has always come to Philadelphia, I mean, he has lived in Philadelphia. And I opted not to go down there. So one of the dangers, not dangers, but one of the things you sort of expect in hip-hop is what I call ‘demo-itis’, which is whenever a demo... at least I like to control the atmosphere in which demos get distributed in The Roots camp. Because what happens is you come up with an idea, you execute the music, Tariq [Trotter] might write a quicky verse, might not even the verse for that song, he’ll just spit something to see if it sounds natural enough, and then we all make CD copies of it, and then we’ll live with it. One of the dangers of that is five weeks down the line, if you have more ideas to it or whatever, then Tariq starts feeling like, “Hm, I like it how it was on the demo.” So we call it ‘demo-itis’. The thing with “Don’t Say Nuttin’” from The Tipping Point, which Scott produced, was, our new president, Jimmy Iovine, head of Interscope, got ‘demo-it is.’ Which was that, he heard some ideas that Scott did. As a band we were going to just basically take them as we have always done, like Scott programmed “You Got Me,” the traditional way [plays keys]. He would play a song, he would program drums, and then give me the CD and, be like, “OK, this is the idea of the song.” And then I take it, sort of mold it how The Roots would do it, that was always the mode of operation. With “Don’t Say Nuttin’,” in its demo form, Jimmy Iovine, who is the president of Interscope Records, when MCA melted and fell apart in December of 2002, of the 30-something acts that were on that label, only seven of us got saved. Talib Kweli got saved because Dr. Dre liked Talib Kweli. Basically, Jimmy Iovine called Dr. Dre and said, “OK, who do we save, who do we let drown?” So Dre is like, “Talib is hot.” “OK, so let’s keep Talib.” Common was about to drown, but the irony of it all was Common did a Coke commercial much to the dismay of his fanbase and Prefuse 73, who did that long-ass five paragraph diatribe [stretches his Arms] of how Common was of the devil because he did a Coke commercial. That Coke commercial was initially slated for The Black Eyed Peas, who pre-Elephunk were the minions of the Interscope label. Without telling Jimmy they accepted a Dr. Pepper commercial, which then prevented them from also endorsing Coke, so Jimmy Iovine didn’t want to let this million-dollar campaign that he worked so hard for let go. So he decided, “I have got to find somebody to be in this Coke commercial,” and then, “Common [whistles], come here quick!” [laughter] Because Common has saved his ass by doing the Coke commercial, Jimmy was going to let Common go, because Electric Circus debacle, and said, “Yeah, he’s a good kid, I like him, alright, we save him.” Just like that, that Coke commercial saved Common’s ass. So he got saved, we got saved, because “The Seed” was doing big business for Phrenology. Mary J. Blige naturally got saved, Blink 182 got saved, and then pretty much, I think they kept Bilal as well. Then they let everybody go. The only problem is we are now part of the Interscope empire. Now, I know for a lot of aspiring young producers, rappers or whatnot, they’ll look at whatever the hottest label is. When I grew up, you know, “Oh man, yeah, we want to be on Def Jam.” You know, all my little journs, all my record reviews were all from Def Jam, a little irony [chuckles]. Yeah, it was all on Def Jam. Sometimes the best just won’t do. Already, I felt kind of skeptical with the situation, because you have one man that is controlling the careers of probably the most successful people in music now. He has hands all over on U2. You know, him and Bono talk every day, so it’s like, [counts with his fingers] you are controlling U2, you are controlling No Doubt and Gwen Stefani, Ashlee Simpson, Eminem, Dr.Dre, Snoop Dogg, he just signed Pharrell to the label. That’s eight people already. Oh, I forgot about Fifty, 50 Cent and G-Unit, so Banks and Bucks, both did platinum numbers. So we are up to 13, not to mention there is a Nine Inch Nails record somewhere. Fred Durst is still relevant for the label, Beck still does platinum numbers. So you are dealing with 15 or 16 acts that are multi- platinum, at the very worst 1.8 million, at the very best 10 million, and here comes the only black group of musicians with a record deal. The Roots are the only group of black musicians with a major recording deal. We are limping on our gold legs, but Common, who released Electric Circus, Mos Def, oh, Mos Def also got saved because of his movie career and the HBO show. No, to Jimmy it was like, “Oh, the guy from the HBO show, OK, he can come too.” [audience chuckles] So, it was very much like that. It felt like a mafioso thing, like, “[waves]Yeah, yeah, yeah, you guys can come.” The only artist he was excited about was Mary J. Blige and what really scared us was the Love & Life record. I mean, the album they were like so hands-on, and Dr. Dre, and all, “Oh, we have got to call Puffy back.” They took it, and it fumbled, then everyone got scared, and so we were just like, “Oh, man, we are so dead.” So we go to Jimmy’s office meeting him for the first time, and it was a brief 10-minute meeting, so we sat down, and it was quiet, lot of affirmative headshaking [shakes his head], no one said anything. And then he says, “Yeah, I didn’t like your last record.” And then we were like, [pause – keeps on nodding his head] “OK.” [chuckles] He said, “So, OK, what have you got?” Already I’m just like, “Oh man, the energy is not right. This is not Geffen Records, it’s so fast food here.” We played him some of the stuff from The Tipping Point, it’s like, “OK, this guy is not going to understand a Big Daddy Kane reference.” You realize this is not Big Daddy Kane, this is Tariq imitating Big Daddy Kane, the stuff is just totally going over his head. And then the remote was not working on the CD player [everybody chuckles], and then the next song comes on, and it is the “Don’t Say Nuttin’” demo, but because we didn’t Roots-ify it up yet, I couldn’t stop it. He said, “Wow, don’t touch it!” And he is listening and all of a sudden he starts moving. Of course, it is going to be familiar to him because that’s Dr. Dre [air quotes] doing the, I mean, Scott Storch. Of course, it is going to feel familiar to him because all those elements that were Dre are right there, so it feels familiar to him. And then he says, “That’s the one.” Now, because we’re totally like a fish out of water, it’s like, “OK, well, we want to definitely go with the energy.” His whole energy had changed. He stopped the CD. I mean, this is the classic textbook situation of where you watch, I mean, he is not mafioso, I mean, he is as powerful as a Tony Soprano-type [laughter], but he is more like a Joe Pesci-small type [laughter]. Wait, is this going on the Internet? [laughter]

Monk One

Going to have a hit put on you, man.

Questlove

Yeah, I’m very careful of what I am saying [laughs]. But he is the guy who says, if you work at Interscope probably the phrase you most often say is, “How high?!” He will just do like that [claps] and you will do whatever. And all of a sudden, because of his energy changing, all of a sudden the five or six executives, like our marketing guy, the A&R person and everyone else that was very hands-off to us, they were basically content and happy with us being led to the slaughter, “We don’t care, you are not messing up our benefits.” All of a sudden, they were returning our phone calls. And we were like, “So now Jimmy is happy, and so now you guys will actually approve this budget?” “Yeah, yeah, you know Jimmy is happy, he is excited, he brought the marketing people down and everything. He is like banging the desk, he is putting in calls to Steven Hill at BET, you know, [makes a call] I am going to have this video made for you in three weeks, and you are just going to play it.” Da-da-da-da. So we just thought, “OK, he didn’t like the last record, he loves this song, he is not big on artsy fartsy pretentious, you know...”

Monk One

Big Daddy Kane references.

Questlove

Yeah, all that derivative stuff from the past. Do we roll with it? That was the biggest illing we had. Do we roll with this energy or do we go on the next logical step for The Roots’ evolution? Because it was so early on, I didn’t know what the other option would be, I wish I could tell you. No, wait, I do know what it was. We go to Cuba. We were thinking, “OK, well, maybe we should make the Graceland album? Let’s go to a whole different country, get some new energy, and do that.” But once this came to play, it was like, “OK, we can do the world record later. Alright, let’s make the make-Jimmy-happy-record.” So, we wanted to just basically make a very dry, normal album, and because I had studied all those Rolling Stone reviews, I figured, “OK, Bruce Springsteen made Nebraska, a very simple voice and guitar record. OK, there is no crime behind that.” I figured, Phrenology was everything but the kitchen sink, and we were doing everything that we weren’t supposed to be doing. OK, let’s do the opposite, we are still going to throw off our fanbase, it is going to be the opposite, it is going to be distinctive.” [whistles] We are cool [whistles], [but] we weren’t [laughs]. I mean, 400,000 is nothing to scoff at, but to me, I consider an album successful if it can at least reach the 500,000 gold mark. I mean, we made it to 400,000, and probably the most frustrating experience of it all was the fact that, because the embarrassment of the failure, they consider that a failure, they were like, “Oh my god, we failed. We own MTV by the neck, we own BET by the neck, we own Clear Channel.” We call and say, “Na-na-na-na-na, you know, we control the world.” He said Like, “Wow, I thought I had it, like 10 million people bought The Love Below/Speakerboxxx, but I couldn’t make 500,000 people make buy you guys’ record.” So their logical response was to sort of just let us of into the slaughter by ignoring us. So there was a lot of this going on, like [takes a pillow, holds it in front of the interviewer], “You are not here.” And we we were like, “Hello, we are here [waving behind the pillow / laughs], can you help us?” So we wrote a letter, we wrote two letters. We wrote a letter to Shawn Carter, who was about to take the president position at Def Jam, and we wrote Jimmy a letter and we just put it in logical terms. We said, “Look, if we go, you are not going to miss us. You still got your 15 platinum acts over there, just let us quietly go. We are not going to slander you in the press and all that stuff [chuckles].” Well, this is the first time I am speaking about it. “Can we transfer to another Universal label?” I think, because of the guilt of fumbling our brand name, what we worked so hard for 12 years, I think, because of the guilt had hit him so much that they let us go without [any problems]. Normally, to get transferred, you know, George Michael made a stinker, “I want off Sony Records,” and he had to pay zillions and zillions of dollars. Artist do it all the time, they do some sabotage and shit to make sure that [the label will drop you], you know, Prince did it. They let us go in a very quick expedience, eight months, but it could have been years, I could have been sitting here, crying about “they won’t let us go.” So we are basically back at square one. Which is a good thing and a scary thing. It has definitely made me wiser that this actually is being a business, and these are the things I want our fanbase to know. I just don’t want them to think that we thought, “Hm, you know what would be dope? If we get a song that sounds like 50 Cent, let’s get inside of a Porsche car,” that type of thing. A lot of the decisions that we made for that particular record was definitely based on the energy of us being on Interscope, which is the equivalent of you trying to cross the street on a highway and every car, just trying to cross the street on an autobahn, and cars are going 200 miles an hour. You too would be careful, make sure that you are not going to get ran over. But we didn’t get ran over, we just got nicked.

Monk One

And yet you still managed to throw in treats in that album. I mean, the hidden tracks, the “Din-Da-Da.”

Questlove

Yeah, I was not going to make it totally a Jimmy Iovine record. I mean, really, because it was a short record of ten songs, two songs out of the ten does seem like a major, drastic, “Oh man, these guys done a total turnaround thing.” But minus the two songs that we felt we needed to get Interscope’s energy wrapped up and excited about us... it is still very much a Roots album, you know?

Monk One

It’s really important to have the record company behind what you are doing. It is not just you are going to create a product, it is going to be good and stand on its own legs and run.

Questlove

That’s why it’s important for mom-and-pop labels to exist, because you are not going to get the hands-on care, there is nothing to lose when you are one of an empire of winners, if you want to say winners and losers. There is just nothing to lose, the energy is different. A lot of the people there are so scared to do anything. They talk behind their backs, they apologize a lot [fakes a call], “Look, we’re really sorry, we are going to cut your budget in half. I know that you need this budget but we are going to cut it in half, please don’t be mad at us, they are making us do it. We can’t talk to you, bye.” [hangs up / laughs] You know, that type of thing. [laughter] Some of them have to get outside to deliver bad news [fakes a call], “OK, look, we got your video budget, but it is only five dollars.” [laughter] It was a lot of that going on.

Monk One

I want to change it up a little bit from The Roots and get into some of the musical background and people who have influenced you. I would say essential listening. If you could pick a handful essential sources, and then production- wise hip-hop producers?

Questlove

You mean as a drummer?

Monk One

Yeah, as a drummer.

Questlove

As a drummer I disappoint people so many times. Sometimes in periodicals I’ll name the right names. I say Tony Williams. I mean, I do love Tony Williams and Clyde Stubblefield and John ‘Jabo’ Starks. But I think it’s strange that probably the three of my biggest influences on drums are not drummers at all, but I consider them to be like the greatest drummers. Stevie Wonder is not by any stretch of the imagination a drummer first. He is a songwriter, piano player, but there is such an intensity and such a passion in his work between the Where I’m Coming From LP of ‘71 all the way up until, I’d say, Hotter Than July, before he totally went drum machine crazy. Eddie Kramer told me this, Eddie Kramer was part of the Talking Book record and the Music Of My Mind album, both were recorded at Electric Lady Studios in New York. And Stevie would sometimes do the tracks individually. He would do the kick and the snare alone, and then he would add the hi-hat later, and then he would add the tom-toms, and the fills, and all that individually at the time. But there is something about his hi-hat work on Music Of My Mind. Back when Tony Williams was a drummer for the Miles Davis Quintet, he was very visual with his cymbal work. Most drummers pick the actual drums to make their mark. But Tony Williams was a cymbal guy, he was very violent, very colorful, and Stevie Wonder took that same approach with his cymbal work. If you listen to the first song of Music Of My Mind, “Love Having You Around” that’s one of the most horrendous, horrible, sloppy hi-hat playing ever. But that shit spoke to me as a four-year old, [plays air cymbals] “tch, tch tch,” very violent sounding. I became very obsessed with that sound, that violent hi-hat sound. There is only one song in hip-hop that is just as violent with hi-hats. If you listen to how the Bomb Squad chopped up Kool & The Gang’s “Let The Music Take Your Mind”, the drum solo for Ice Cube’s “Amerikkkas Most Wanted.” And the way they compress that hi-hat sound, I have been trying to recreate that sound, it is the most stupendous, like crazy sound. But as a hi-hat player Stevie Wonder has definitely influenced what I do on the hi-hat. I don’t know why, but I just found myself thinking of him when I’m drumming in the studio. Another drummer, there is four altogether, there is a proper drummer, Steve Ferrone from the Average White Band. I mean, he can do no wrong in my book. Steve Ferrone is the funkiest drummer to me, ever. He is very clean with his work.

Monk One

What should people go and check out specifically?

Questlove

If you buy the live album, it’s called Person To Person, it’s a double CD, LP, I’m 35 so I still listen to records, Steve Ferrone’s work on the Average White Band’s albums are all crazy. But that particular album, that’s the album I practiced to, three to five hours a day, every day in my parent’s house in the basement from when I got my first set in ‘78, ten years straight. That’s the album I would jam to.

Monk One

Also, sampled by A Tribe Called Quest for “Check The Rhyme.”

Questlove

Oh yeah, so look for the Average White Band. Steve Ferrone is the proper drummer that I will give that credit to for being my influence. Prince is another non-drummer that was very influential on me. Again, he was very sloppy. His work on the Dirty Mind record, he always pushed the rhythm. Whereas an average drummer would just play a traditional [beatboxes a straight Rhythm], he would always push [beatboxes off beat rhythm], it was always off beat. But I was obsessed with being off beat, off rhythm. I don’t know why because of the human touch or whatever. Not to mention he is definitely one of the pioneers of really good drum programming. Even though Herbie Hancock had one of the first Linn Drums for his work, and of course, the Talking Heads, David Byrne did a lot of work with computerized drums, but I definitely know that Prince had one of the first models, he still has it in the studio. When we did the Electric Circus record Prince graciously let us use Paisley Park for a few sessions. I went in the basement and sure enough all this stuff was still intact, and we used some of the stuff. But I didn’t know that that was a drum machine because his programming was so syncopated, I was thinking that just one drummer played all his stuff. So for two years straight I would think if he took “777-9311”, a song that has a very complex, near Weather Report-ish hi-hat pattern, that no human being can really do…

Monk One

That’s the Time.

Questlove

Yeah, the Time, but I mean, it’s also Prince.

Monk One

For those taking notes at home.

Questlove

Yeah. For those, Prince was the kind of guy that would live vicariously through his side projects. So, if he wanted to express the black side of himself it was Morris Day and The Time, for which he did all the music, wrote all the lyrics, did everything but the lead vocals, which was Morris Day, but essentially those were Prince albums. He said that the Vanity 6 records were the feminine side of himself. So anything that would come out of the Prince camp, he did everything. So yeah, I was very obsessed with Prince’s drum work on the Dirty Mind record and the 1999 record not knowing that that stuff was drum machines. Thinking that a human being that I had to perfect myself to, to think that way. And later when I found out that it was a drum machine, I was disappointed but I was actually happy that, OK, now I know how to play like a drum machine. The whole aspect of when people say, “Oh, you sound like a drum machine,” that’s where the Prince part comes in. And lastly, probably my biggest influence, the one person that programs drum machines, but he sounds human, but is sloppy as I don’t know what, but is so perfect with his execution, is [J Dilla][https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2016/02/dilla-life-is-a-donut-feature], the creator of the music for Slum Village. Pretty much who should be sitting on this couch right now. The way that he programs his music, I can’t even explain it to people. One day, I am pretty sure I will be able to come up with words to explain to people what makes in my eyes him one of the greatest drum programmers of all time. And people look at me like, “Blasphemy! What? There is [Premier][/lectures/dj-premier-you-know-my-steez], there is Pete Rock, there is...” you know? But I will debate it like it is a presidential debate, I will campaign for that guy till the end of the time. He is one of the greatest influences on my personal style of drumming, and he is a drum programmer. I wish I could find the stuff, it is somewhere in the storage, when we were working on the Things Fall Apart record and the Common record, I was just recording [pretends to hold a camera] for hours just to see what his techniques were. The fact that he believes in dynamics, the average producer cat will just take a record, if it is a drum break he will take the first kick he hears, the first snare he hears, the first hi-hat he hears, and that’s it. Chops it up and does a beat. If it is a drum break for 32 bars, J would take like nine snares, nine kicks, nine hi-hats, because each of them has a different dynamic. But he is so quick with it. I have never seen someone who is so in tune to what he is doing. He told me that [Amp Fiddler][/lectures/amp-fiddler-turn-up-the-amp] of Funkadelic fame and of his own right taught him how to program. So those three are my biggest [influences].

Monk One

And is he using quantizing?

Questlove

No. Umm, yes and no. For the most part he has the ability to program drums without using any type of quantizing or perfecting his kicks, which, if you listen to his ‘95 work, probably his most popular work is “Runnin’” by The Pharcyde. Just the kicks, where he decided to place them, that’s something a real drummer would do. And that’s what spoke to me, like, “Man, is this a real drummer? I thought they hired a drummer to play that stuff. Why didn’t they hire me? I could have done that.” [chuckles] “No, it’s a programmer, his name is Jay Dee.” So Tip finally, Q-Tip who was Jay Dee’s mentor, the one that put him onto the game, finally introduced me to him, and then it was over. Then the D’Angelo record and all that stuff came along, so...

Monk One

Can you take us through the making of Voodoo briefly?

Questlove

It’s going to be a nine hour... No, I will make it quick. I know you guys are getting tired.

Monk One

I mean, because that was a chance to make something different, really. And it seems, that you must have seen yourself in a different role as far as that unit, The Soulquarians, and all that.

Questlove

Yeah, D’Angelo and I, we briefly met when I was making Do You Want More?, and he was making Brown Sugar. The engineer of both those records, [Bob Power][/lectures/bob-power-it-always-takes-longer], had told me like, “Yo, you should really get on this guy’s record. He is really, he is the one, he is the one.” And I was stupid, I made up some flimsy excuse, I think I wanted to go play pool, and I was supposed to play on two songs on Brown Sugar. I was supposed to play on “Smooth” and... no three: “Smooth,” “Higher” and “Shit, Damn, Motherfucker”. And initially, Ron Carter was going to play bass on “Shit, Damn, Motherfucker,” but because of his Christian beliefs the song title sort of turned him off [audience chuckles], so he cancelled the session. And when Ron Carter, like that was the joint thing, like, “Oh, Ron Carter is going to do it, OK, I will do it.” And when Ron didn’t do it, I was like, “Oh, I have got some other stuff to do.” I think I just lied, I went to play pool or something like that. I missed a chance to be on a classic record, but I actually think, it was all for the best, because I wouldn’t change nothing, I wouldn’t change a thing. D went to go see us perform at the House of Blues in Los Angeles in April of ‘96, back when we were on with the Fugees and Goodie Mob. And by then I’d become a D’Angelo fanatic, because that was the first time that I ever heard somebody sing over music that could have been easily been A Tribe Called Quest, or music that I liked, because R&B music had become so watered down and crap, that I just thought hip-hop was the only music with real soul into it. And so here he comes. So I used my Roots show as an audition and a lot of my band members were wondering, “Why the hell is he playing drums like that?” And I just changed my whole drumming sound for that one show. I was like, “OK, you like Tribe, you like Jay Dee, I am going to play just like that.” That was the first time in a Roots show that I started to do the stuff that I am doing now. Playing more sloppy and more crazy in my approach. I saw a silhouette on the balcony, that’s all I saw [nods his head]. I was like, “As long as he is doing that, he’s cool, he’s cool.” So after the show he was like, “Yo man, I didn’t know that a real drummer can sound like a drum machine, you sound just like Jay Dee.” He [D’Angelo] and I are the Jay Dee disciples, you know? So, how I felt about Jay Dee, that’s how he felt about Jay Dee as well, his drum programming and the whole thing. Once I told him, like I was just communicating with him, that was the language, like I, too, know Jay Dee, this is our secret language. We are the only two people in America who have record deals and probably care about this thing, and we speak the same language. So what’s up? And after the tour ended in August we invited him to sing on the Illadelph Halflife record, which I’m sure he only accepted, so that way he can see how he could further utilize me into his masterplan. Because we only spent eight hours on the “Hypnotic” song for The Roots album. And on the next two days we started working on Voodoo, of which we didn’t do much talking. We spent the first day probably just testing each other’s knowledge on, “OK, let’s see if we can out-Prince each other.” So then, that became the process of Voodoo. Like, we literally would take what we call the Yoda figures. The Yoda figures were the wise all-knowing masters of whatever music that we were into, Hendrix, [George] Clinton, James [Brown], Stevie [Wonder], Prince. Literally, for the next five years we were just going through their discography. And if something stuck, then we started working on a song. So, for instance, for Prince, there is a song called “Africa” that ends D’Angelo’s album. It took us about five hours to get to “Africa.” We literally went through every Prince song. We went from the For You record, nothing, took a break. Came back to the Prince record, nothing, came back to the Dirty Mind record, Controversy, 1999, Purple Rain, Around The World In A Day, Parade. As soon as we got to the third song on Parade, which is called “I Wonder U” [pretends to play drums], he was like “Yo, keep on playing that beat.” And I just kept on playing that beat. I mean, we were slow as molasses, slower than the answer I’m giving you now. I think, maybe half an hour later, and that’s the thing, now I am lazy about it, because now there is ProTools and easier ways to execute it. I just tell the engineer, “Loop these four bars,” and I can play something for four bars, and then he will loop it, I can take a break, and he can play with it. But back then I was the ProTools, I had to play the beat over and over and over again. And he just sat there [pretends to play piano], and then he discovered something. And next thing you know, that’s how “Africa” got born. And then pretty much for the “Chicken Grease” song we went through every Ohio Players, Westbound, the earlier Ohio Players. We went through every song on Pain, every song on Pleasure, every song on Climax, and then, all of a sudden, from the Ecstasy album - no, no, I’m sorry, the Pain record, we were doing “Never Had A Dream” and there is a drum break in “Never Had A Dream” that Brand Nubian used for “Slow Down,” a very stoic sounding break record, the cymbal sound had broken, and I had to get some duck tape and duck-taped up the cymbal. And next thing you know he said, “Aha, stay on that!” Initially, Common was going to take it, and D gave me that wink, like, “You know I’m keeping that, right?” And I had to go outside and explain to Common, “Look, D says he will give you one of his songs and you give him this song.” You know, that’s the type of environment that it was in Electric Lady. We were all living in the studio, it was like a commune, and every day was something different, you know? Spending the night there was one big ass, it was a sleep over for five years. It was me, D’Angelo, Erykah was always there, Common was always there, Mos, Talib, Jay Dee, James Poyser and every week it would be something new. Like, Q-Tip would always bring in like a luminary, like he would bring in Russ Titelman, the guy who produced the Doobie Brothers and stuff. He’d tell us stories, and, you know, maybe I come back from a tour from Japan, I have a whole bunch of Soul Train tapes, and we sit there and we watch it. It was a 24-hour affair. One of the hardest things about the Voodoo record was stopping it, because it was like graduating high school. It was like, “Well, this is the last song. Are we going to see each other again? And what are we going to do?” It was like a sad thing to finish that record, but that was the greatest period. Some of the music and the stuff that we did between 1995 and 2000 was some of the best years of my life, ever.

Monk One

So there has got to be a lot of that has yet to come out.

Questlove

Reels. Right now, I’m scoring... Dave Chappelle shot a documentary, so to speak. Dave Chappelle and Michel Gondry of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind fame, we sort of redid the Wattstax thing. For those who don’t know, Wattstax was a film that came out in ‘73, that featured Al Bell and his array of artists that were on Stax Records, they gave a concert. We recreated the spirit of that by doing a show in Brooklyn, September 2004, with Kanye… Basically the Illadelphonics, the group of super-musicians that I put together for the Jay-Z event. We backed up Kanye, The Roots, Jill, Erykah, Dead Prez and The Fugees, the reunited Fugees. So we’re scoring that right now, but we’re doing it at Electric Lady in the C-room. And I went into one of the storage base rooms and, sure enough, there’s like over 400-plus 2” reels of just Voodoo. Day #49, you know, some 1997, Day #153, the Stevie Wonder stuff. I don’t know who would necessarily be interested in just us jamming, but there is at least over 200 hours of us just going crazy because by that point we were using 2” reels as our DATs. An average person just puts the DAT on, a cassette on, and just jams. But he didn’t want to miss a damn thing, so pretty much we had two 2” reels going constantly. Some of the stuff is just conversation like: “What did you do with that girl last night?” “Yo, man, she was bad. Oh wait, is this on tape? Fuck it. Anyway, so the three of them came into my bedroom, right?” Anyway, so it’s like that. It’s still up there, and I don’t know, I guess they’re going to maybe transfer it to ProTools to protect it or something, I don’t know.

Monk One

I remember at the time when that Block Party, the Brooklyn event that you were talking about, when that jumped off, it was a big deal because The Fugees where reuniting.

Questlove

Would they show up or wouldn’t they show up? I didn’t know that, yeah, we didn’t know, like, the scariest thing was whether or not, even with the Fugees, so basically, will Lauryn show up? And, you know, David wanted to create an atmosphere, he was at the peak of his powers by that point, he figured probably the best thing that he could do with the peak of his powers is to expose the world to the hip-hop that he listens to. Which... he really didn’t have to do that, you know what I mean, but the fact that he was willing to do that was a beautiful thing, and he used his resources to get some of the best people to shoot it. The fact that Michel Gondry, one of my favourite directors in video and movies, the fact that he is directing it and that Dave has pulled all these people in to make this event special, it was one of the greatest weeks ever. It felt like we were back at Electric Lady all over again, you know? The first night, like all 19, well, 17/18, combine all the acts, we were all on a conference call, and cracking jokes at each other, and that type of thing, and trying to figure out what we wanted to do. Like, they wanted us to do Wattstax with each other. I wanted Jill Scott to do a song with Common, I wanted Dead Prez to do a song with these people, mix and match, and all that stuff. And at the end it was brilliant because no one in New York even suspected something like that happening, and the fact that we pulled it off without a hitch - and the way it’s depicted in the movie, it’s not a concert film. I mean, the narrative is basically Dave in his native Ohio, outside of Dayton, going around like he is doing this Willy Wonka thing, where he is handing out golden tickets to various people and flying them and bussing them to Brooklyn to see this concert, and it’s brilliant [puts his thumb up]. So, we’re trying to rush it now, I’m scoring it now. I know that we want to get it ready for Cannes, because I know that, I’m sorry, Cannes, we’re trying to do it for all the film festivals, and I know that we will either do some sort of tour thing behind it or that type of thing.

Monk One

Who is going to be touring behind it?

Questlove

Pretty much everyone who’s seen the film is very excited about it. So I know that the majority of the acts, Fugees included, like they are still on the road right now, I think they are in Europe, doing some spot dates, but I think everyone is pretty much in agreement that we should try and execute this across the United States, so people can see, you know?

Monk One

And have you finished, have you all wrapped up the next Roots studio album?

Questlove

Yeah, it’s called Game Theory, and it’s our first Def Jam release. It’s a return to form, well, coming after The Tipping Point, I guess anything is a return to form [laughs]. So yeah, it is a return to form, so to speak. I don’t know, I had this obsession with trying to match or do something Bomb Squad-y. Bomb Squad, the Hank Shocklee collective led Bomb Squad that produced the Public Enemy and Ice Cube records. So right now in its current state it’s very musical, it’s dark, it’s fast, I don’t know what to call this record. Right now, I’m saying it’s the political record, only because of Tariq’s narrative, it’s definitely the most anti-MC album that he has executed as of late. Last time I checked there is zero songs about his “lyrical prowess,” which, that is a big step for him, to a sort of peel those layers away. I think there’s only so many ways that you can say your prowess on the microphone and actually speak to the people. So, I guess, in the steps of him actually revealing who he is, this is what I will call the political record.

Monk One

So when you say political, is there political commentary on it? Has it been influenced by the events that have been going on in the last couple of years?

Questlove

I think, because of where he is, I know that he was deeply affected by the events in Katrina, because his first born, Ahmir, lives in New Orleans. So that was affecting him personally, because it’s one thing to sit there and watch CNN, and to see what’s going on the television screen and, “Oh man, that’s messed up. [looks away] Give me the remote.” With him it was, “OK, I can’t find my son, I can’t find my son, I can’t...” A lot of just of what has affected his son has somehow affected Tariq and it’s really coming out into his lyrical content now.

Monk One

Is that something you feel worth comfortable with including in the sound of the album of The Roots?

Questlove

I think it’s cool, only because it’s really going to give me an excuse to do something darker. I don’t know why, I don’t know where I am in my life right now that I’m just obsessed with darker-sounding stuff. Maybe it’s just something in me that really just wants to make something that feels like something from the Bomb Squad era. The closest I got to that was doing the “Thought At Work” song on Phrenology, but that was just one song. I want to make it a whole album that sort of fits that parameter of darkness, and playing with sounds, and that type of thing.

Monk One

One of the big elements of Bomb Squad was the layering of samples. Are you using samples like that?

Questlove

Nah, right now it’s just not cost-efficient for us to use samples like that. I’m sure they will utilize it. I know that we’re, now more than ever, we’re going to try and incorporate also J Dilla on this record, try to get a lot of production work out of him, because I think it’s a travesty that people don’t know the extent and the range of his work. So, if there is any sampling involved, it will be probably in the work that he contribute to either where we recreate the samples or amalgamate the two together, or that type of thing.

Monk One

OK, [looks at his watch], let’s see where we’re at.

Questlove

I know, it’s like midnight, right? Sorry, wake up people! [audience Chuckles]

Monk One

Alright, I want to give the people out there, everybody here a chance to speak, and I’d like to open it up. So if anyone has something that they like to say or ask Ahmir.

Questlove

They look like they need Red Bull.

Monk One

[chuckles] Let’s get some Red Bull going.

Questlove

I think I covered everything.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

You mentioned earlier the band that you put on for a certain Shawn Carter gig. How did that come together, the unplugged thing?

Questlove

OK, well, let me get this right, because she gets mad at me every time I leave her out the story. There’s a writer, dream hampton, that’s a very good friend of mine. She was one of the main writers of The Source magazine, back when it was The Source. But we pretty much hold her dear to her tastemaker abilities. The fact that she can recommend something and actually execute it, make it happen. So, Jay had mentioned to her that in order to do Saturday Night Live in the fall of 2000, he needed a band. And so she said, “There’s only one group of musicians that can even fit that bill.” The problem was that we were on tour at that time, but he’d never let up on the idea that maybe we should work with each other. I was a little shocked in the beginning, because during that time period the apartheid system in hip-hop, like the have and have-nots going against each other, and of course, I know that they look at us like we are minions, “You guys are nobody, you backpackers, you’re underground,” you know? I was shocked that he wanted to work with us, but then after working with him in the ongoing age of irony thing, you will be very shocked when the truth is revealed, who is what in the world of music and just life in general. And at the end of the day, he’s one of the most professional people I have ever worked with. One of the more nicer, less high-maintenance people I ever worked with. You would figure that the side of music that I represent, that we are supposed to be the kindler, gentler, politically correct, not high-maintenance, not... That’s a lie. I’m not getting into specifics, but I can give you many a nightmare story about my so-called “side of the fence.” All the people who are supposed to be on my side of the fence, that you would think would be a Mariah Carey, or just something in the land of being high-maintenance. But with him, very normal cat, you know? He was open to ideas and just the fact that he was open, the fact that he answered questions, answers questions, asked questions! I’m sorry, I need Red Bull. [audience chuckles] Just the fact that he asked questions and wanted to call me at 11, like, “How can we make this better? Do you think we should take this song out and do “Heart Of The City”? Or should we do...?” There wasn’t a point where I thought, “OK, your audience is going to be totally thrown off when they get a load of this one.” Like, it never even hit me until maybe a day after that it finally leaked on the Internet that, “The Roots do something with Jay-Z?! Oh my god!” It looked like the world was going to turn on its stomach. But I wasn’t worried because I knew that as long as they let me have a final say on the mix that it was going to be bulletproof. And when I looked at the final product, and I mixed it down, and [nods his head] it got the nod-factor-approval of everyone in the studio, I knew it was Teflon. Like, there is no way that you’re going to criticize, even if you are the staunchest Jay-Z hater at all, like there’s no way that you with a straight face were going to say [half-hearted], “Alright, maybe that’s OK. OK, I’m feeling this.” You know, I wanted to make it bulletproof. And since then we’ve been cool, socially cool.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Who came up with the change of the music in “Take Over” on that concert?

Questlove

Me. Sorry [laughs]!

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Is that going back to the days when you were playing out in the streets just mimicking things?

Questlove

Oh, yeah. Again, I think I was so caught up in the moment that I didn’t even think that, “Oh god, Nas and Mobb Deep might actually catch feelings towards us doing this,” you know? It was just like, “Yo, when we get to the Nas thing then we should change the music up!” And you know, “We get to the Mobb Deep, we should change up the music!” I did it in rehearsal, and then I thought about it, and I said, “Oh no, we shouldn’t do it.” He had just walked in one-minute later and he said, “Yo, you were just doing the “Oochie Wally” on it?” And we said, “Yeah, we were doing it.” And he said, “Yo, you should just do that.” And I was like, “Nah, we [hesitates] that’s too much.” And by that point I had realized that, OK, we could really be putting extra gasoline on the fire, and by that point he was like, “Nah, man, I have got to have it, I have got to have it. Do that music when I’m dissin’ him!” And then [covers his eyes], “Yeah, you know, I did it, so...”

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Add some ether to the fire.

Questlove

Yeah, I’d accidentally suggested that, and we have since then made up with Nas and Mobb Deep, so it’s all water under the bridge.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Before I pass this one on, one thing that strikes a lot of people is, how do you guys keep the joy in playing? Because you’ve been known, especially during the Organix, Do You Want More? phase, for playing hours and hours and hours of concerts. And obviously, now you have got to protect yourself and your mental and physical sanity at some stage with all those tours you are describing. How do you balance that out over the years?

Questlove

Erm, we have different tour buses [laughs]. Actually, I think I kind of misled people in thinking that we were sort of like a Phish or the String Cheese Incident or, ah, who were the guys who I had to wear a bear suit one night, when I have seen those guys?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Ween?

Questlove

That’s funny. I know the cast of characters...

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Flaming Lips.

Questlove

Yeah, Flaming Lips, thank you. The first time I have seen them he was like, “Yo, put this bear suit on.” And I put it on, I don’t know what the fuck I was doing, and then I had to go out and dance with the bear suit on [laughter]. But those guys do different shows every night, I want to get to that point, like, I don’t want to ever mislead people into thinking that The Roots show is different every night. It’s not different every night, but for us to keep our sanity, I will change 30% of the show. Maybe I’m bored and it also depends on the location. Like, if we are in Finland, not saying that, OK, well, we’ll pull the wool over people’s eyes over in Scandinavia and just do like a waltz version of “Proceed”, or do a polka version of “Mellow My Man.” But, I mean, we’ll do more adventurous things the further away we are from our home base. So actually, some of the better Roots shows come from the most secluded places on earth. Like, when we went to Perth in Australia, which I think is probably the most secluded cities in the history of the world, I think I actually did some stand-up comedy [audience chuckles], like we were doing everything-but-the-kitchen-sink on that particular show. So we switch it up, just so that those songs don’t get stale to us night after night after night after night. And socially there is three tour buses to choose from. So, if you’re mad, because someone drank your soy-milk, or down the last of the Cap’n Crunch... [laughter] Oh, don’t laugh. Yo, like there has been major pugilistic actions over many, many, many a Cap’n Crunch box, then you just can go on another bus, you know?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

But the way you picture this with the scenario you found yourselves in here in America, it almost seems there is a certain fear of incorporating the same kind of stand-up acts in a show in New York or in Philly or in Chicago as in Perth.

Questlove

We are just more serious when we are in the United States. I don’t know why, I think it’s just the hip-hop thing. Hip-hop is such a machismo, such a very serious-stance thing, and even a group as perceived or as vulnerable as The Roots are perceived to be, you know, sometimes we do [leans forward in an offensive manner] have our moments, where we are crossing every ‘t’ and dotting every ‘i’. It really just depends. I mean, if you are in Chicago and you’re playing, and you look to the side, and all of a sudden Kanye West and his six buddies are watching your show, then that’s going to call something different in you, than whereas you’re in Lyon, France, and there’s a girl doing a silly dance on the side. And all of a sudden you bring her on stage, and the next you know... I mean, it just really depends on the setting. America is just a more “serious place.”

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Hi, you’ve mentioned something about working with Michel Gondry, and since he is one of my favorite directors I just wanted to ask something more about his approach on doing scores for films and something like that.

Questlove

He would love for you to say that because I talked to Michel a lot, and I thought I was the only artist who really tries to downplay or beats himself down for whatever his place is in the pantheon of the world of music. But he is even worse than me. To talk to him, you would think that Eternal Sunshine would be a C-film, or next to the porno-section [audience chuckles] or something. He has to make a film that will stand up in the light of the French community that he respects, you know? And he is like, “I used Jim Carrey, and French people look down at me because you used that American clown actor Jim Carrey in your film,” and da-da-da. I mean, we talk a lot. First of all, he is a drummer [laughs]. So he’s always calling me up. Actually, I don’t know, are you familiar with MC Paul Barman?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Yeah, I’ve heard, but, I mean, just to get back to his drumming part. There is a part, a really good part about his drumming on his DVD. I don’t know if you checked it out.

Questlove

Nah, nah. Well, he told me about it, I didn’t see it yet, but him and Paul Barman, I actually introduced those two at a Labor Day cookout at my spot in Brooklyn. I introduced these two to each other and they now have a group together and they have recorded six songs. So Michel really wants to be a drummer, and if you know Paul Barman, he is just crazy already. But, as far as his approach was, I have just never met a more confident filmmaker ever. He just says, “Trust me.” And it’s funny, when we were having that conference call discussion between the 19 others, it was like Dave, Michel and all the artists, Michel just said, “I just want you people to trust me, and believe that I will make this a beautiful experience.” And some of us had questions, Jill was like, “I just want to make sure that you shoot my good side,” and da- da-da-da. And, “What are we going to have to do?”, and da-da-da. And after a half hour of these questions Mos said, “Wait everybody, I think that we are getting away from the point here. You have to understand this man is from France [audience chuckles]. For God’s sake, this country gave us the best baguettes ever, that’s enough to trust him [laughs].” That’s Mos’s theory on why we should trust the French. But he did a beautiful job, that’s all I can say. He just wrote a treatment for one of our singles from the Game Theory record. I have to see how far this trust is going to go because this is probably the most radical thing that I’ve ever had to do, but I’m going to trust him, so we’ll see how long that goes, you know?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Here is just a quick question. You’ve been in in Vancouver, maybe up a month ago for the Hip-Hop Expo. My boys went to pick you up at the airport, and were expecting vinyl, and you showed up with the laptop and the software. When did that change, or what’s your kind of theory towards not using vinyl but coming from the laptop?

Questlove

Well, my back started killing me [laughter]. No, DJ Jazzy Jeff and DJ Rectangle, they are my traffic signal for whether something’s cool or not. Like, at one point the big controversy was using the CDJ-1000, like, “Is it safe, is it not safe?” And then Jazzy Jeff and Rectangle like [puts his thumb up] so everyone bought them off. So when Serato came out, like Jeff, I didn’t even see it. Jeff called me and said, “Yo, run down to Armand’s and get you a Serato.” And I was like, “Huh?”, and he said, “Just do what I say.” “OK” [whistles / laughter]. I don’t even know what a Serato was, and I handed it to him and said, “This is it?” And like, “Trust me, Jeff has the other one. You have the last one. And you’re going to have the last one until a month from now.” Serato actually enables me to pack in more and more songs than before. One of the problems I had with touring with my vinyl, was that something would always get destroyed. During the Okayplayer 2000 tour, our equipment truck spilled over in Denver, and one of my records, I was spinning an original Headless Heroes Of The Apocalypse by Eugene McDaniels, a record that I paid $300 for, snapped. And ever since then that was when my whole theory of [playing strictly vinyl] changed. I was a purist like everyone, play the original wax, let them see the 45 of “Impeach The President” and all that stuff. But then I realized that was wearing and tearing all my records apart, travelling from country to country, getting abused and that type of stuff. Of course, this is the age-old debate of “keeping it pure” or rolling with the punches and technology, but I don’t know, this definitely makes my workload easier. I don’t have to lug nine crates around the world, and there’s still three crates worth of records somewhere, and where’s that Paris airport? Erm, De Gaulle, yeah, it’s still over there right now [imitates airport service], “Oh, we don’t know where it is, Mr. Thompson, we’re sorry.” So, that’s why I use Serato. So it’s not just “a computer,” it’s technology.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

I want to talk about “The Seed” record. It is probably one of the biggest hits you’ve had I guess, one of the closest to mainstream. It’s also one of the biggest, heaviest spaced-out production on it, that came out maybe in the Top 40 records in a long time. How did that happen?

Questlove

“The Seed”, ahm...

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Especially, since the original is quite a sober and lo-fi affair by Cody ChesnuTT.

Questlove

Yeah, again, dream hampton, the muse of us all, I did a show in Detroit, and she had a demo of Cody ChesnuTT, of which she wouldn’t reveal to me who it was. Then we made a gasoline stop, and while she was inside paying for gas, I ejected the CD real quickly, and so Cody ChesnuTT The Headphone Masterpiece, I wrote it down, and then I went on my website that night and said, “Have any of you guys ever heard of a guy named Cody ChesnuTT The Headphone Masterpiece?” No one on my website had heard of him, but someone else associated with Cody had seen the post on my website, contacted his management, who then contacted my record label, who subsequently have rejected Cody, because then my record label called me up and said, “Hey, you made a post about this guy named Cody ChesnuTT.” I was in the office. “You mean this guy?”, and they reached the throw-away demo pile. It was like, “This guy?” And I said, “Yeah, that’s him, that’s the CD!” And they said, “You want this guy?” And I said, “Yeah!” And they were just shocked, they were really shocked, like, “Ah, his music is really horrible,” and da-da-da-da-da. I don’t know what made me gravitate towards Cody at all, like, I think that a lot of black people’s experience with rock music has to do with the MTV experiences most of us had. Like, if we wanted to watch “Thriller” or a Prince video in 1982/83 we had to sit there and sit through countless and countless and countless of the videos that they were showing on MTV, which were pretty much like hard rock. So, when I thought of hard rock then it was like Led Zeppelin’s “Fooling” [imitates parts of “Whole Lotta Love”] “F-f-f-f-f-f-f-fooling, dada.” That was my idea of that’s rock. That was before I educated myself and saw the different areas of it. But Cody’s approach to music was more Beatles, Brian Wilson-esque. Like, his sense of melody and that type of stuff. So that’s why I liked his demo. And then, when I heard “The Seed,” I just thought, ‘OK, wow!’ By that point I felt The Roots were just going to be the Moses of hip-hop, which was basically like we were just going to usher in someone new. We ushered in Jill, “OK, go on, Jill!”, we ushered in Erykah, like all these other people, like just ushered them through. So I figured, “OK, well, we’ll cover one of his songs and introduce Cody to a whole new audience.” I mean, no, I love this song, and I wouldn’t change anything about it, but Cody was definitely one of those artists, that wasn’t ready for his spotlight. He’s a very guarded, a very private person, very anti-industry. Not many people know that he was signed at Death Row. I mean, Suge Knight had the vision, he and one of his managers wanted that rock money, he wanted rock ‘n’ roll money, he wanted white people’s money. And so he wanted to develop a label that was a subsidiary of Death Row Records, and Cody was his first artist. And they just laid in limbo for four or five years, and Cody’s sort of got disenchanted and went back to his mother’s house in Atlanta, and made this record that caught my ears in his mum’s house. I can understand him being skeptical of, “OK, here comes success again, and it’s going to play another nasty trick on me.” So I scratched my head that he walked away from it, but I kind of applaud him, because he walked away from it as well, so...

AUDIENCE MEMBER

I just wanted to ask about, how you go about planning a set for The Roots in terms of your song flow, and the dynamics between the musicians?

Questlove

Song wise, or album wise, or...?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Live, like your show on stage.

Questlove

Live? Now, my primary concern is that they don’t wear themselves out, because Tariq is now the lone man. It was never like Malik was ever part of the live ensemble, so that Tariq could catch a break, but you have to understand that, because Tariq projects so much and puts so much effort into his words, and when he is performing live, to bring that much text and that much energy for that long period of time could be like overwhelming. And he has to do the chorus and the verse, you know? It was one thing when Rahzel was in the group. When it’s chorus time, Tariq gets a little 12 second break, drinks some water [pretends to wipe the sweat from his face, exhales], regroups himself. Now, that Rahzel is gone, and now that Scratch is gone, it’s all Tariq. So my primary concern is wearing Tariq out, so I kind of pace the show. Like, OK, this part is slow, or maybe we can do a little musical break here? So they even catch a 30 second break. Hub might complain that, “These lights are too hot,” or whatever. So let me get out of his solo first and then he gets to take a break. Now I am thinking in terms of, I will take the most work on. I can do three to four hours straight of drumming without complaining or whatever. So, nine times out of ten, I’m just thinking about the four of them because if they’re all bitching and complaining about, like, “The show is too long, Ahmir,” and this type of stuff, I’ve got to Jedi mind trick them. I construct the show by, “Who can take a break? OK, come on, you take a break. Let us work out, and Hub, you take a break, let us work out, and OK, I do a drum solo here, that’s 20 minutes,” [audience chuckles] and that type of thing. [asks the audience] Anyone? Going once, going twice.

Monk One

Anybody?

Questlove

That’s it?

Monk One

Alright. Yeah, thank you very much.

Questlove

Thank you.

Monk One

And thanks everybody.

[applause]