Questlove on the Mysteries of Sly Stone and Much More
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I'm Brian Hyatt. This is Rolling Stone Music Now. Today, I'm really happy to welcome back to the show Questlove, who was already an acclaimed musician and author when he directed the movie Summer of Soul back in 2021 and won a Best Documentary Oscar for it. Now he has a new movie called Sly Lives, aka The Burden of Black Genius. It's available on Hulu right now to stream, and I recommend that you do.

The movie, of course, tells the story of the troubled musical genius Sly Stone, but its scope is a lot broader than that, as the title suggests. When people like Andre 3000 and D'Angelo and Chaka Khan are interviewed for it, they're talking about Sly, but they're really talking about themselves, about self-sabotage.

about survivor's guilt and some other really heavy topics. But yeah, welcome back to the show. Thanks for making time to do this. Not your first time. It's actually your third. Damn, I'm a veteran. I believe you're the first third timer on Rolling Stone Music now. So there you go. A small distinction in the world. I'll take it. I love the Sly documentary. I've watched it more than once. And I wanted to start, I've never made a documentary, but I know that you need to have certain linchpins. You

And one of the things that seems so essential to have was this Maria Shriver interview that he used to set up a bunch of things in the documentary. It allows Sly to narrate some of his career. It allows him to be presented with the idea that he quote unquote blew it. How early in the process did you find that interview? And how early did you realize that this was something that would be extremely helpful to this project? Okay, so back in 1980, I

There was a new show and I've shared before that people know my background as a kid that lived in a you're not allowed to watch television household, which explains why I know so much about music because, you know.

I was allowed to music. However, I'm allowed to watch anything on TV that has to do with music. My parents were big on music education. So on Saturdays at 6 p.m., there used to be a show called Portrait of a Legend. And it was like this half hour, I guess now we could sort of call it a docuseries, if you will. But it was basically just a half hour kind of one-sided interview where you didn't hear anything.

or really see the B camera footage of who's talking. And so even though I remembered all those Mike Douglas interviews, I specifically remembered the Stevie Wonder episode and the Sly Stone episode of Portrait of a Legend. So yeah,

I knew of the Shriver interview almost immediately as at the age of nine, watching Sly give these long answers without a reporter speaking to him. But what I didn't know was that she like that question of her saying, and then you blow it. Jesus Christ. Like what a gobsmack. Yeah.

it was a gobsmacked. So I, I, we did not know that that was on there. So, uh, what a blessing. But for me, um,

I have to admit, that scene makes people angriest the most, and the word that I hear is like, the audacity, and whatnot. But I won't lie to you that in my head, I'm jealous at her audacity to ask that question. Because I knew this project was not the Sly Stone story. My intent was always to use Sly Stone to tell our story, my story, D'Angelo's story, while

Lauren Hill story, Frank Ocean story, which of course at the end we reveal that that's the commonality. But yeah, the amount of times I've said in my head, like you only had one job, all you had to do is show up.

And I still say that now. Like, I don't think I'm doing anything extraordinary. I'm literally just showing up. There's so much that goes on in his eyes when that question is asked and you recognize that and we're able to freeze on that. It's just invaluable to set things up. Believe it or not, and I guess I can reveal this now, that wasn't our initial, even though that was a gobsmack, I believe that we felt like it could be an offensive gobsmack.

Initially, that was the second attempt. So, okay, so when they first get settled and the cameras start rolling, and, you know, when he asks his manager to get him a drink, and they're sitting there, she does a part one of this thing where she's going down the list. She's like, okay, Sly, you were born Sylvester Stewart in 1963. You started the band, da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

And if you watch his left hand, his left hand's under the pillow, automatically his left hand starts getting anxiety. And you just see out of habit. And that to me was even spoke more volumes. And what winds up happening is as she's reading down all of his list of accomplishments and everything, he said, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop, stop, stop. I can't, I can't. And he has, he is like a minor meltdown. I can't, I can't.

I can't do it. And he walks off. That was the initial, like there was so many options to frame this thing. However, it's funny that for me, I feel like the most powerful statement is the very last statement, which I won't hesitate to say that at his closing, you know, she asks him like, you know, do you feel that you were judged too harshly and whatever? And there's a moment where he kind of owns it and says, you know, in this life,

We all get what we deserve. You know, you get what you deserve. And even though we chose that as an ending, somehow after November, that to me was like, wow, classic Sly giving a statement so timely. Like he said this 45 years ago.

And this is what we're living in. Like in this life, we get everything that we deserve. And I almost felt like that was a blanket statement for when, because I do believe that we locked, we locked film maybe one or two days after the election. And so that was the feeling in the air, you know? And so I thought it was rather apropos, like,

I didn't know how important that interview was going to be in context of where we were, but thank God for it. I crept in her DMs and she was like, wow,

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Well, certainly the early utopian Sly and the Family Stone albums seem less accurate than the there's a riot going on in Sly. If we're really going to look at what America is, if we're going to go on the balance of where America is now, I guess I would say, at least. But there's other moments when maybe the utopia peeks through. But right now, there's a riot going on. Okay, so there's a cut of the film.

that I believe was closer to about two hours and 30 something odd minutes long. The job of, of Joseph Patel, of course, is to get me out my own way. And the general rule is if a mirror doesn't notice it, don't say nothing, you know, but this is also true in like roots land, like mid mastering. I'll be like, wait a minute, where's the third verse at? And then, you know, that sort of thing. And,

Sometimes you got to... Reducing and editing...

I know is key for great storytelling, but I like the Ben-Hur credit long extended 12-inch version of things. And there's a story that Vernon Reed, who, you know, I can't say it enough about Vernon Reed as, especially now with Greg Tate passing away. You know, Greg Tate being the master of...

all commentary black culture. Him and Vernon were tight, close friends, best friends. They started the Black Rock Coalition together.

And, you know, when Tate passed right after Summer of Soul, I just thought like, wow, like there won't be anyone that could ever frame what I feel inside as a talking head. And Vernon Reed just basically came in, like put me in coach and was just knocking down threes. So anyway, so Vernon Reed does this, oh man, this genius analysis of Hot Fun in the Summertime and Sly's kind of,

genius, manipulative irony. If you listen to Hot Fun in the Summertime and how dreamy it sounds and how it makes you feel, like when you put Hot Fun in the Summertime on, when those strings hit, even before the vocal starts, Hot Fun in the Summertime is just like, it's the feeling of like your parents hugging you, that they're proud of you. It's the best summer. Vernon says that

What's crazy about How Fun in the Summertime is Sly is describing a summertime that we'll never, ever get to experience in this lifetime. He's like, you never experienced a county fair in the country, son. And he goes on further to explain how Sly loves to...

sort of reverse the idea of the American dream and in an ironic way. And he almost feels as though that's what Hot Foot in the Summertime is. Almost like the way that Stevie Wonder frames Village Ghetto Land on Songs in the Key of Life. ♪ Tell me would you be happy ♪

A song that's sort of draped in this very elegant orchestral, you know, My take on that one is that he was taking a sort of Beatles Penny Lane-like idyllic thing. Penny Lane is my ears and my eyes

A deliberate nod to the Beatles. Right. And taking their beautiful little pictures of rural England and flipping it into this really harrowing, when you listen to it. Hard tale. Yeah. Right. It's, you know, ironic. And the thing is, is that Sly always does that, you know? And I think that's kind of his, like...

help the medicine go down approach, which is why, like, when you listen to life, you know, using circus music, smile even though you're frowning inside. Life

Just lyrically, he paints a very dark lyric paranoia, self-confessional thing almost in every record. But it's so happy sounding. And I think that's the lesson. And I wish he was alive for me to ask him this question. Because even when I ask people close to Michael Jackson, it's like I'm revealing to them for the first time how dark Thriller is.

I'm like, wow, the irony of us choosing the one, like all of us agreeing that this is going to be the greatest selling album of all time. But yeah,

Each song, song one, paranoia, song two, abandonment issues, three, cop blocking, four, monsters going to tear your ass up, five, a gang war, or my brothers, song six, the paternal song, song seven, existentialist questioning of God existence, and song eight and nine are kind of also abandonment issue songs. Like, there's not one happy song on Thriller. It's all paranoia.

which he's been doing since the Destiny record. And I'm like, wow, you figured out the slide formula that musically it engages you and you have no idea that the person's crying out for help. Point being that even the Utopian stuff has quite a dystopian underpinning if you listen to it correctly, which point taken, definitely. Yeah.

Absolutely. And yeah, with Michael, I mean, want to be starting something, you're a vegetable, still they hate you, you're just a buffet. I mean, it's so dark from the very beginning. Absolutely.

Every song, every, all 40, Thriller's the darkest record on earth. Like, you know, especially in the, and I grew up in the 80s where like churches were like, do not listen to this demonic music and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Like, they're pulling out blue oyster cult records and all that shit, but nah, Thriller was dark as hell. And it's kind of like, is this why where we are where we are now? You know? So in your mind, did Sly blow it? Yeah. Hmm.

But not in the I'm an executive in my penthouse lighting up cigars with $100 bills way. But the thing is, is that we all blew it. Here's the thing.

The answer is you have to live in the present. But because a majority of black people can't trust, it's hard to trust the present because like whatever happens in your past will inform your future. So the trauma of my past was that I grew up in a middle class family. You know, even though there's a side of my life that you know about where it's like, hey, he was 12 years old at Radio City Music Hall and he was da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

There's also a side of my life in which, okay, we can either pay his private school tuition or we're not going to have gas in the house for a month. And if I go to public school in the crack 80s of Philadelphia, I'm dead. That shit was like Oz or lean on me. You know what I mean?

So a lot of darkness. So the period between like ninth and 12th grade where any moment now we could be facing poverty's door if my dad doesn't have money.

the four gig requirement every month for us to make it, you know, and closer to the end of the eighties, it was less about fifties nostalgia, more about like sixties British invasion stuff. So gigs were like far and few between like after 87, 88, 89 to 93. So,

And there became a never again chip. Everyone gets this never again chip once they get past like their trauma, which is I don't care what happens. That will never happen to me again. So my habit to stack job on job on job on job on job when people like I don't see how you do it. So you're doing The Tonight Show and you're DJing gigs and you're with The Roots and you guys are doing a record and you're touring and you're doing this movie and three other movies and da da da da da da da da da da da.

That's a sign of a person that's been traumatized by poverty. And so when your past is that, then all you do is fret about the future. When I came in this industry in 93, I'm thinking, okay, what will I be doing in 2003? What will I do in 2023? And literally...

trying to figure out life. So I'll say that for the longest, I lived life three years ahead. Like if you're looking to hire me or whatever, I'm booked solid until 2027, 2028. That's how it was. And I will tell you in a weird metaphysical way or be careful for what you ask for. One of my sort of manifestation New Year's resolution things of 2024 was I

All right, I want to learn by any means necessary what it truly feels like to just live 24 hours a day and not worry about June of 2025 or June of 2035. And I have to say that the predicament that we're in right now, this very tense environment that we're in, this very frightening environment that we're in right now where any second now something can happen, living in this environment will make you a 24-hour-a-day person. So...

That said, when you're talking about blowing it, a lot of times, you know, the fear of failing or the fear of returning to where you came from, which is the very bottom,

is such a thing that it causes you anxiety about your future and then causes you to fumble it. And you wind up manafucking instead of manifesting a future. Shout out to Lauren Zander for manafucking. And so I'll say now that if I were to put a bright spin on this perceived dystopian time that we're in right now, I got my answer, which is, oh, it has to be damn near the end of the world for me to finally be like, okay, this is the best time

March 7th, 2025. This is the best April 3rd, 2025 I've ever had. Like every day I wake up like, okay, seize the day 24 hours. Like it's been great for me so far, but it's a shame that it took this for me to wake up. You know, we're so traumatized by our past that we can't trust the future. So thus the key answer is one day at a time and show up. Hmm.

But that context is not brought up in Maria Shriver's question. So it's rather unfair for him to get ambushed with that question. But yes, on a technicality, yes, technically he did blow it. But also, again, the baton that he did drop, Michael Jackson picked up that baton and Sly's still with us. So did he blow it?

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so many of the batons he dropped were picked up by different people. It was interesting to think about the things that weren't picked up as much, like the idea of a multiracial, multigender band. There aren't that many. Prince did it. We can find some other examples, but one that got that huge, one that transcended cultural barriers, it's still fairly singular. And it's just interesting to realize how many things he did that were unique and were picked up only here and there. So

Timing is everything. And it's just that he came along at a time in which the imagined finish line, like whatever my enslaved ancestors in the 1700s imagined, like, will there ever come a day where this strife won't happen or whatever? Spoiler alert, the answer is no.

But, okay, for history's sake, we will say 1968, kind of at the tail end of the civil rights movement, where at least by law, it's illegal to do things to me and kill us.

So that said, timing was everything. And it's like a ribbon cutting ceremony. And Sly is the first one to walk through the store, you know, on Black Friday of which it's like, okay, you got mere seconds to run to owl three to get this very hard to find game console or that bike that you want or whatever. Like you get a three minute headstart against everyone to just run and grab everything.

Yeah, so a lot of his innovations sort of get credited to other people. I mean, I would say Marvin Gaye is probably more credited for really taking advantage of multi-track recording.

We will credit... I mean, there's Todd Rundgren, Stevie Wonder, and Prince as the bedroom musician. You know, in terms of drummer scene mastery and whatnot, I definitely started paying attention when Prince sort of brought it to the forefront. Like, I thought those were real drums all that time. And then someone's like, no, it's coming from a box. But, you know, Sly was 10 years ahead of that. The P-Funk empire, of course, took his greatest innovation, which is...

You have to know harmonizing, church harmonizing is often a reminder or a wink to black people. Hey, I came from the church, wink. I'm black, wink. Like I still know where I came from. And then sometimes you have to know when to do a Greek course. So until now, like everything I did was like in production wise, especially like when you're working with D'Angelo and whatnot,

who's the king of no-look passing harmonies, I didn't realize how important the Greek chorus is, the idea of everyone singing in unison, because that makes everyone included. You know what I mean? So, yeah, there's so many ideas that, you know, of course the gender pairing and the racial pairing and all that stuff that he came with. I believe he did that more to be provocative than to...

be the prototype of future Benetton ads. You know, I think he knew, I think Sly was a provocateur and I think he knew that this might rattle some feathers, you know what I mean? But sometimes you have to be a disruptor to get some attention. How much had you talked about Sly with D'Angelo before this documentary? How much did it ever come up in, you know, say studio sessions or just hanging out?

So the stand trick, for those that have not seen the movie yet. Okay, another drop scene, by the way, was Sly's ability to fix and have an answer in real time with mere seconds left on the clock. There is a, I believe on the soundtrack, we put the original version of Stand on. Sly was an artist that was big enough to record a song and sort of have...

enough clout or whatever to walk away with an acetate of the song. You have to be a certain type of artist to record and then get to take that

result home on a 45 record to test it on your home stereo and make sure it's cool and sly takes that original stand version to whiskey a go-go one night gives it to the dj and says hey you know this is right when like nightclub culture is really coming into play where like playing records was a thing in a nightclub and he puts it on and um

The audience is a little extremely underwhelmed. Like it wasn't the ticker tape parade response that he was hoping for. It's just at the time that his little, I believe two women that he was with kind of informed him that, you know, it's 69 and you need a get down part.

And he's like, what do you mean? He's like, there's something in this song that's missing. Like you need, there has to be a part of the song that makes us want to be like, Oh shit. Like that's my part. And you know, the history of hip hop and break beats is that in early club life, people would actually play a song and people would wallflower the entire song. Like now I'll put on a song like jungle boogie by cool me gang. And from the gate,

People dance from beginning to end, but back in the 70s, it was always like, okay, I'm going to wait until the part of the song that I like to come on. Then I'm going to get down. And usually when they give the drummer some or give the bass some, like the breakdown, which is a very African connection thing, like just drums, and

Then that's the, whoa, this is my part, you know? And he was like, all right, I need to get down part. So what does he do? He runs right back to the studio, wakes the band up. It's like, yo, get down here. Two in the morning, they cut the end of Stan.

D and I always referred to that as the water in the face moment. We need a switch up or not. We never say a coda or that sort of thing, but just like a gobsmacked water in the face moment. But then there's some moments in which in our heated, serious discussions that I might warn of the dangers of going down the riot path in terms of

Not manna-fucking yourself. Not self-sabotaging yourself. And yeah, I've joked a few times when talking about this that you kind of notice the moment where D realizes he's been lovingly ambushed and that he's not there to talk about harmony structure in a song, but

okay, you got me. This is what you really want to talk about. Like that sort of thing. Dude is necessary. No, the conceited, the documentary before you sat down with him. I, I would say that, you know, the most difficult part of this whole process was I always, we always knew that, um, we wanted the talking heads to be people that had experience and,

in anxiety and had experience in some of the not so savory parts of Sly's life, whether they knew him or not. Did they creatively epigenetically inherit his gifts and his curses? People like Andre 3000 jumped for joy at the cathartic valve release kind of opportunity to

really explain what his life has been into for the last 25 years. And then on the other end of that spectrum, the few artists that agreed to do it and maybe two hours before, uh,

will let me know after we've set up, after I'm waiting there on set, that they're not going to do it because they just can't. Usually the thing is, I don't know that much about Sly and the Family Stone, so you don't want me. And I'm like, no, I don't want you for your Sly and the Family Stone experience. I want you to talk about what you feel inside as an artist. And that is a very paralyzing experience.

An extreme paralyzing, that's too vulnerable almost because we're just not used to that. We're taking baby steps right now in terms of mental health. And before 2020, no one was ever talking about like my therapist and my mental sanity. And we're now just dealing with that. It's okay to hurt and to feel after centuries of pain.

Being cool and being cool is nothing but having no emotions. Like we made it sexy, like soul food, but cool is nothing but a poker face. You don't know if I'm happy, sad, angry, anything.

It's just cool. It's an interesting dynamic because D'Angelo in particular, that's your close friend, that's your collaborator, but you're getting him into these areas that are even to start to draw the parallel between him and Sly. It's a hardcore place to be in an interview, even for you. Did it get uncomfortable? What was it like after it was finished? There was a point where the glasses came on.

And again, when a person is being interviewed, you almost have to watch their body language. As I said, the initial pre-You Blew It opening with Sly, his left hand was telling you all you needed to know about his anxiety. There was an unspoken kind of... What would they call it in the movies? I think they would call it a Mexican standoff or a standoff. We're looking at each other in the eyes, but...

Our eyes are having a whole nother conversation. But the thing is, is that I am not there for gotcha journalism. I'm not there for reality show sensationalism. There's something that black people hate, especially what we call it, like respectability politics. And I never wanted to take that position. Like, you know, pull up your pants and damn kids. And that I'm not going to be that 50 year old. Um,

But something happened in 1997 with music that has caused us to kind of shut off our humanity. And it's almost the small ways. I don't mean like the broader strokes of it. I mean, just the smaller ways, which I believe when it started to happen in 1997, there was a slight pushback to it. And I benefited from that pushback, which is why like,

just that slight resistance of the lack of humanity in music was the 2000 overflow of, you know, suddenly voodoo. You know, when, as the soul querians, like we were kind of underdogs, even though like Eric and D'Angelo were platinum artists, there was no way you were going to tell me that like a million roots fans would even be in existence to buy a record at the same time or that what common is going to go platinum. Yeah. Right.

Like we were all thinking like, Oh, we're, we're just subculture underground people, uh,

that makes this quirky j dilla inspired music but you know the pushback came in a little successful watershed moment of the commons the d'angelos the erica badu's the the music soul childs the like whatever the neo soul because there was a feeling of humanity to it which frankly that's why i championed someone like j dilla because his music was so human it was purposely imperfect you

You know what I mean? But in the overall scope of it, and I did this interview once in the Believer with, with Toray in which, you know, right when the war started, I said, yo dog, the best thing about this war is that man, when the music comes out, it's going to be lit, man. Like it's going to be just like,

you know, the Bill Withers and the Curtis Mayfields and the message music, like watch music's going to come back again. You just wait. And it didn't. And of course, you know, the, the, the Natalie mines, Dixie chicks situation happened where they got backlash and everything. And then suddenly no one wanted to, uh,

step up to the plate for fear that I realized, oh, in the 2000s, we were all a business. Now we have stuff to lose. Like it wasn't like Curtis Mayfield was balling out of control or Bill Withers was balling out of control. You know, we have stuff to lose now. So one can't exactly rock the boat, which I don't know. I just think that for me, my purpose in this film is

was not to offer context of why things are happening, be it looking at Kanye as a recent or Chappelle as a recent or as any artist or any sports person or anybody that's like distrusted in the limelight. My aim was never to do an expose or an explanation of why we act the way we act. But it's just that I feel like now art is,

is needed now more than ever, especially now where we are. And this is my way. This to me is step one. This is Mediterranean Avenue and Baltic Avenue on the Monopoly board of sanity, which is let's deal with the artistry first. And then next movie, I'm going to take it a little further with earth, wind and fire and next movie after that. And after that, and after that, like the other projects we have, but yeah,

Yeah, right now, artists have to know that it's safe to process their feelings and not self-soothe or self-medicate or cut or eat or sniff or drink or smoke or pop pills or overwork, you know.

I'm guilty of at least six of those things. A couple of things just to clarify, 97 shiny suit era. Is that what you're basically referring to? I chose 97 because the death of Biggie to me was like, that was the moment where I was like, wow, is this going to be a thing where one of us dies every year? You know, like in 87, there was like a Scott LaRock. 91, there was like MC Trouble and Cowboy from the Furious Five.

And then 94 is like Eazy-E. And then it's just like, whoa, what? Is it going to be like one person a year? Like one rap figure a year dies in this thing? And with Tupac and Biggie, I don't know. That to me was the darkest timeline of black music ever, where even being a figure might, being a successful figure might get you killed.

So I don't even point it to just like the shiny suit era. Yeah. I mean, creatively, but just statistically and just in general, 97, I remember, Oh God, the indifference I felt when, uh, you know, every Michael Jackson release was for me, like the first day of school, you're up and imagining like, what's this thing going to sound like? And da da da, the excitement in the air and all that stuff. And,

When I got Blood on the Dance Floor, I was like, oh, okay. And even though that wasn't a record, you know, they were treating it like, oh, it's just a remix project or whatever. But I just remember 97 not being such a happy year. And, you know, that's also the first year of Voodoo.

So a lot of what went into us hiding in the musical area one of Electric Lady in that basement was almost reactionary to, damn, what the hell is happening in 1997? You know, all that stuff will wind up coming out in 2000. But I just remember the darkness of that period. And there's two ways to learn a lesson. You can learn the lesson on your own.

Or what's typical of humanity is hitting rock bottom. And sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to get it. And here we are 25 years later. And the lesson that I'm getting, especially for artistry, is maybe safety and chasing money. And I'm the generation that was raised on Richie Rich, raised on Monopoly.

Raised on Robin Leach and the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Year we were rapping about back in 97, 98, 99. And that became our even so-called righteous me.

from the comfort of my penthouse apartment right now. Like even I fell for the dream, like, hey, money and success. And why am I crying to my therapist? Why am I not happy? And I used to roll my eyes at the occasional artists. I was like, you know, wealth is in the mind. Wealth, like money isn't important. It's, it's that, I'm just like, well, it's easy for you to say you, you didn't go to bed freezing at night, you know, doing your homework and suffering, but yeah. Are

Our happiness and our, not just our happiness, because I think that is problematic as well. When people say like, there's other emotions out there. We got happy down.

Matter of fact, like our addiction to happiness might be the problem because when dark emotions come in, then it's like, what the hell do we do? I need something to make me happy. And that's why we self-medicate. So I think the true goal that we need to learn now to get our humanity back is how to get in touch with

with our emotions, how not to get afraid when the dark emotions come. And when the dark emotions comes and you want to grab that drink or sniff that whatever, that's the moment where you realize that getting in touch with your emotions is important, but it's going to be a learning process and hopefully it's not the ending of us. On a quick side note, when I spoke to Rafael Sadiq a couple months ago, he said he'd

heard a bunch of new music from D'Angelo. And actually when I talked to D'Angelo for Black Messiah, he already then was playing me music he had recorded. Oh dude, he's, he's a constant barrage of, you know, there's shit from voodoo that will still change your life. These records took five to 15 years to make. So, I mean, he definitely has a cannon. Um,

It's I'm releasing the paralyzing fear. But I will say without hopefully not giving a misleading soundbite quote, he's probably in the best mind state and condition that I've experienced in a minute. And, you know, we talk weekly. So I think he's now in a mental head space where he's ready. Yeah. It's funny. It's kind of terrible as fans. People are like,

They wanted to be in a good headspace, and then it's also, which is kind of the Andre paradox, they wanted to be in a good headspace, but also just the right headspace to give them new music, which isn't really fair if you're treating someone as a human being. No, well, I've been in a headspace for himself and, you know, to share his art. You know, he's definitely excited about the new music, and so, you know, I don't know what's specifically chosen for the next album coming out, but I've heard one or two things that...

hasn't been released. And I would assume that that'll be a part of the canon as well. Nice. As a documentary filmmaker now, as one of your many hats you're wearing, you saw that Prince documentary and it seemed like you liked it. It's now completely...

clear that it's not ever coming out. Is there part of you that understands? Because as a fan, part of me wasn't sure if I wanted to see it because I know there's very upsetting stuff in it. How do you kind of square that? I mean, if you saw the Sly film, that's the direction it leans in.

I can't express enough. I know it sounds simple. You know, like Dorothy discovered that all she had to do was click your heels three times and she's home. And it's like, wait a minute, we went through this whole ass production, killing witches and whatnot, only to find out that my ankles had to touch three times and then blammo, that's it. And the thing is, is that people don't understand the origins of why I'm stressing emotions are important.

Here's the deal. For you to understand why a print stock won't come out or why Sly's story is the way it is or why we are all in the state and the way we are is to understand what emotions are. And when we came here, if you even got angry, you got killed.

If you got cried, you better not cry if I give you something to cry about. Like things that we credit for black parents, everything that black parents have taught us, we learned on the slave plantation. So when you're getting beat daily, when your flesh is ripped, when you're getting castrated, when you're getting burned alive, when you're getting thrown in the hole, like every jail culture, everything that we normalize now, all those things were from the slave period. And if you're not...

in a space to express yourself. I learned, okay, you ever heard this adage called a barrel of laughs? Like, I don't know, he's a barrel of laughs. So I learned that on plantations, we would put a barrel of water on the plantation. And the purpose of that barrel was if you felt that you were going to have a nervous breakdown or emotional breakdown,

Or even laughing. Laughing got penalized. What's so funny? Share with the rest of the class. And if it wasn't savory, you got beat. You would dunk your head inside of that barrel and then scream as loud as you could because the sound of water would suppress whatever anxiety you had. Like that was your therapy. Dunk your head in the water and scream.

Everything that we've learned about emotions stems from just generations and generations of not feeling safe to express ourselves and

I mean, there was a moment where like black people don't like smiling. Like whenever I do photo sessions and the photographer is like, how come rappers never smile or whatnot? We had a relationship with smiling where it was like, we'll never smile because we thought that that was too neo-menstrual. The idea of minstrelsy, you know, when actors and,

Had to wear blackface and whatnot. I even had to sort of re-acclimate myself with that because I didn't realize that when Stepin Fetchit, one of the first millionaire minstrel actors, was doing that. I didn't realize that that was a sign of defense. His whole thing was like, if you keep them laughing, they won't kill you. Mm-hmm.

Even if it's to the detriment of your humanity. I'm alive the next day. So it's that level of... What I can say about the very heartbreaking Prince Doc that's not going to be seen, it's a story of a human being...

Never, ever felt safe. And as a result, having to always be on guard, have to always live on the defense. You know, I'm going to quit this relationship before you fire me.

Before you leave me, I will leave you. I'll act like an asshole so that I won't feel bad when you eventually leave me. First time I seen it, I had to schedule a 3 a.m. appointment with my therapist. Like, I busted an eye vessel. I took a photo of it, like an eye vessel of...

My eye near bleeding. I didn't know one could bleed tears. But yeah, when I seen it, that definitely gave me the green light of, okay, I'm going the right direction. Because I didn't want to be the first one out the gate to be like, okay, world, I know you're expecting everyday people and high fun in the summertime, but I need to explain to you that we're not okay. And...

For each one of us dying, this is an epidemic happening. Like I'm surprised that no one's like, why are all these black artists just dying one by one? This is not by old age. All my rapper friends are not making it to 60.

Chuck, iced tea, Flavor Flav made it to 60. I'm happy for that. But it's so much to unpack with our emotions. And until we have a proper outlet, you know, this is why the idea of us finally getting Obamacare and getting help and that sort of thing, like there is an endless amount of therapy that we have to deal with and deal.

It's not the church. It's not religion. It's literally getting to the heart of our humanity and our emotions.

I'm going to tread lightly with telling these stories, but all my stories I'm telling has to have an element of that to plant seeds that it's okay to feel. I did want to ask just quickly about the Earth, Wind & Fire documentary because you said you're going further in that one. And first of all, what an incredible band. I always say to the young people who are obsessed with Steely Dan that they need to get obsessed with Earth, Wind & Fire for the same reason. But when you say you're going farther, what does that mean?

Earth, Wind & Fire cracked the code with everything that I just spoke to you about. And the fact that Maurice White, the leader of Earth, Wind & Fire, had to figure out a tricky way, a sneaky way, trick people into expressing emotions and happiness. It's, again, if someone comes up to you, it's like, why do you choose the bad partner when you're

You know, no one wants the good one. No one wants the healthy thing. We want the toxic thing. We want the dangerous thing. And their lyrics, they hid in plain sight affirmations. And, you know, they were metaphysics. Michael Harriet, one of my favorite authors, said that Earth, Wind & Fire was Jesus-less gospel music.

And all of their lyrics, similar to Sly Stone, all their lyrics... All right, so you remember when you brought up the whole idea of Michael Jackson saying, you're a vegetable, so they hate you? Your words are powerful. When you speak these words, and this is, you know, if you read books by Brianna Weiss or Gay Hendricks or Richard Rudd or even Joe Dispenza, when you speak these words, you've heard someone in your life say...

Don't put that on the universe or you know, like, oh man, man, watch, watch. We're fucked. And no, don't put that on the universe. Like whatever you say,

That's going to happen. So knowing that earth, wood and fire use metaphysics, which is not religion. Black people's jam is religion. That's safety or religion. And religion kind of teaches you that that God is up there somewhere away from you. And then in the next life, you'll have happiness. Whereas metaphysics teaches you that God is inside you.

And whatever you say it is, it is. Again, The Wizard of Oz, The Wiz especially, and Elements of Wicked are metaphysical films that teach you everything you ever wanted was inside you all along. You're looking for these things and you had them all along. So all of Earth, Wind & Fire's music

has tricked us into positivity without knowing it. But then there's a twist to the film that you'll just have to wait until September, God willing, to see it. No spoilers. Well, I will let you get on with your day. I could have literally talked to you all day. Hope to have you again. Always a great pleasure. Thank you.

And that's our show. We'll be back next week. In the meantime, subscribe to Rolling Stone Music Now wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us five stars and a nice review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify because that's always appreciated. But as always, thanks so much for listening and we will see you next week.

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