Riz Ahmed

Oscar and Emmy winner Riz Ahmed sits down with Questlove for a personal conversation that spans music, art, identity, and purpose. Bonding over a lifelong love of music (especially Hip-Hop), the two reflect on the moments that have defined their careers. Riz also shares the inspiration behind recent projects, including the new series Bait and his bold interpretation of Hamlet. This episode captures an authentic exchange between two boundary-pushing artists whose stories stretch across the Atlantic. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• 1:35Speaker 00

  The Questlove Show is a production of iHeartRadio.

• 1:46Speaker 00

  All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to The Questlove Show. I'm here at iHeart Studios LA. Today, my guest may be a thousand miles away, but he's right up here on your screen, an Oscar, an Emmy winner, who's left a mark on film and TV, be it The Night Of, Sound of Metal, The Long Goodbye, you already know the range. And this artist is using his talents to raise discussion and awareness. And right now, he's bringing Hamlet back to theaters, starring and producing a new Amazon series, Bait. And beyond all that, he's musician too, awesome emcee. We're gonna get into it.

• 2:27Speaker 00

  So many people tell me how amazing it is to talk to him and I got to see it for myself. So please welcome Rizamad to the Questlove Show. How you doing, brother? What's up?

• 2:38Speaker 05

  Doing well, man. It's an honor to be here talking to you, man. Yeah, thank you for the kind intro.

• 2:44Speaker 00

  Thank you, thank you. Where are you talking to me from right now?

• 2:47Speaker 05

  I'm in New York. I'm here doing press for Hamlet.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  Okay, I know that's a taxing thing. So I appreciate you taking the time to do this for us. My first question to you is, what is the early snapshot you have of yourself as a kid? As far as your memories are concerned?

• 3:09Speaker 05

  You know, one of the most prominent memories I would have, I was a few, you know, one of them is like playing cricket and basketball in my driveway with my big brother. And spending the whole summers doing that. But another thing I used to do on my own the whole time is act out movies, fake movies. So I would like kind of decide on like a genre, like this is a crazy violent like action movie or this is like Home Alone had just come out. So I was like, this is like a kid comedy or whatever. And just like act out these elaborate entire stories from start to finish. I used to make a note of it. I used to tie, I used to name the film, give it a title and a rating. If it was you, PG, parental guidance at 12, 18.

• 3:50Speaker 05

  And I had this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles like book notepad with all the list of all these. My favorite, the banger that I was most proud of was Black Dragon. It was a motorcycle kung fu trilogy. And this is like from when I was young, man. I just always used to do that. It was when I was like into like Bruce Lee films and then Jackie Chan. So yeah, I used to do that.

• 4:14Speaker 00

  Wait, did you film these or you just imagined them that you were in it yourself?

• 4:18Speaker 05

  No, no, this is much less impressive than you imagining. I neither wrote these things down nor did I film them. I literally just run around and Acting out the entire story and playing all the different characters of these weird movies. The only evidence of them left behind is somewhere in a in a turtle's notepad. It says, Black Dragon one, Black Dragon two, Black Dragon three, eighteen, R rated. Or, you know, it was just like this. I just was obsessed with it. And I used to just make these, you know, action explosion sound effects like

• 4:51Speaker 05

  that was my mom's nickname for me was Tush Tush.

• 4:53Speaker 00

  Tush Tush because you're your own effects guy.

• 4:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was my sound guy. I was the, yeah.

• 5:00Speaker 00

  Everything.

• 5:01Speaker 05

  Wrote the theme tune.

• 5:02Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 5:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:03Speaker 00

  What was the vibe in your house growing up? Um, what did your parents do for a living? Were they artistically inclined or?

• 5:11Speaker 05

  Um, they weren't overtly artistic in that sense, but a lot of my early memories of my mom would be sat down in front of the TV, watching V H S cassettes of Bollywood films or of Pakistani TV that had been sent across from Pakistan. My dad was away a lot. He was in shipping. My mom was a homemaker and she was a carer for her sister. And she lost her mom young, so she was kind of like the older sibling, holding a lot of different things together at the same time. But without my dad around, as much as he would have liked to have been as well, he was working on ships and stuff. Uh, in different countries. And um, I just remember like sitting in her lap, watching these Pakistani comedy sketch shows, soap operas,

• 5:52Speaker 05

  pop music videos, Bollywood films and the Bob Marley legend V H S tape with all the music videos on there.

• 6:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:01Speaker 05

  Like, one of the earliest music videos I remember is Buffalo Soldier. And uh, and yeah, it was just, I was so it was the TV and the music and the film and the comedy and the drama, they were all mixed together always. You know, on whatever V H S cassette had just been sent over from Pakistan or wherever. Or someone had gone there and visited and brought it back. That was like a happy place, you know, that was a happy place for my, for my, for my mom and you know, me and her at home, you know, while my older siblings were at school. So it was kind of present in the house, even though they weren't performers themselves.

• 6:36Speaker 05

  But you know, it's interesting. I say that like, sometimes there's this trope that kind of like immigrant families are like often not artistically inclined or kind of dissuade the kids from doing that because it's unstable or whatever. Culture takes many forms and like we're steeped in culture, obviously from our food to the fashion, to the clothes, to the music, to the religious songs, to the, you know, so like culture was in the house. We brought so much culture with us. Um, as an immigrant family, even if it wasn't kind of turned into art in a overt way.

• 7:10Speaker 00

  What was the uh cool kid item that you always wanted in your household that you never got to have?

• 7:18Speaker 05

  Do you remember Mask?

• 7:19Speaker 00

  Mask?

• 7:20Speaker 05

  M A S K.

• 7:22Speaker 00

  The movie?

• 7:22Speaker 05

  Mask, Mask. Yeah, it was like, it was like an animated.

• 7:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:27Speaker 05

  Nah, nah, not Jim Carrey. It was an animated, there was an animated action kind of cartoon called Mask.

• 7:34Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 7:35Speaker 05

  It was like, you know, that kind of thing. And, and it was one of them toys. It was, it was just like, it was like a car that fired plastic discs or whatever, you know, I just loved that. It was kind of like a Knight Rider ripoff, really.

• 7:47Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 7:48Speaker 05

  Wanted that or the Robocop truck. I never got the Robocop truck. Never got that. I probably watched a lot of violent films too young, to be honest. If I think about it, I remember my, my uncle just showing me Nightmare on Elm Street when I was like six years old. And I'm watching like, like Robocop, like too young, you know, and Robocop two. And so I just wanted the Robocop toys, but I never got them.

• 8:10Speaker 00

  You want to know something? Now that Nightmare on Elm Street just had its fortieth anniversary, like maybe a year or two ago. I went to watch it for the very first time in a movie theater. And I'm so shocked because I don't know if this is general knowledge. I avoided seeing those things because I thought like, I don't like bludgeon films or anything. Nightmare on Elm Street, you literally see no act of violence. Like, I didn't realize that at no point.

• 8:42Speaker 00

  Does he ever stab someone or whatever like? He'll grab someone from behind a curtain, you'll hear screaming or whatever, but. I just realized that the genius of that whole thing is that all the violence we think happens is inside our heads like. Besides the suspense music. I'd never knew that, at least for the first one. I've not. Watched the other one. So, you know, as far as I know, he was on a stabbing mission, but.

• 9:05Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 9:06Speaker 00

  I didn't realize.

• 9:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I always remember just being so terrified of it. To this day, I can't watch horror movies. It was like. Yeah, my uncles would like be renting these movies and they'd maybe babysit us and they'd just put Nightmare on Elm Street on one after another. But I'm still, I'm still kind of like remembers some crazy like images, but you're right. It was more like. Images and the imagination and the sound and the suspense. It wasn't like people having their heads cut, was it?

• 9:31Speaker 00

  Even the Johnny Depp scene with the blood, like, there's just. Blood splattering everywhere, but at no point does he get stabbed and. Halfway through the film, I was like, yo, this is no violence.

• 9:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, were you disappointed by that? Or is it like, what did you think? Like, actually, it's kind of like a masterclass in like.

• 9:48Speaker 00

  I mean, when I left, I was just jaw dropped that like. Wow, there's no, and I only noticed this only because Tarantino. I told him a story about, you know, Reservoir Dogs or whatever, and he's like, no correction. You never see the ear getting sliced off. And he's like, I turned the camera away. You hear it, but you never see it. And I was like, oh, I never knew that. But yeah, I. But still.

• 10:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a kind of way.

• 10:16Speaker 00

  That's even scarier to me. Who's the one person in your life? That. Keeps you in check no matter what? That grounds you.

• 10:28Speaker 05

  I mean, I feel like most of my family do that, you know? I mean, it's good and important to have people in your life who. Do not give two shits about your quote unquote success.

• 10:39Speaker 00

  Right.

• 10:40Speaker 05

  You know, who are just like there to like. Have the same relationship with you. Before you started doing, you know, any, anything of any note. And and kind of anchor you in that, you know. I remember when I we won an Oscar for for best short film.

• 10:56Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 10:56Speaker 05

  I remember my cousin's group chat. Someone was like, yo, you know, congratulations, Rizwan Pai for winning. And one of my cousins was just like really not up on that kind of stuff was like, okay, cool. Is that like a big deal? Is that is that like when I won Regional Employee of the Month?

• 11:16Speaker 00

  They know, yo.

• 11:19Speaker 05

  Correction, this actually wasn't what I won. This is what I got nominated for Sound of Metal. And they said, is that like when I got when I won Regional Employee of the Month? And then just before I could respond, another cousin came in and said, nah, it's different because you actually won that.

• 11:38Speaker 05

  You need people to check you in that way and keep, you know, it's it's important. And, you know, I don't want to be surrounded by like sycophants and like transactional relationships. I'm I'm kind of most of my friends kind of kind of predate any of of that or any of this. So.

• 11:54Speaker 00

  Right.

• 11:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 11:57Speaker 00

  I've visited or at least performed at the Oxford campus twice. But I've always wanted to get a different perspective on it. So as a person of color, what was the reality like of being in an environment such as Oxford?

• 12:15Speaker 05

  I felt like a fish out of water, really. Yeah, on a cultural point of view, but also on a class point of view. Because actually you have different people of color there from like different countries. Like you've got the kids of princes and kings and dignitaries and the zero point zero zero one percent of Pakistan or Nigeria, wherever they're there as well. But in terms of like black British, Pakistani British, like particularly in that in that time, it's like twenty something, you know, twenty years ago, twenty five years ago. I definitely felt like an outsider. And and in in many ways, it was a great kind of lesson for me for like the training ground for going into the film industry. Mm hmm. Where like, okay, your difference is also something that can, I don't know, that

• 12:58Speaker 05

  can empower you. I remember basically at Oxford, I I had been kind of like emceeing at raves and on pirate radio stations and stuff in London and the whole kind of grime scene was just exploding. Dizzy Ross was coming up, BBC Radio had just launched Music Station, Radio One Extra, and it was just whole, there was this whole energy around this kind of boom of UK rap and UK sound system culture going mainstream. And I was, I was felt like missing out on it. So I said, you know what? That doesn't exist in Oxford. Let me, let me try and start some of that. And so I started a club night that was like hip hop and drum and bass. And every week I was there on stage, you know, hosting and emceeing of the, of the drum and bass and stuff and got to like hone my craft. And it was a kind of reminder

• 13:41Speaker 05

  in a way that if you feel like you don't belong in a place, you can kind of like try and, I don't know, stretch, stretch the parameters of that environment, you know, to make space for you and others like you. That actually, that space might be hungry for that. Mm hmm. Or it might just need you to stick around in it rather than just be like, nah, I don't belong here and and and leaving. So it was, it was, I think it was a gift and a curse in many ways. It was, it was lonely at times. It was challenging. There was a lot of friction around like just be existing there, I felt. But it also drove me to kind of like, kind of, yeah, create a space for myself and people like me. And in many ways, I kind of continue trying to do that in in the film business.

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  Behind every original, live in Levi's.

• 16:40Speaker 00

  What was the first album that you purchased yourself?

• 16:45Speaker 05

  Um, I remember purchasing cassettes of singles.

• 16:49Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 16:49Speaker 05

  More than albums. Does that count? Do you definitely want an album?

• 16:52Speaker 00

  Well, no, no. What's your own money? Like, what's the first single you purchased?

• 16:56Speaker 05

  I remember, was it Jade, Don't Walk Away?

• 17:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:02Speaker 05

  Do you remember that?

• 17:02Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 17:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, I remember that. And then also it was, actually, the first album might have been Prince album. Was it Diamonds and Pearls? Was that an album? Was it a single?

• 17:14Speaker 00

  Ninety-one, Diamonds and Pearls, the album.

• 17:16Speaker 05

  I think it might have been that. And to be honest, I think I just, it was like, I was in Woolworths or whatever, and it was just like on sale and I like a cover. You know, I was like, it was cool. Um, but Jade was like intentional. I bought the cassette. I like accidentally put myself onto Prince. It was just like in the, in the like bargain bucket or whatever.

• 17:42Speaker 05

  Like, but that and Jade, um. It was that, but you know, but I remember I had, I had albums that I very much like kind of loved, but they would be gifted to me and that was Michael Jackson. That was Michael Jackson Bad.

• 17:56Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 17:57Speaker 05

  That was the one that I was just like, I kept rinsing it, but I didn't, I didn't buy that with my own money. Yeah.

• 18:03Speaker 00

  I got it.

• 18:03Speaker 05

  You remember what yours was?

• 18:05Speaker 00

  I mean, look, for years I've lied to the press and said like it was a Jackson Five record, but my first gifted record, yeah, my, mine was a Neil's, I liked Neil Sedaka's, um, Bad Blood because I like the way that the logo looked spinning on the forty five.

• 18:29Speaker 05

  This is me, this is me, I'm eating my diamonds and pearls, I just thought, that's cool. I mean, I like the colors, little purple and shiny, yeah.

• 18:37Speaker 00

  For me, I'll say that the first ten years of record collecting, like, was just based on if I like the way that the, the print of the logo looked on the turntable. And thus, I didn't like Capitol Records, so I was not into the Beatles until, actually until I moved to London, then I got into the Beatles, but, um, yeah, like.

• 18:59Speaker 05

  Wow, we're just buying books.

• 19:01Speaker 00

  No, no, no, I grew, yeah, well, yeah, I judge, I judge books based on, exactly. Um, it's funny you say that, cause, um, one of my favorite films, um, Edgar Wright's, uh, Shaun of the Dead. Is a brilliant Prince joke where I guess they're trying to fight off zombies and they ran out of weapons. So now they have to use records and um they're going through the entire alphabet and they get to the letter P and the guy's like, I can't waste my Prince records. And then even as their lives on the line, they're like judging Prince albums like, well, this album was shit. So let's use the Batman album and like, so hearing.

• 19:43Speaker 05

  Oh, the Batman album, the Batman album was at a special place in my heart because I was a kid when that came out. I what do you feel about that? I loved it, man.

• 19:53Speaker 00

  You know what?

• 19:53Speaker 05

  So weird and cool and like had this weird like acid kind of situation going on in it. And I just remember the hype around that Batman film coming out.

• 20:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:04Speaker 05

  As a kid and you just feel like biggest deal ever like bad dance.

• 20:09Speaker 00

  I.

• 20:09Speaker 05

  You know, I it just it was special to me at the time.

• 20:12Speaker 00

  As a long like longtime Prince fans kind of say that that's the beginning of the end. But I see that as a necessary album for him to have a longer career like Purple Rain sustained him for the eighties, but then he needed another platform album to sustain him for another decade. So from a term of effectiveness, I'll let it go. But as as a knowing what Prince is capable of in his canon, eh, we were kind of indifferent on it at the time, but I loved it only because the day after I graduated high school, my dad let me he he my dad was a world famous like

• 20:56Speaker 00

  music bin shopper. So basically that was like the last time he let me just go ape ape shit inside of a record store and buy whatever I wanted because I graduated high school. And so that album came out that day. So I still have like fond memories of that album, even though it's not in my top five Prince albums of all time, but you know.

• 21:18Speaker 05

  It just it just had a special place in my heart because of the memories, you know.

• 21:21Speaker 00

  Yeah. I can see that. What was the very first live show that you attended?

• 21:27Speaker 05

  Wow, that's a good, you know, I don't know if it was like, uh, the very first one I attended, but it was.

• 21:36Speaker 05

  I mean, the earliest ones I attended would have been like some Pakistani pop kind of bands and like Bollywood. There were a lot of like touring Bollywood shows. So I grew up in Wembley.

• 21:47Speaker 00

  Right.

• 21:47Speaker 05

  And so close to the arena and stuff like that. And so back in those days, how little the Bollywood stars would make money is they would go on world tours. Where they would perform the songs from the hits, the hit songs from the hit films.

• 21:59Speaker 00

  Right.

• 21:59Speaker 05

  So you had actors like Anand, Salman Khan, whatever. These guys would come to London and like do song and dance kind of things. Um, and I remember those for sure. Um, and going to like Pakistani pop. Things like Vital Signs and Janoon and these kind of, these kind of bands, you know, like nineties like. Pop and rock bands from Pakistan that would come and play like Wembley Conference Center or whatever, like, you know, the whole community would show up. It was like, it was a vibe. But, but really the first thing I thought, so I saw those technically before, but the answer that came to my mind. Either one of the most impactful was I think the ten year anniversary of Ninja Tune Records.

• 22:40Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 22:40Speaker 05

  Ninja Tune?

• 22:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:43Speaker 05

  Yeah. I think it was like a ten year anniversary or something of that. And, um, I went to that and Kid Koala was playing.

• 22:51Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 22:51Speaker 05

  Uh, and yeah, and, and I bumped into Talvin Singh over there. And Talvin Singh, who's like, you know, incredible, like doubler, electronic fusion kind of artists from, you know. Big part of that South Asian nineties kind of wave of music, him and Nithin Sorni and people like that, Asian Dub Foundation. I, I remember there was a cipher of, of teenagers that we were like freestyling on the staircase.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 23:17Speaker 05

  Right? And I remember Talvin Singh like.

• 23:21Speaker 05

  We stood there watching.

• 23:22Speaker 00

  Really?

• 23:23Speaker 05

  Saw me and he like, yeah, and he like complimented me. And I remember just feeling so gassed and I'm just so encouraged. Like that sustained me for five years, you know? That was like Talvin Singh thought I was doing something. You know, and he was like a cool guy in the underground at that point and everything.

• 23:42Speaker 00

  Have you ever stood back and seen him since or?

• 23:46Speaker 05

  You know, we we connected once, like, many, many years later, but not, not really, not particularly. Yeah, I don't know if he's listening, you know, shout out Talvin Singh, he's like a real innovator.

• 23:57Speaker 00

  There you go. Shout out to Talvin Singh. Who are your North Star? Well, I would ask for five. Who are your five North Star MCs?

• 24:10Speaker 05

  Is it just MCs?

• 24:12Speaker 00

  Well, I meant for you.

• 24:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, okay.

• 24:16Speaker 00

  Just as a lyricist, like, who are your North Stars?

• 24:19Speaker 05

  I feel like it's changed a lot. I feel like before I was just all about kind of lyricism and, and you know, you know, as a teenager, I was just all about kind of Common and Most Def and Talib Kweli and, you know, the whole Rokas kind of camp and all of those guys.

• 24:36Speaker 00

  Right.

• 24:36Speaker 05

  And to this day, I think Most Def is like up there for me, but I think it's changed now because it's it's more about the range and the versatility of these artists. And how they kind of they bend genre, that's really interesting to me now. So, uh, whereas I would never have said this before, I think now one of them is probably Mike Skinner from the streets.

• 24:54Speaker 00

  The streets.

• 24:55Speaker 05

  You know what I mean?

• 24:56Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 24:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, I would say Mike Skinner is up there. I would say M I A is up there.

• 25:02Speaker 00

  Uh.

• 25:02Speaker 05

  You know, I'm interested more now more than ever in genre bending. I guess you could call them MCs, who are kind of like bending the form to their style. I still say Most Def. I I mean, you know, honestly, I'm a, I'm just a huge, huge Kendrick fan, again because of the range of what he does and how he he bends as well. And I think, I don't know, someone who I who I just really, really love and rate that's like kind of more contemporary to right now is Jay Huss out of the UK.

• 25:33Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 25:33Speaker 05

  So, yeah, that's not, that's not necessarily my all time top five, but off the top of my head, I mean, I think those are some MCs I'm just always kind of think of. They're just themselves, do you know what I mean? I think that's the thing that I rate more than anything now, is someone who sounds like no one else, someone who's like, that could only be reversed by them. You know, it's just immediately distinctive in that way and the way the O D B was. I think more than anything, I'm inspired by people who are unapologetically themselves and doing something different. Um, whereas before it was all about li- li- just lyricism and I was.

• 26:08Speaker 00

  Skill.

• 26:09Speaker 05

  Junkie.

• 26:10Speaker 00

  Right.

• 26:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, just a, just full, just like technical craft, you know what I mean?

• 26:13Speaker 00

  Right.

• 26:14Speaker 05

  That's why I was a big rim junkie. I think it's a different skill to be like purely yourself.

• 26:19Speaker 00

  Yourself.

• 26:19Speaker 05

  To like fuck this. Yeah.

• 26:21Speaker 00

  I feel you. For you, what was the?

• 26:24Speaker 05

  For a second, can I just pause for a second and say, I'm talking to Questlove. I can't move on from that question without asking you the same question.

• 26:32Speaker 00

  Me?

• 26:33Speaker 05

  I really, um, have you got an all time top five?

• 26:37Speaker 00

  Well, you just reminded me, I totally forgot when, like, my period in London was between, like, ninety-three and I think we gave up our flat. Ninety-seven, ninety-eight in Kennestown and, um, but coming back, I definitely remembered, I think we did some shows with the streets. You reminded me how much I used to listen, uh, to his first record, his first few records. I like weird M C's, you know? Like, I dig.

• 27:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:09Speaker 00

  And I'll cha- yeah, of course, like, I know that I have a world-class athlete in my own band. Which I think because T- Tariq is so technically proficient as an M C. I'll tend to champion those that might not ever wind up on anyone's, like, top ten list, even though I think, you know, I still. Early Cool Keith, Edon, Cool Keith, uh, Paul Barman, Pasta Nuis of De La Soul. You know, of course, like Doom, like, just anyone that's, like, super weird, like, that's who I'll tend to. Right now, I'm going through like my my my doom phase again. So I go I'll go through stages.

• 27:53Speaker 05

  But you know what's really interesting about Doom is that he's right in the middle of that Venn diagram of weird emcees and like technical masters that like just really headsy lyrically oriented fans would always also turn to. It's interesting, you know, I can't move on without talking about Black Thought for a minute because I think in that period when I was most just like purely listening to rap. I think, you know, in most, it would have been Black Thought. And and I actually got to tell you that that Things Fall Apart album was just a life changing album for me, man. It was life changing on so many levels, um.

• 28:24Speaker 00

  My thank you.

• 28:24Speaker 05

  In particular, like, yeah, just define a certain period of time in my life and. And I tell you something that I was just really gassed off and so many people in London were so gassed off is I'm sure you've heard this. The drum and bass lick at the end, the drum and bass break, the end of.

• 28:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, worry about me, you know what I mean? Yeah, and so at the end, when it just drops into drum, and it only does it for like twenty seconds or whatever. But I just felt, I don't know, I said, you know, that was the that was like mid nineties, right? So it's like the heyday of jungle and drum and bass, I'm going to this. And it just brought it together in a way that was just, I don't know, man, it just felt like I felt seen. I feel like it it made that track even more beloved in the UK. That it just went into that double time drum and bass thing at the end of that track. But yeah, I mean, that's that's probably one of the first that and I think the mystery of chessboxing were the first two things that I like learned off by heart, you know what I mean?

• 29:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know, my, I've I've told the story before of, um. You know, I was I was fortunate enough to to kind of be there at the very beginning of when like Junglelist and Drum and Bass were like starting to be a thing. And when we decided to move to London, uh, for real, for real, the first thing we did was we went to a nightclub. And they started playing Anita Baker and we were like laughing at London like, oh, my God, why are they listening to like slow jams? Why are they playing Sweet Love in the in the in the nightclub? And then when that hook came in.

• 29:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:58Speaker 00

  Yo, I was scared for my, like, we, I wish.

• 30:03Speaker 05

  Why did you guys meet in London? Why did you meet in London? You guys just wanted to change it, taking some new influences.

• 30:10Speaker 00

  You know, it's weird. Okay, so we, we had spent two years in this massive bidding war. We got the, the record deal of our dreams. And then the album was finished and then we realized that the label, not only did the label, who, who just started a black division, we were on Geffen Records, that they weren't prepared to really promote us, but then on top of that, you know, ninety-three was kind of like a, a shifting year for creativity and black music, of which we got by because suddenly it was a novelty being a band. Like, we were one of la- when we got first got signed, I think seven

• 30:51Speaker 00

  black bands still had a record deal, whereas, you know, in the seventies, there were thousands, you know what I mean? So, we, we just decided the very last minute, we had to do what Jimi Hendrix did, so. The second we finished our album, we met Giles Peterson, we fa- um, we booked a week at the Jazz Cafe. And then with the money we made from that, we just got a flat uh, in Kennistown and just never came back home. We decided to make London our hub. And then we just worked Europe literally for four years and eventually the label was like, all right, you guys gotta come back home and like, be for real. So for things fall apart, we finally came back to America, but

• 31:35Speaker 00

  for the most part, like, I don't, I don't think we would have made a, a dent had we just relied on

• 31:43Speaker 00

  whatever buzz we were gonna get in America. Like, we felt we had to go to London, to the world, and then come back home newly, newly improved and, you know.

• 31:54Speaker 05

  As beautiful. I love that. I love that. Yeah. And it's so, it's so kind of amazing to see more of that cross pollination between, you know, music coming out of London and in the UK and the US and see the moment that the UK rap is also happening as well over there. Just out of interest, would you say You Got Me is still like the most played and like beloved?

• 32:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's our, that's our most popular. And I literally did it like when we left London and, you know, came back home to start recording, I knew that like the last project I worked on that was like London based, I did something with Ronnie Size and, you know, I was just like, yo, man, I want to, I want to do something that, you know, gives us a tip of the hat or a nod to where we came from. Like, I thought jungle was going to be like the biggest thing ever. So I was just like, I want to come out the gate before like America catches on and America didn't.

• 32:56Speaker 00

  However, I do believe now that we're flirting with like Jersey house, especially where like where Lil Uzi Vert is going and like these artists that are using Jersey house music and the speed of it. I, I think maybe now we might be ready for it because at least where we are as far as where the country is, even though we're trying to remain zen and calm through this ordeal that we're going through, I almost feel as though the soundtrack to Jungle is like, this is the time to unleash it, like that feeling of urgency in the air. So, yeah, man,

• 33:37Speaker 00

  I just wanted to do it just as a, as a tip of the hat to the place where we came from.

• 33:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, ran that deep. I thought maybe you guys were just playing around with different drum breaks, but it's so beautiful to know that it came from being steeped in that and around that. Yeah, I mean, jungle music is like, you know, a very particular, very UK thing. And I think it caught on a lot more in Canada and Toronto in particular because the kind of Caribbean kind of connection. So obviously so much of UK black music comes out of that connection to like dance or Caribbean music and how that blends with like electronic music. But but of course, there's always been that bridge. Like if you think of garage, garage came out of like what's called garage because of paradise garage, right? And it was like you US H and G as they used to call it H and G was house and garage. That was American stuff.

• 34:25Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 34:25Speaker 05

  And and there were your two step carriage which were called UK garage, right? And then that was just, you know, slightly different. But to this day, I would say that Gabriel, that the Roy Davis Junior, Pevon Everett song is is at least for my generation, a lot of people's number one track, you know, of all time, like that's the kind of redemption song or whatever of garage heads. Do you know what I mean? Is is it's a US track is Roy Davis Junior and Pevon Everett? So um yeah, I'm glad to see that kind of like that dance floor kind of cross pollination more.

• 34:56Speaker 00

  It's funny you mentioned him because one of my favorite songs of his that I spin is there's a jazzy tune that he did called You Get Me, which it it it's more of a two step uh production. But um yeah, that's that's a song that I think is falling under people's radar. And I feel as though that song's waiting to be discovered.

• 35:22Speaker 05

  So is this a Roy Davis Junior's track or a Pevon Everett track?

• 35:24Speaker 00

  Pevon Everett.

• 35:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:26Speaker 00

  You got yeah.

• 35:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, he's kind of like, he's he's he's so incredible and so talented and and from what I understand, it's like, you know, that there was like a whole crazy backstory around that track. And yeah.

• 35:41Speaker 00

  I gotta talk to him one day and find out about him. I finally connected with him like thing like two or three years ago, finally got to meet him and give him his uh his flowers.

• 35:55Speaker 07

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• 37:13Speaker 00

  Behind every chart-topping hit, you know by heart there's an original. Writing it someplace where nobody was listening. Some basement. Some bedroom. Somebody with headphones on at 3:00 in the morning chasing a thing they couldn't even name yet. Behind the culture that marks a generation, there's an original. Already moving. Already shaking things up. Already looping that one bar. Already off-tempo. On purpose, because on purpose was the point. Behind every night that changed the room, somebody had to walk in first. Not knowing it would land, but doing it anyway. Originals are out there. Living stories worth telling. What's yours?

• 37:58Speaker 00

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• 38:08Speaker 00

  I always wanted to know, so what is the one lesson in life that you had to learn the hard way?

• 38:16Speaker 05

  So many, man, but I think, I think like, I'm trying to find a way of saying this that doesn't sound super basic, but I'm gonna say it.

• 38:28Speaker 00

  Just come with it.

• 38:30Speaker 05

  It's about kind of like not of like, just, just, just not, the power of not performing. And what I mean by that is I grew up code switching a lot, you know, I grew up in a certain kind of that was not privileged, but um, you know, it was, it wasn't like crazy intense or violent or anything, which was not privileged. And I've got a government scholarship to a private school. So there was like this class code switching. I came from an immigrant Pakistani background and household, but I was in Britain and there was that code switching. And it was the nineties, we said, and it was like the, you know, this explosion of South Asian British culture and, you know, garage and drum and bass. And there was that. And I

• 39:14Speaker 05

  had all these different identities. And I feel like for so much of my life, I had been code switching, so much so that when I was starting out, both as a professional actor and MC, I was really eager to keep those two things different, just kind of some kind of just like instinctive compartmentalizing I would do. And I think, I feel like I'm almost making up a lost time now of just really bringing together those supposedly contradictory parts of myself in the things that I'm making and bringing together the music with the film, bringing together the, just those unapologetic sides that I would sometimes instinctively like edit. And it sounds like a kind of pretty basic lesson to learn, but even when I thought I was being unapologetically myself, I was still kind of like shifting gears instinctively,

• 39:58Speaker 05

  you know. And I want to kind of like come into the room with all of my mess and just be like, yeah, this is my mess. This is it, is all of it. And I think that's something that has just helped.

• 40:11Speaker 05

  Me feel more um calm and in touch with who I am, you know?

• 40:18Speaker 00

  Got you.

• 40:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, so like with a show like Bait that we made, you know, bringing a soundtrack together around that and and and having tracks on there myself and bringing some of my favorite artists from around the world onto that or with the long goodbye, the short film, you know, just kind of blending almost like soliloquies and spoken word with like that action thriller kind of um film language and and just trying to kind of put it all in one pot. And I think that's what I like, you know, I have that kind of eclectic taste and I have those different sides of myself and I want to kind of express it all and not kind of um hold different parts of myself back.

• 40:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, so you have to build your own platform so that you can express all the facets of yourself.

• 41:05Speaker 05

  Thank you. Very succinctly put, yeah.

• 41:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, the it's understandable. Um, you once said that you'd rather be broke than to be typecast. Now, looking back, what was the hardest, what was the hardest no you had ever had to say? And, you know, I know how integrity and personal code is to manage in an industry in which, you know, minorities are constantly having to jump hurdles and code switch. Um, but like for you, what was one of the no's that you had to to give that would have been like either lucrative for you or?

• 41:47Speaker 05

  I mean, I um, I guess I'm just wondering if I should say it. Um, but like, there's uh, there's, you know, I mean, I don't want to say that, oh, yeah, I passed.

• 41:58Speaker 00

  You don't have to name, you don't have to say the movie or whatever. I mean.

• 42:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, I, when I came off the back of The Night Of.

• 42:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:06Speaker 05

  Um, I was offered a big lead role in a big TV series on Netflix, playing a lead role as like an actiony kind of thriller thing. And it went on to be a huge, huge, huge hit and it was very successful. And, um, you know, I think it probably would have done a lot for me coming straight off The Night Of into something like that and and. Couldn't do it. It wasn't even so much about the role that I was playing in terms of typecasting. It was definitely for me, kind of like, would have been a great look. It was just that the basic storyline was was about terrorism and it was very stereotypical and its portrayal of Muslim characters. And even if I would get to transcend that stereotype and I would get to play that, you know,

• 42:47Speaker 05

  just kind of like lead guy role and and be unshackled by that. I saw what it was doing to everyone else around me in the story and I just do it. And sometimes I can look back, I was like, man, that would have, you know, that would have been a great look. But if you, the overall arc of my my journey, I'm I'm very pleased that I didn't do it. Because to me, like, having a career is not an end in itself, like telling stories. It's kind of not an end in itself. It's about what you're saying with it. It's about how you're trying to push culture and try and challenge people, challenge yourself, you know, and like, dropping, falling back on some of the lazy narratives for me is is like, that's the opposite of what I want to be doing with my time.

• 43:32Speaker 00

  Are you given agency to have a conversation with the screenwriter or the director and or the producer that, look, I'd like to adjust some things in this character or give him more of a soul?

• 43:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, of course, I've done that loads, but I mean, I I just think like, sometimes it's baked into the story. You're not going to change a thing, like, do you know what I mean? If it's, that is, it's not like icing on the cake. It is the cake sometimes.

• 43:57Speaker 00

  Got it. Okay, so Bait is a a series that draws some parallels. Frankly, that, you know, that we're living in right now as far as, like, you know, xenophobia and anti-immigration views. But when when did the idea start to crystallize as far as you developing this?

• 44:20Speaker 05

  Well, it crystallized quite late on, but I'd been scribbling down kind of ideas and anecdotes for about, since about twenty fourteen. Basically, what started happening, started to become more well-known in America. And kind of there was this widening gap between my public and private self. You know, it's that, I don't know, the same week that it got announced I was in Star Wars was the same week I got banned from my local Tesco supermarket for suspected shoplifting. Just because I was like wearing bizarre clothes, my washing machine had broken, I was dragging around a massive laundry bag full of dirty clothes. They thought like, who is this guy? Is he like unhoused? Like, what, you know, whatever. It was the whole thing was just, it was just like.

• 45:00Speaker 05

  You know, people think as soon as, people think you're gonna be on a yacht with Han Solo, but it's like, you still go to your laundry, washing machine still breaks.

• 45:07Speaker 00

  You're still human.

• 45:08Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, yeah. And so that gap between your public and private self started creating more stressful and kind of slightly hilarious situations. And I just kept starting making a note of them and I, and I knew I wanted to make something about that. And um, someone once told me that gap between your public and private self is how much shame you carry.

• 45:27Speaker 00

  Right.

• 45:29Speaker 05

  And, and I knew I wanted to make a, a kind of subversive comedy within that playground of shame. And, and, and so I, I started drawing from all these very, very specific and personal things and so many things in the show. I mean, I remember in, in the end of, you're talking about Kenish Town, right? At the end of episode one, my character has a panic attack at Kenish Town Forum.

• 45:51Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 45:52Speaker 05

  That hap- that happened to me when I was booed offstage supporting Wu-Tang Clan.

• 45:58Speaker 00

  What?

• 45:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. Wu, Wu-Tang were like two and a half hours late. So when I, someone finally came out on stage, you know, I came out and was like, yeah, that's not method, man.

• 46:07Speaker 00

  Oh, you got, oh no, that's unfortunate.

• 46:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, but I stayed, I stayed the course and uh just did an acapella and I knew they would be kind of a more lyrically oriented crowd and you know, the booze turned to cheers. Shorter set, I've ever done, two minutes, turn the booze around to some cheers and.

• 46:23Speaker 00

  And got out of it.

• 46:25Speaker 05

  Thank you very much. That was me. Yeah, two minute acapella. Thank you. Um, and uh, and so there's so many things like, you know, my character gets jumped as a kid in a park in, in Wembley. That was the park behind my parents' house, you know, it's a sweet shop they go to to get sweets on Eve. We'd go there like it's even being approached by MI5 to spy for them. That's happened to me like three times since I've become an actor.

• 46:47Speaker 00

  I was gonna ask you, cause you mentioned that, have you ever unfortunately had to name drop who you are? In terms of getting out of a situation that if you weren't who you were, it would have gone downhill?

• 47:05Speaker 05

  This, this is what I'm talking about is the opposite. They approached me because I was a, uh, an actor that was increasingly well known. When, when the security services were approaching me, they were like, you, you're an actor with a profile, you're Muslim, can you, can you spy for us? Can like, can we talk to you? Can you help us with messaging? What's going on? So and I just kind of shut the door to, to that, you know? But this, this is why it's depicted in the show.

• 47:26Speaker 00

  Right.

• 47:26Speaker 05

  Um, this happens several times, but what, um, in terms of name dropping, I'm not, it wasn't that, but I had a weird thing happen actually once at the airport in America, it was in Canada. Canadian border.

• 47:39Speaker 00

  Next to Heathrow, yes.

• 47:41Speaker 05

  They're the most intense.

• 47:43Speaker 00

  Heathrow in Canada are.

• 47:45Speaker 05

  Can I tell you what else is, Canada is intense and Miami is intense. Miami, the Cuban, uh, staff there were like super like, you know, patriot, like there's a whole thing there.

• 47:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:57Speaker 05

  Um.

• 47:57Speaker 00

  It's ass backwards.

• 47:59Speaker 05

  I went to this thing where I was getting pulled aside in Canada or something and they were keeping it for a long time. And this guy called me up and he goes, finally after ages waiting and being rude, he goes, I need you to talk to someone. And I took the phone from him and it was a woman and she goes. Can I tell you at home, we have a lightsaber pizza cutter.

• 48:20Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 48:22Speaker 05

  Such fans.

• 48:23Speaker 00

  What?

• 48:25Speaker 05

  I was like, OK, and he took the phone back and he goes, it's my wife. And I was like, OK, and he starts nodding and filling in the paperwork. He goes, OK, now you've done that and performed for me in some way like you can bounce. And then I go, is your wife? Yeah, he goes, yeah, she's over there. And he points down the desk and like five kiosks down is his wife is also a border patrol person at the desk. She's like, me, me, me. I was like, this is so surreal. So it probably did help. It got me out of some situations and I didn't get stopped as much after that. But it was like a decade where coming to the US was like three and a half hours, you know?

• 49:03Speaker 00

  I apologize. It, it, trust me, it, it, it got different. Once I turned forty five and suddenly people my age were the border patrol people.

• 49:15Speaker 00

  But even then, I knew I had to look like Questlove. So I had to wear a Lego heart and have my Afro pick out and, you know, and.

• 49:25Speaker 05

  You start performing your public self. Yeah, that's what bait is about, really. It's about that, you know?

• 49:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:31Speaker 05

  Trying to be what people expect you to be.

• 49:32Speaker 00

  You made this for me.

• 49:34Speaker 05

  You're wearing like a.

• 49:36Speaker 00

  So let me ask, so Shakespeare has been a passion of yours since your teens. And this year you're in Hamlet. So what about the classics, especially for this one attracted you to this role? And in this particular interpretation of it, like, what was the journey that it took to get here?

• 49:59Speaker 05

  You know, it was a long journey, as you said, like when I was a teenager, I felt like Shakespeare was the exact thing that I was. Epitomized everything that I was on the outside of, right? It's like this stuffy British establishment thing. And I had an amazing teacher, a white Jewish guy from Wolverhampton who happened to speak fluent Punjabi.

• 50:21Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 50:22Speaker 05

  He took me under his wing, he gave me the plane, he said, you feel like an outsider. Well, actually, sort of the characters, the heart of these plays, sort of this guy Hamlet, you know, it's the most famous, most revered Shakespeare plays, the heart of all this stuffiness you feel like doesn't belong to you, check it out, he feels how you feel. And like so many teenagers and so many people of all ages around the world, like I I s- I saw what this guy's feeling, and I think it's actually how a lot of us are feeling right now.

• 50:46Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 50:46Speaker 05

  Which is like, is the world going crazy or have I lost my mind? You know, that's the central kind of thread in a way in in in Hamlet. And and that feeling is something I latched on to and I felt to different degrees throughout my life. And I think we all feel that way right now. And and so I just really connected with it emotionally. I created, connected with the language, the rhythm, the flow, the percussion of it. It reminded me of rap music in that way. But but also a thing that really kind of struck me was that this quintessentially British play felt like this is the brownest thing I've ever read. This is like growing up in Wembley. This is about um family duty, honour, love, uh uh kind of being of uh,

• 51:30Speaker 05

  you know, who you can and can't marry being a family decision, you know, spirits in the afterlife feeling like they're part of people's lived experience. It just felt like very, very uh relatable to me, coming from an immigrant community. Um, you know, a lot of these old classics feel more relevant and more real almost set in some of these kind of cultures now. So, yeah, I it all of those things kind of blew me away and it changed how how I saw myself in relation to the culture. And I I thought I wanted to, I want to make a film of Hamlet, like when I was seventeen, I remember thinking that, I was like, I wanna. You know, yeah, kind of blow it open and and create a version that like a lot of people can see themselves in.

• 52:13Speaker 00

  Got it. Right now, what is your relationship with making music?

• 52:17Speaker 05

  I just put out a track two days ago. It's my first track in about four and a half years. It's with Cass's Dead. You know Cass, the UK rapper?

• 52:25Speaker 00

  I've heard, but not not overly familiar.

• 52:28Speaker 05

  He's amazing, man. You go, you go check his stuff out. He's like a cult kind of figure.

• 52:33Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 52:33Speaker 05

  UK. So, yeah, we've got the bait as a soundtrack and I've got a couple of tracks on there. So I exec produced the soundtrack. Georgia Smith is doing the lead song on it.

• 52:44Speaker 00

  Ah, damn.

• 52:45Speaker 05

  I'm sure you know.

• 52:45Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 52:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, because because it's a Bond themed TV show, right? So we needed a Bond song. So Georgia is doing a Bond song. It's a timeless, full blown Bond song. It's like incredible.

• 52:56Speaker 00

  She's doing her Shirley Bassey thing?

• 52:59Speaker 05

  She's doing that full blown, yeah.

• 53:01Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 53:01Speaker 05

  And then, and so I just dropped this track with Cass's Dead called We Good. It's just dropped two days ago and that's also on the bait soundtrack.

• 53:09Speaker 00

  Okay. My second to last is how has fatherhood changed you?

• 53:13Speaker 05

  It's made me a lot more tired.

• 53:20Speaker 00

  Just the look on your face right now is telling me.

• 53:23Speaker 05

  You know, see how it's changed you both? Like, uh, I mean, you just, you just have less time to like fuck around with stuff that you can't be bothered to do. You just don't have the time. You just, you just start to strip back to the essentials. Like, what do you really care about? Who do you really care about? It's just that, you know? And if you're gonna kill yourself making a TV show over like 10 years or a movie over 15 years, you better really care about it. And that's what I'm proud to say. Like, these two things that are out at the same time, they're very different, but I'm deeply passionate about what they have to say and putting them out there in the world. And I, yeah, I hope people can feel that when they experience it.

• 54:01Speaker 00

  Well, my final question is food related, though. Uh, what is, what is your local food, uh, heaven destination spot?

• 54:10Speaker 05

  Local food heaven destination spot?

• 54:12Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 54:13Speaker 05

  I'm gonna shout out Nidu's Grill. Nidu's is classic East London curry house. And it features heavily in episode four of Bait. It is like, every episode of Bait is like, almost takes place in a different genre. And episode four is like, a Richard Linklater walk and talk. And it's a walk and talk through immigrant East London, rather than like touristic Paris, right? And so it starts in Nidu's Grill. And it's in Nidu's and it's just banging biryani and halim and nihari. And my mouth is watering even talking about it, but, um, yeah, shout out Nidu's, man. It's just one of my faves.

• 54:49Speaker 00

  Well, Riz, I thank you for, uh, doing, uh, this, uh, I appreciate your artistry, man. And, you know, hopefully we can have a longer conversation about your, cause I, I have a billion questions about Sound of Metal. But I really admire you as, uh, everything that you've done in music and in film and, and your artistry, man. And, uh,

• 55:10Speaker 05

  Thank you so much, brother. Likewise, man, you know, your music and what you, what you've created is, is, has been a, uh, has inspired me for years and years, man. And what you're doing now is, is doing the same thing. So thank you, bro.

• 55:22Speaker 00

  Appreciate it. Riz Ahmed on The Questlove Show, and, uh, we'll see you guys next go around. Thank you.

• 55:36Speaker 00

  Questlove Show is hosted by me, Amir Questlove Thompson. The executive producers are Sean G., Brian Calhoun, and me. Produced by Brittany Benjamin and Jake Payne. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown. Edited by Alex Conroy. iHeart video support by Mark Canton.

• 56:00Speaker 00

  Logos, graphics and animation by Nick Aloue. Additional support by Lance Coleman. Special thanks to Kathy Braun. Special thanks to Sugar Steve Mandel.

• 56:14Speaker 00

  Please subscribe, rate, review, and share The Questlove Show wherever you stream your podcasts. And make sure you follow us on socials. That's at Q L S.

• 56:26Speaker 00

  Check out hundreds and hundreds of Q L S episodes, including The Questlove Supreme Shows in our podcast archives.

• 56:34Speaker 00

  Questlove Show is a production of iHeart Radio.

• 56:48Speaker 00

  Behind every chart topping hit, you know by heart there's an original, writing it someplace where nobody was listening. Behind the culture that marks a generation, there's an original, already moving, already shaking things up. Behind every night that changed the room, somebody had to walk in first, not knowing it would land, but doing it anyway. Originals are out there, living stories worth telling. What's yours? Behind every original, live in Levi's.

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  Hey, I'm Niall Rogers. This fall, I'll be driving across the country, meeting some of today's coolest and most fascinating artists. We'll explore the stories before the moments that changed everything. Because every musician remembers the moment where it all began. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln Original Series on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 59:03Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.