Eric Benét

Questlove sits down with R&B icon Eric Benét for a deeply human, wildly musical conversation tracing the singer’s journey from Milwaukee family harmonies to gold plaques and Grammy nominations. Benét opens up about early sonic imprints like Burt Bacharach, Dionne Warwick, and “Wichita Lineman,” his Alabama and Mobile roots, and how discovering Questlove’s own lineage story reshaped the way he thinks about ancestry, Haiti, and spirituality. The two dig into Prince vs. Michael Jackson, a legendary James Brown clip, and what it really meant to grow up in Milwaukee during the Jeffrey Dahmer years. Benét breaks down his path from band life to major labels, the making and shelving of Better and Better, how David Foster and Dean Parks helped shape Hurricane, and why songs like “Spend My Life With You” and “Sometimes I Cry” never get old on stage. Along the way, the longtime friends talk vocal maintenance, the emotional cost of fame, the rise of Neo-Soul, and what Benét would tell his 16-year-old self. Benét's latest single, "Who's Gonna Save Us," is newly available now. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Questlove?

  This is an iHeart Podcast.

• 0:03Questlove?

  Guaranteed Human.

• 0:05Speaker 01

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• 0:19Speaker 02

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• 0:35Speaker 03

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• 1:05Speaker 04

  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.

• 1:37Questlove?

  The Questlove Show is a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:58Questlove?

  Are we rolling?

• 1:59Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 2:00Questlove?

  All right. Ladies and gentlemen, this is The Questlove Show. I'm Questlove. I will say that in my opinion, our guest today doesn't just make records, he makes a mood. He makes a mood. He, in my opinion, is probably the last, one of the last purveyors of what we call grown folk soul. You know, I know titles are horrible, but I'll get to the-

• 2:26Speaker 05

  Hey, that's how we categorize things.

• 2:28Questlove?

  There you go. But I will say that his work is forever. And I promise you, the thing is, is if one of your compositions, like when I say your work is forever, I statistically mean that like, maybe in the last 20 years, 40% of any nuptials given, I promise you that our guest today, that his compositions-

• 2:55Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:56Questlove?

  -live in that. Well, here's the other thing, like, because of the cold state of hip hop and the whole emotionless armor that we have on us.

• 3:06Questlove?

  I'll say that our guest also has a canon that is rich and deep for heartbreak songs when you need it. Whenever I'm asked to make Valentine's Day playlists, there's two lists I have to make. I have to make the regular love stuff, but my most popular playlist are the heartbreak playlists, of which-

• 3:30Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 3:31Questlove?

  -a lot of your compositions live in that. A singer singer, a songwriter songwriter. I will say, of course, proud father, loving husband. And I believe I am catching our guest in what promises to hopefully be his greatest phase, which is my favorite of his, which is the zero fucks given phase of his life. So, let's have it. Welcome to the show. Eric Benet.

• 3:59Speaker 05

  My brethren.

• 4:00Questlove?

  Yes, sir.

• 4:01Speaker 05

  First of all, that introduction coming from you, because we go back. I remember, thank you for that. There were so many like nuggets way back then where it was like, okay, Amir is gonna be the one to win an Oscar for filmmaking. Amir is gonna be the one who is just gonna be the owner of-

• 4:21Questlove?

  The burden of music historian.

• 4:23Speaker 05

  The burden of music historian. Like, I remember there is a very, very famous, now it's viral, now everybody's seen it. But the first time I saw it, we were up in the studio. Like, we go back, we go back to Jazzy Fat Nasty's, Rich Nichols, all that, right? And this was-

• 4:40Questlove?

  2000.

• 4:41Speaker 05

  It was before-

• 4:42Questlove?

  1990, yeah, 1990 something.

• 4:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, maybe it was in 99. I don't even know, I guess it was YouTube, I guess, but was YouTube big back then?

• 4:51Questlove?

  Not yet. YouTube was a 2006 thing.

• 4:54Speaker 05

  I remember Amir going, no, y'all gotta see this. Come here, come see this.

• 4:57Questlove?

  Okay.

• 4:58Speaker 05

  You know what I'm talking about.

• 4:58Questlove?

  I was YouTube. Yes, so my, before YouTube was a thing, my primary job, even when people ask me about like the voodoo period,

• 5:08Speaker 05

  Right.

• 5:09Questlove?

  My primary job was to walk around with two giant Kipling duffel bags.

• 5:16Speaker 05

  Okay, this explains so fucking much right now, which I didn't know. Oh, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.

• 5:22Questlove?

  Yeah, but I mean, basically, I went to Japan, the first time The Roots went to Japan in 96.

• 5:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:28Questlove?

  Our translator-

• 5:29Speaker 05

  And Japanese people are just voracious for like any information.

• 5:35Questlove?

  Which also means that American culture is very disposable.

• 5:38Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 5:39Questlove?

  You could be on here and then like, oh, yesterday's news.

• 5:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:42Questlove?

  So, the point is that, yeah, when I first went to Japan, my translator was like, you have an Afro like Don Cornelius. And I was like, haha, what do you know about Don Cornelius? They're like, we love Soul Train. I was like, you know what Soul Train is? And she says, I have all the episodes at my house. And I never left that woman's house. Literally, I, I mean, I had, we had the top like four seasons best, no.

• 6:06Speaker 05

  Hundred percent.

• 6:07Questlove?

  I'm sleeping in this woman's, like, her version of The Project. Her and her mother in a small matchbox. And she had about 40 episodes of Soul Train.

• 6:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 6:16Questlove?

  And two VCRs.

• 6:17Speaker 05

  Hundred percent.

• 6:18Questlove?

  I recorded every episode and I came back to America like manna from heaven. And my job between 97, really 2003 was just to, anywhere I went, it was Amir, bring the tapes.

• 6:33Speaker 05

  That explained, because I couldn't understand, like, it's probably difficult for this generation to understand because readily video information wasn't that so available. So, we're in the studio and you're bringing out tapes and shit. And I'm like, where's this nigga getting all this stuff?

• 6:51Questlove?

  Right.

• 6:52Speaker 05

  And then the second thing is, like, you go, you gotta see this, you gotta see this. And he's like, you gotta see the time that James Brown was performing. And, and, and he spots Michael in the audience.

• 7:06Questlove?

  Right.

• 7:06Speaker 05

  Now, this is the first time I and everybody in the room, now you can see, it's probably got a gazillion and 50 views now on YouTube. And, and you are, not only were we watching the video, but you were curating the whole thing.

• 7:20Questlove?

  When I tell you, every storyteller has the little boy that cried wolf story-

• 7:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 7:28Questlove?

  That no one believes.

• 7:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:30Questlove?

  And the amount of times, and I, you know, when you realize you have a kick me sign on your back?

• 7:36Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 7:37Questlove?

  Like, and you see people looking at each other and you're like, okay, obviously I'm not, something's happening here.

• 7:43Speaker 05

  Something's going on I'm not in on.

• 7:44Questlove?

  And I promise you, between 96 and 98, so Prince first told me this story. You know, it was a point where like, it was like a new diplomatic happy Prince. Like, we're not used to this person. Why is he being so nice to us? And I asked him, like, we, it was me, D'Angelo and him, we were at Tramps, if you remember Tramps nightclub. We just did a jam session. And he was speaking complete sentences, like, not the, not the grasshopper. Like, you know, like, the martial arts, the way he would-

• 8:22Speaker 05

  He was being for the better part of a regular dude hanging out.

• 8:25Questlove?

  It was the most regular he was, and at the end of the night, I was like, I said, pardon me for asking, but I think I asked him, why are you so nice to us? Right?

• 8:36Questlove?

  Which he could have, he could have felt some way about that, like as opposed to, I said, man, thanks for taking my time out to, to really talk to us.

• 8:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:44Questlove?

  And it was a real human conversation.

• 8:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It wasn't.

• 8:46Questlove?

  Not him trying to, you know, preach about Jehovah or whatever, like his Prince 101 thing.

• 8:51Speaker 05

  Right.

• 8:52Questlove?

  And I said, what brought this turnaround that you're like so open?

• 8:56Speaker 05

  First of all, kudos to you for just like asking that question.

• 9:00Questlove?

  I was shocked because I didn't know that he knew complete sentences or, or jokes. I didn't know what his teeth looked like.

• 9:07Speaker 05

  Right.

• 9:07Questlove?

  Like he laughed and everything. I was like, oh, Prince has weird teeth. Like, well, because he's never smiled before.

• 9:13Speaker 05

  Right, right, right.

• 9:13Questlove?

  You know what I mean? Like, you've never seen Prince, like, you know?

• 9:16Speaker 05

  No.

• 9:16Questlove?

  And so, um, he tells this story. He's like, you know, long ago.

• 9:22Speaker 05

  Wait, wait. Set me up. Was this before you seen the video?

• 9:26Questlove?

  I'd never, this is the first time I'm hearing of.

• 9:28Speaker 05

  Wow. Okay. And what year was this?

• 9:29Questlove?

  This is 96.

• 9:31Speaker 05

  Okay, okay.

• 9:31Questlove?

  Right after emancipation just came out.

• 9:33Speaker 05

  Dig it. And you've never seen it before. Oh, go ahead.

• 9:35Questlove?

  So he's at, uh, out in Long Island. What's the outdoor spaces now that Tommy Hilfiger? Yeah, Jones Beach. He did a show Jones Beach. And of course, he does this whole, we're coming to a, a club and, you know,

• 9:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:46Questlove?

  Have a club with 12 people in it, with a full club.

• 9:48Speaker 05

  And do a whole.

• 9:49Questlove?

  Right, an entire concert.

• 9:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 9:51Questlove?

  So he's like, all right, get your instruments. We're gonna play. We play. And he tells a story of once have how like, you know, James Brown was his hero.

• 10:01Speaker 05

  I can't wait to hear his version from his side of the story.

• 10:04Questlove?

  Dude, right.

• 10:05Speaker 05

  Because it's three different things go, eight different things going on in this clip.

• 10:09Questlove?

  So he says, you know, James Brown was such a hero of mine. And Michael Jackson, one night, went out to humiliate and embarrass me in front of him. And.

• 10:21Speaker 05

  He feels like that was the intention from jump.

• 10:25Questlove?

  So here's the deal, though. If you read L.A. Reid's memoir, I believe the opening chapter starts with the moment that Michael Jackson flies him and Babyface to Neverland Ranch to talk about production on what will eventually be Dangerous.

• 10:43Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 10:43Questlove?

  And the first thing Michael does is, wait, you gotta see this. Like, as a rite of passage, when you come to his crib.

• 10:50Speaker 05

  You gotta see the video.

• 10:51Questlove?

  He shows you the tape. I've, I've at least talked to five people that says that that's Michael's opening shit. Like, yo, you gotta see what I, what happened to Prince one night. And he does the thing. So.

• 11:03Speaker 05

  So it wasn't, it was.

• 11:04Questlove?

  Everyone's take is that, you know, is he's competitive.

• 11:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 11:09Questlove?

  He's let it be known. And so, but the way that Prince played it out was just like, you know, he called me to the stage and da, da, da, da, da. And next thing you know, Michael's trying to humiliate me. And I just walked away so disheveled and I was like, I'll, I'll never do that to, basically like when I meet my subjects, I won't do that to him. And I was like, wow, that's really notable.

• 11:34Speaker 05

  That's really big of him.

• 11:35Questlove?

  So then three years later, when I'm in Japan, so once I got the Soul Train Jones on, then I was like, where can I find more of my history? And then they.

• 11:43Speaker 05

  They were like, oh, you want more?

• 11:45Questlove?

  Yeah. So they took, they took me to like this alleyway where literally it's just like switching concert or Ray Parker Jr. and radio or Larry, like Graham Central Station, opening for blah, blah, blah.

• 11:57Speaker 05

  Because you were the guy and like, how the fuck, where did you get this?

• 12:02Questlove?

  I, so they, they collected. And so I, I came back to America with all these tapes. And when I seen the tape, I was like, oh, he left that part out of it. And he left that part out of it. And he left that part, the awkwardness of it all. And no one believed me for those three years when I told the story. They're like, yeah, right. Michael Jackson, Prince and James Brown stayed together, whatever. And I promise you, the way I held it onto that tape and just showed everybody.

• 12:28Speaker 05

  I felt like I was a temporary honorary member of the Roots when you showed that to me. Because as you were showing it, you were doing a brilliant commentary. Because here's the thing.

• 12:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, Prince said, yo, there was a time he humiliated me. But every mistake, Michael couldn't have told Prince to do the, the mistake. Like, we're having a conversation about something. If you haven't seen it.

• 12:54Questlove?

  Oh, they've, they've seen it. We've, we've talked about this many times on the show.

• 12:57Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 12:58Questlove?

  They know. Yeah. I mean, just all of his instincts were wrong.

• 13:01Speaker 05

  Every instinct that he did was just like, Michael didn't set you up for that. Like, you did that.

• 13:05Questlove?

  Uh, but I mean, you know, I'd also believe that.

• 13:10Speaker 05

  Michael was playing 8D chess.

• 13:12Questlove?

  Well, yeah. It's like, you know, if you're the new guy that's apparently on my level, then prove it.

• 13:17Speaker 05

  All right, let me knock you down.

• 13:18Questlove?

  Prove it right now.

• 13:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, right.

• 13:19Questlove?

  Yeah. All right. So I want to ask you.

• 13:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:22Questlove?

  What is the first musical memory?

• 13:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:25Questlove?

  That you had in life?

• 13:26Speaker 05

  Wow. Give it to Amir to ask a question I have never been asked before.

• 13:33Questlove?

  I'm gonna ask you a lot you've never been asked before.

• 13:35Speaker 05

  But as soon as you asked the question, an immediate, not only image, but visual came into my mind of a couple of songs.

• 13:46Questlove?

  Okay.

• 13:47Speaker 05

  I must have been four or five years old. And driving in the Buick estate wagon down to Mobile, Alabama to see my parents, family and all my cousins down south in Mobile.

• 14:03Questlove?

  Uh huh.

• 14:04Speaker 05

  And hearing songs like, I am a lineman for the county.

• 14:10Questlove?

  Wichita Lineman?

• 14:11Speaker 05

  Yes. Wichita Lineman.

• 14:13Questlove?

  Was it with black people and their love for Wichita Lineman?

• 14:15Speaker 05

  I don't know, but I remember that song. I remember, by the time she gets to Phoenix, I shall be rising. Like all those songs like that. And then I remember being in Alabama in my uncle Orlando's house. And my uncle Orlando had a dope, like barber business in Atlanta. So his house was like 1971, like swanky, like late mid-century, like dope.

• 14:42Questlove?

  Okay.

• 14:43Speaker 05

  In Alabama. And he was playing all Burt Bacharach, Dionne Warwick shit. And I just remember something about that kind of songwriting, I, I felt made like this imprint on me. It's like, like Valley of the Dolls theme, all of the Burt Bacharach.

• 15:03Questlove?

  The songbook.

• 15:03Speaker 05

  Message to Michael, all of the, all those arrangements. Yeah, that's probably, probably one of my earliest.

• 15:10Questlove?

  My dad ran that Dionne Warwick 8 track in, in the ground as well, all those things.

• 15:14Speaker 05

  Man.

• 15:15Questlove?

  So I, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that you were born in Mobile. How long did you live there?

• 15:21Speaker 05

  I wasn't born in Mobile. My parents were born in Mobile. So we would go.

• 15:24Questlove?

  Oh, and visit?

• 15:25Speaker 05

  I was born, born and raised in Milwaukee.

• 15:27Questlove?

  Okay.

• 15:27Speaker 05

  And so we would go every summer. Like, like, like we would, we would pile up in that Buick in a station wagon, child seats. What child seats?

• 15:37Questlove?

  Right.

• 15:37Speaker 05

  I was like, I remember being three or four years old. Remember the death trap in the back of the Buick? There was like a little seat.

• 15:44Questlove?

  Yeah, the little.

• 15:45Speaker 05

  In, in the back where I could see the cars coming. That's where I was sitting. And I'm thinking back on that. It's like, y'all niggas was trying to kill me, right? Based on today's standards, but.

• 15:55Questlove?

  So Mobile. Okay. Do you know if your family is at all connected to Africa Town, which is in Mobile?

• 16:04Speaker 05

  My family would be very disappointed in me saying, I, I don't know.

• 16:07Questlove?

  You wouldn't know? Okay. Only, only recently found out my connection to Mobile.

• 16:12Speaker 05

  What is that? And they, they'll be the first to tell you, anybody in Mobile would be the first to tell you, Mardi Gras in Louisiana. We started Mardi Gras, right? And that's true. That's true.

• 16:24Questlove?

  So I, I happen to know that like at least 80% of the black population. So I did, uh, Skip Gates's, uh, Finding Your Roots show.

• 16:33Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 16:34Questlove?

  Where, you know, he finds your DM. Yeah, the, the celebrity version of 23andMe.

• 16:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:38Questlove?

  And, um, me and Wanda Sykes, I believe, are the only two black people in that show in which they were able to trace our ship, our route.

• 16:50Speaker 05

  Whoa.

• 16:50Questlove?

  Where we came from and the family name.

• 16:52Speaker 05

  Whoa. And like where in West Africa? Like where?

• 16:55Questlove?

  All right. So the deal is that from what I heard, Benin and Nigeria were in a civil war. And by the time Thomas, I forget the person who owns the ship. And this is the thing. This town is literally comprised of, the person who owned the ship, his entire family, like to this day runs like all the factories, like the lineage.

• 17:21Speaker 05

  Africa Town in Mobile was the family that owned the slave ship?

• 17:24Questlove?

  Right. And their offspring.

• 17:27Speaker 05

  They were rich as hell back then.

• 17:28Questlove?

  Five, five generations now still there. But also the, I think now there's still maybe 20 plus captive families that are there. So like, nothing's changed. So the story goes that they went to Nigeria and, you know, usually you negotiate with the king's son, the prince. What, uh, property do you have for me? Well, we have some prisoners from Benin.

• 17:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:55Questlove?

  Here they go. And so technically, my great, great, great grandfather was literally the last. When I mean, he was chosen because, okay.

• 18:07Speaker 05

  He could play them drums.

• 18:09Questlove?

  Oh, stop, stop.

• 18:13Questlove?

  No, no, no. The story goes that because the ship was small and they were trying to get more bang for their buck, more money. They were like, just gather the kids, gather anyone under the age of 13, small, like, let's try and pack them together. But of course, the horror of it all, they're crying and he's like, well, I can't control these kids.

• 18:37Speaker 05

  Oh, my God.

• 18:38Questlove?

  Send fifty of the kids back and bring some women to watch these crying kids. But then the women start crying. He's like, well, I give me, give me the biggest guy you got. And my great, great, great was, I believe he was six, four or six, five. And was chosen, literally chosen, like, watch them. And he was literally the last, but even then, like, he was literally the last captive. Like slavery had been over for twenty years, but you know, the South is like, well, who gonna stop me? So they were still like trying to sneak air quote cargo in. And literally when they got to Mobile, they got caught.

• 19:23Questlove?

  And having illegal cargo was the equivalent of like having cocaine on you. Not like a moral thing, like you shouldn't terrorize these people more like taxes and property. So they got caught and then he snitched on the people like, well, they told me to get it. Well, he said he get it. So all this plays out in like the newspaper and the court cases.

• 19:43Speaker 05

  At, at the time.

• 19:45Questlove?

  Right. And so my great, great, great was like, okay, so can we go back home? And they were like, uh, you stuck here. And he's like, well, can we have his land? And he's like, well, you can't have it, but you can pay for it. And so what he does is it just so happens that there's, I learned that Benin had it going through successfully. I would have been what you would call a Haitian. So most Haitians came from Benin. So he basically went to the entire community of freed slaves. Now, some of them had situations where like, okay, in my will, I'll, I'll give you some money and a, and a mule or, or.

• 20:27Questlove?

  So he collected, I believe, like $500 from each freed person said, hey, there's over five thousand, five thousand acres, I think. He's like, look, what we'll do is we'll recreate home here. So you know, the stories like Gichi and that. So basically they recreated Africa in this five thousand.

• 20:50Speaker 05

  That is incredible.

• 20:51Questlove?

  Yeah. So I'm finding this out.

• 20:54Speaker 05

  Ain't that crazy? Like with just.

• 20:56Questlove?

  Like nine years ago.

• 20:57Speaker 05

  A little bit of research in your origin story, any of our origin stories, like the horrific nature of the story is like.

• 21:06Questlove?

  But also my life changed because, you know, as I revealed on the show, like literally I told him like, I didn't know who or what I was. Like we don't know who or what we was. Like we can't say like, oh, we're Italian or we're German. So once I found that out, then that literally cracked my head open.

• 21:25Speaker 05

  And did what?

• 21:26Questlove?

  I mean, well, number one, the, the woman I was dating at the time was like, so you know what this means, right? I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, you would have been Haitian. And the propaganda that we've had against Haitians in this country, like that voodoo, you know, they, they do evil. Like everything that we've heard about Haitians, I had to reverse it and start doing the research. And then I realized like, oh, Haitians basically have introduced like things that I've credited other people for. Like I didn't know about meditation or.

• 21:59Speaker 05

  Haitians for meditation?

• 22:00Questlove?

  Dude, it's.

• 22:01Speaker 05

  See, look, I, you about to educate me, bro.

• 22:03Questlove?

  Everything that we would credit, like granola hippie people, when they go do ayahuasca journeys or.

• 22:10Speaker 05

  That's Haitians.

• 22:11Questlove?

  Yes. And literally, and even with the story of the Haitian revolt, when they revolted against the French.

• 22:18Speaker 05

  Yep, yep.

• 22:18Questlove?

  I was under the impression of like, okay, we'll wait till they're asleep and then we'll attack them.

• 22:23Speaker 05

  That's what, yeah.

• 22:23Questlove?

  No, they were chained up by the neck and by the hands. They won their freedom by, according to like, maybe there was like six survivors in this thing. They were trying to describe what they saw and the only word they can get out was like, I mean, they were using a derogatory term like black magic, voodoo, like they were playing to their. And so literally they were chanting and meditating to the moon. And literally the entire French army died. Like that was the mystery, like how, how did they die? So when word gets back to the States, this is when we can't worship no other gods, but we had to follow the Christian law.

• 23:05Speaker 05

  They use that for the subject. That makes perfect.

• 23:08Questlove?

  Clans are burning up churches and everything. So there was, there was always a fear of like our magic or.

• 23:16Speaker 05

  Don't let them, yeah.

• 23:18Questlove?

  No, no more drums. Like there, there was a specific period at the beginning of Jim Crow and the reconstruction, which those things were demonized.

• 23:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:27Questlove?

  And so which fully made me tap into, when I found that out, that was the green light that brought me to the Earth, Wind and Fire documentary because, you know, when I was younger, when we used to look at my album covers, like I was raised in a, a harsh Christian household.

• 23:45Speaker 05

  Maurice was so metaphysical and everything.

• 23:48Questlove?

  But some Christians didn't like that. Like what does that sign mean? What does this mean?

• 23:51Speaker 05

  I know. I hate that.

• 23:52Questlove?

  And mind you, this is just the great, great, great grandfather on my mother's side. Like everyone else was just a number. I don't know their names. I don't know where they came from or whatever. But just finding out one quarter of my lineage.

• 24:05Speaker 05

  That's beautiful, man.

• 24:07Questlove?

  Found out who I am.

• 24:08Speaker 05

  Because I wish, I'm rather envious because I am ignorant of so much of my origin and, you know, other than you taking twenty-three and me and you being like, oh, DNA says I'm from this here, here. But I, I want to know the story. I want to know like.

• 24:23Questlove?

  We gotta get you to Skip Gates, man.

• 24:24Speaker 05

  Yo, Skip, what up, man? Be my Alex Haley, bro.

• 24:34Speaker 04

  Hey, it's Nile Rodgers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by Miguel.

• 24:52Speaker 06

  My small experience with the discrepancy in the business of music made me angry in the best way. And I wanted to, I wanted to finish. So I started really like leaning into my therapy, trying to get down to like what matters now. Somewhere Miguelito felt like he didn't have a place to say how he felt. And music was the place that I went to, to say how I felt.

• 25:15Speaker 04

  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 25:24Speaker 07

  Hey, it's Covino and Rich Davis from Covino and Rich. Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra. Two of Toyota's most capable and longest lasting trucks. Combining power for work, tech for adventures and style in between. Built on reputation for quality and reliability. Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which can mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 26:03Questlove?

  So I have to ask you a question about Milwaukee.

• 26:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:07Questlove?

  I mean, it's not a cosmopolitan town.

• 26:08Speaker 05

  No, it ain't no cosmopolitan.

• 26:10Questlove?

  But it's not a country either. And it's not the South and it's not, it's the Midwest, is it not? Like what are your memories of Milwaukee? Is there a culture there? Is there?

• 26:22Speaker 05

  So my youth, youth and teen years, any musical influence was within my family.

• 26:30Questlove?

  Okay.

• 26:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, there were like Milwaukee is probably not known and it wasn't known to me back then. Like you said, is any kind of a, you know, musical Mecca. But I've always believed that there's something about people who are musically inclined. And if they live in the Midwest, there is like, you're, you're at the halfway point of what's happening on the West Coast, what's happening on the East Coast and what's happening in the South. And each one of those musical influences are so distinctly different. But then it has a way of meshing in the Midwest, which didn't really, I want to say manifests itself as a Milwaukee identity of music.

• 27:15Speaker 05

  But for the people like me and my cousin George and like my family, people who were just connoisseurs of music. Our tastes was like, we had no allegiance to this side or this side or that side. So we were just like an amalgamation. And then I think that's why you get like Hitsville in Detroit. That's where you get the Ohio Players. That's where you get Jimi Hendrix. That's where you get Prince. That's where you get Stevie Wonder. It's all that Midwest energy that's like.

• 27:41Questlove?

  How far is it from Chicago? Like what's the?

• 27:43Speaker 05

  An hour. Chicago jazz, you know, that it's an hour and fifteen minutes. You drive north and you're in Milwaukee from Chicago, hour and twenty minutes.

• 27:52Questlove?

  So what I'm really dying to ask you.

• 27:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:54Questlove?

  Is.

• 27:55Speaker 05

  What's a Kringle? Do you know what a Kringle is?

• 27:57Questlove?

  What is a Kringle?

• 27:58Speaker 05

  Yeah. A Kringle, I was just kidding, but you know what a Kringle is. He laughing over there.

• 28:03Questlove?

  What's a Kringle? Cousin Jake, you know what a Kringle is?

• 28:05Speaker 05

  Yeah. Kringle is, nobody knows what a Kringle is, but it's basically a really good dessert. It's like a strudel and it's in the shape of a big ass reef and it's just, it's.

• 28:15Questlove?

  And that's what you guys are known for.

• 28:17Speaker 05

  Kringles.

• 28:17Questlove?

  Beer and Kringle.

• 28:18Speaker 05

  And yeah, beer, Kringle and getting drunk and passing out in the street.

• 28:23Questlove?

  Got you.

• 28:23Speaker 05

  And Summerfest. Summerfest is a huge.

• 28:26Questlove?

  I've done Summerfest a few times.

• 28:28Speaker 05

  Summerfest because all the big artists do Summerfest. Milwaukee.

• 28:31Questlove?

  Does that still happen? Summerfest?

• 28:33Speaker 05

  Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, Milwaukee is, it's a great place on a great lake. But it's, um, it was a dope place to be from, but you were going to ask a question. What is?

• 28:43Questlove?

  Okay. So what I always wanted to know, and you're like the first Milwaukee resident I can ask this to. And actually the first black Milwaukee resident I can ask this to.

• 28:51Speaker 05

  How do I, ooh.

• 28:52Questlove?

  You, you know what's happening. You know what I'm gonna ask you.

• 28:54Speaker 05

  There's so many directions you can go, but why am I thinking Jeffrey Dahmer?

• 28:59Questlove?

  That's exactly what I'm gonna ask you.

• 29:02Questlove?

  Okay, so look.

• 29:03Speaker 05

  Oh, I got stories.

• 29:05Questlove?

  You came up in Milwaukee.

• 29:06Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 29:07Questlove?

  During the Dahmer years.

• 29:08Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 29:08Questlove?

  And that's a case that like gutted the black community.

• 29:12Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 29:13Questlove?

  And kinda showed how little the city was protecting us.

• 29:21Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 29:22Questlove?

  So when you heard of him, was he caught already? Or was it always, or was there a buildup like, wait, 10 people are missing?

• 29:29Speaker 05

  I have so much to say about Jeffrey Dahmer.

• 29:31Questlove?

  Hit me.

• 29:33Speaker 05

  So the whole Jeffrey Dahmer thing was like a dissertation on so much that is wrong. A with Milwaukee. No, no, no, no, no, no Milwaukee, I love you. So much that is wrong with the criminal investigation system at the time as it relates to race. As it relates to certain people get a pass, no matter what the evidence looks like. All right, go home, sleep it off. You know, there were times, there were people who would escape or were smelling things from the apartment or the decomposition about it and were like, yo, y'all need to check this out. Ah, he's just a weirdo, you know, don't worry about that guy.

• 30:17Speaker 05

  So my cousin, my cousin, what's up Ralph? My cousin was telling me one time he was at some spot. And as soon as Jeffrey Dahmer got caught, my cousin was like, that's that nigga that tried to, he bought me a drink and was like, yo, yo, let's hang out, right? And I'm like, dude, if you weren't the, my cousin was the kind of dude who when we were 10 years old, he already knew about the birds and the bees and he already knew like a lot of elements. Yeah, of events of how life works and this is the way the system works. I was like, dude, if you weren't who you are, you might've been like, yeah, I have a drink, bro, what's up?

• 31:02Speaker 05

  But he was like, nah, I'm catching vibes from your crazy ass. And so that came out, there was another kid that I went to school with. Who I didn't really know, but just knew him just kinda like at the school. Uh, who was one of the victims. My father was a detective for the city of Milwaukee. He was not assigned to the Dahmer case, but his partner was assigned to the Dahmer case. So he would tell us, Arthur Jones would tell us, we went into the apartment. And he was like, the things that I saw when I opened up the freezer and I opened up the refrigerator.

• 31:41Speaker 05

  He was like, I'm not, and it was things like I never really heard about, or maybe, maybe you did, or people who know the Jeffrey Dahmer lore, maybe it came out, but my father's partner was like, we opened up the refrigerator and there were slices of human flesh, like hamburger patties with wax paper, like neatly organized, like this, that and the other. Like I can eat this today, like a patty and, and I'll go, there's other things I can say, but I won't. But it was just like, oh my God. And yeah, that Dahmer thing, in defense of Milwaukee, I'd like to say this. Cause a lot of people, Jeffrey Dahmer is not from Milwaukee.

• 32:27Speaker 05

  Motherfucker got caught in Milwaukee.

• 32:29Questlove?

  Where was he from?

• 32:30Speaker 05

  I think he's like from Ohio or some shit. Yo, that's interesting that you wanted to go to the Dahmer.

• 32:37Questlove?

  Isn't it weird how much this show just turned into the club shake?

• 32:41Speaker 05

  I know, right? Oh my God, Arthur Jones would be like, I don't know if I should tell you all this. And me, I was like, at this time, what was I, when all this shit went down? Was I, I was like.

• 32:51Questlove?

  Even when he was caught, did you feel safe at all? Well, like we went there in 95 for the first time. And I remember it was laundry day, like this back when, you know, like your new artist or whatever.

• 33:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 33:07Questlove?

  Every other week, we make a laundry run and I remember, remember, uh, one, you guys have an amazing laundromat that like, it was, someone had the idea to like, hey, let's have an arcade. It was like part 7-Eleven, part laundry. Like college students obviously hung out there.

• 33:28Speaker 05

  Milwaukee, we take pride in our, you know, home ec abilities.

• 33:32Questlove?

  Yeah. And so, yeah, and just watching the people, I was like, this town is not over the tragedy that it just went through.

• 33:39Speaker 05

  Well, I think after it happened, of course, there's gonna be like this visceral, like, oh my God. The stigma that's gonna be on this city is gonna last for a long time. But I don't think a true Milwaukeean at that point felt unsafe. Because he was such an anomaly. Like that's not Milwaukee, you got weird motherfuckers in Milwaukee. But, but that's a whole nother level of satanic, like far outside the reaches of my imagination. Like, like crimes against humanity, that, that's not Milwaukee.

• 34:17Questlove?

  Got you.

• 34:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:18Questlove?

  All right, now, subject change, what were you like in school?

• 34:24Speaker 05

  Well, I brought my patties, my meat patties to school neatly packed.

• 34:27Questlove?

  I'm never, it'll be two hours and I'm still thinking about how anal retentive he was in terms of packing. Like, oh Jesus, in school, what kind of student were you?

• 34:39Speaker 05

  I would say I was an average to good student. I was very nerdy. I liked things like science fiction.

• 34:46Questlove?

  What was your best subject? Like what was your best?

• 34:48Speaker 05

  Creative writing and art.

• 34:50Questlove?

  Okay.

• 34:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, you know, it's like, I've always had like an ability for, like creatively, anything I tried to do, I've always just had like this natural ability for it, whether it was singing, whether it was writing songs, whether it was painting, I won this art award for painting, or whether it was like writing a story. So I was that kid, you know, I just grew up like reading like Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury. And Rod, Rod Serling was a beast with them stories, man. Rod Serling, short stories and, yeah, and it was like the music thing was a little interesting for me. Because I thought, like, I grew up in this family. I don't know if you're like, I don't know what your whole family thing was.

• 35:32Questlove?

  I was gonna say, what, what was the domestic situation?

• 35:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, so in my family, everybody sings, everybody plays an instrument, sings, and it was just like.

• 35:40Questlove?

  How many members in the family?

• 35:41Speaker 05

  So I'm the baby and I have three full sisters, I have a half sister.

• 35:46Questlove?

  Okay.

• 35:46Speaker 05

  And my brother, and I just grew up in this family where.

• 35:52Questlove?

  Six of you?

• 35:53Speaker 05

  Well, it was five of us growing up.

• 35:55Questlove?

  Okay.

• 35:55Speaker 05

  You know?

• 35:55Questlove?

  So it's a lot.

• 35:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a lot.

• 35:57Questlove?

  Okay.

• 35:58Speaker 05

  But it was a situation where we would just break out into harmony all the time. And so from a very young age, I automatically had an ear for, if I heard my sisters and my brother singing the alto and the tenor and the thing, I got really good at, okay, I'll find my note. And then my, my older sister, if I made a mistake, she'd be like, no, you wanna come up to this on that part of the song? So I was like trained that way.

• 36:26Questlove?

  So you just break out in song?

• 36:28Speaker 05

  Oh yeah, all the time, all the time. We still do. And so.

• 36:32Questlove?

  Were you a church singing family?

• 36:34Speaker 05

  Came up very church every Sunday, Sunday school. And then, so I'm the baby in this environment, you're gonna love this, where like, okay, so my dad had this extensive classical music collection and I used to love WC, I used to love Tchaikovsky, Strauss. So my little young ass would just be lost in this. And then my sisters would had the full gamut of R and B. Like one sister would be deep into the funkadelic, the other sister would be the Luther Vandross. And then the other sister would be more like the Roberta Fleck, Donny Hathaway and the Jackson 5 and James Brown. And then my brother was like the jazz fusion cat. So it'd be like the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

• 37:16Questlove?

  So you inherit all that trickle down?

• 37:19Speaker 05

  David Sanchez and Tone.

• 37:20Questlove?

  Okay.

• 37:21Speaker 05

  And Return to Forever and Stanley Clarke and Billy Cobham. And so I'm just this baby growing up in all of this stuff.

• 37:30Questlove?

  Okay.

• 37:30Speaker 05

  And so.

• 37:31Questlove?

  What is the first album that you purchased with your own money?

• 37:38Speaker 05

  Okay, the honest ads?

• 37:39Questlove?

  Yeah, and trust me, everyone wants to get the romantic, oh, Jackson 5.

• 37:43Speaker 05

  The first album I brought was Sketches of Spain.

• 37:45Questlove?

  No, what was it for real?

• 37:48Speaker 05

  A Bill Cosby comedy album?

• 37:51Questlove?

  Which one?

• 37:52Speaker 05

  The one where he talked about trying to flush his brother Russell down the toilet?

• 37:56Questlove?

  Oh, to Russell, my brother whom I slept with.

• 37:58Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 37:59Questlove?

  Yes.

• 37:59Speaker 05

  And then it might have been Bill Cosby or Funky Favorites. Funky Favorites, which was just an album of stupid songs of like, he did that mash. He did the mums.

• 38:11Questlove?

  So like novelty.

• 38:12Speaker 05

  Novelty, stupid, silly songs. And I think I was probably eight years old when I, I with my own money, I either bought, don't remember which one was first, Bill Cosby or Funky Favorites.

• 38:23Questlove?

  Okay.

• 38:23Speaker 05

  What else was on Funky Favorites? Charlie Brown, do, do, do, do, Charlie Brown and Purple People Eater?

• 38:29Questlove?

  Right.

• 38:30Speaker 05

  It was a one night, one bolt, one purple people eater.

• 38:33Questlove?

  Right.

• 38:34Speaker 05

  So.

• 38:35Questlove?

  Ah, nice, nice.

• 38:36Speaker 05

  I was a goofy, goofy nerd.

• 38:38Questlove?

  Okay, you were human, yes.

• 38:39Speaker 05

  Yes, yes.

• 38:40Questlove?

  Who was the figurehead not related to you, like teacher or somebody that like actually saw you for who you were that was like a hero to you growing up?

• 38:50Speaker 05

  I mean, bit cliché-ish, but dad.

• 38:53Questlove?

  Okay.

• 38:53Speaker 05

  You know, because my dad, my dad was this cultured dude who loved, you know, classical music and art and all, but he was, you know, I, I, because of Mobile Man who had to make, you know, make ends meet for his family, got a job as a cop. You know, he had to just say, not allow a lot of his dreams to come to fruition, I think, for, you know, so.

• 39:18Questlove?

  But hopefully his kids and the lineage are his dream, right?

• 39:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I, I've always looked up to my dad for that because he was the constant and the on my ass, not the most emotional present dude as most of us. That's how we grew up, but, but held us up to a certain standard. And then I would have to say two music teachers from my past that saw something in me and were just on me, like on me in a way like, okay, here, here's a record you need to listen to. I just want you to listen to the production on this. And here's a, it was, it was Mr. Simeon at Milwaukee Tech, I think it's called Bradley Tech now.

• 40:01Questlove?

  Okay.

• 40:02Speaker 05

  And Ms. Carol Heywood, who was the choir director, you know? But I, because I remember, I remember being a kid, like being five or six years old, not really realizing that I have musical talent until I'm sitting next to kids trying to sing a song. And I'm like, what the fuck? Like, can you not hear that note?

• 40:22Questlove?

  Right, right, right.

• 40:23Speaker 05

  You know, you know, uh, camp town ladies in that song, do da, camp town ladies sing that song, do da, do da, like no inflection, no, I'm like, what? How come y'all niggas don't like?

• 40:36Questlove?

  Right.

• 40:36Speaker 05

  What, what's going on? And so I think it was a realization that, especially when I thought about the fact of how my family, we just broke down harmonies like that, I was like, oh, may, maybe we're a little different than everybody else. All we needed was a Joe Jackson, anyway.

• 40:54Questlove?

  Oh, no. No.

• 40:58Questlove?

  You might gain some, but also pay for it too.

• 41:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, right, right.

• 41:01Questlove?

  So what was, I was gonna say, what was your first job ever? But what, have you ever been fired from a job?

• 41:10Speaker 05

  I never been fired from my job.

• 41:11Questlove?

  But what's a notable job you had like pre?

• 41:15Speaker 05

  Pre Ariana Grande's?

• 41:16Questlove?

  Yeah.

• 41:17Speaker 05

  I worked at McDonald's when I was 16, downtown Milwaukee. It was too hectic for me, so I was like, I need something easier, so I went to Taco Bell.

• 41:29Questlove?

  He started off as Calvin and then he quit?

• 41:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:34Questlove?

  Wait, why, why, why was Taco Bell easier?

• 41:37Speaker 05

  First of all, it was the location. It was like downtown Milwaukee McDonald's, that, it was just too much madness back there. It's like fries and burgers and all, you gotta press the, and then Taco Bell, I remember I worked at Taco Bell on Fond du Lac, like way out from downtown and it was just, you know, easier living, not living, but slower pace. And so you could, ah, hi, welcome to Taco Bell, would you like to try our new taco salad? A little bit more, a little bit more relaxed.

• 42:05Questlove?

  Okay, okay.

• 42:06Speaker 05

  You know?

• 42:07Questlove?

  In your childhood bedroom?

• 42:09Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 42:10Questlove?

  What is the main poster that adorns your wall?

• 42:13Speaker 05

  Dude, you got some questions.

• 42:16Questlove?

  Well, we never, you know what it is, like?

• 42:18Speaker 05

  You ask them, that's why the Oscar winning documentary director be asking these questions.

• 42:24Questlove?

  Dude, I mean, there's.

• 42:25Speaker 05

  Fucking love it.

• 42:26Questlove?

  There's this whole slew of media that don't treat artists like human beings. And I think this kind of thing where I want to know the human side of you.

• 42:36Speaker 05

  So immediately when you, I love when you ask these questions because immediately before I even answer, there's a visual that pops in my head and there are three posters.

• 42:44Questlove?

  Okay.

• 42:45Speaker 05

  That were in my room. One was like a black light poster of this fantasy woman with big titties and, um, just like.

• 42:55Questlove?

  The velvet black.

• 42:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, with the velvet black light, yeah.

• 42:59Questlove?

  I had a cousin that had the astrological one and I was not allowed to have that.

• 43:02Speaker 05

  I wasn't into the astrological, I was into the, the big titties and the curve. And then I had a Commodores poster.

• 43:10Questlove?

  From the album? Where they're pointing at the sky?

• 43:14Speaker 05

  You know the one?

• 43:16Questlove?

  Wait, I'm gonna, so I, I've become a really good phone friends with Chuck D.

• 43:23Speaker 05

  Oh, really?

• 43:23Questlove?

  And I didn't realize how like immaculate or how much of an artist he was, a visual artist. He was, and he sent me some artwork when he was 14 or 15.

• 43:36Speaker 05

  Really?

• 43:37Questlove?

  Of him, the inside poster of the 1977 album where, wherever, Thomas Clary's pointing at the sky.

• 43:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think that was it.

• 43:45Questlove?

  You know what's even weirder? That, okay, when I was a kid, I would go through phases in which, I can't believe I'm telling this story.

• 43:55Speaker 05

  Tell it.

• 43:55Questlove?

  I would go through phases whenever someone took a photo of me, you would know what my favorite album cover was, right?

• 44:02Speaker 05

  Because you would do the point.

• 44:03Questlove?

  But here's the thing though, I decided that Mylon Williams, the keyboard player, had the best pose, whereas like, he's like on one layer.

• 44:12Speaker 05

  Yes, yes, that one.

• 44:13Questlove?

  But I did it at a family reunion in North Carolina and I fell over into the street

• 44:22Questlove?

  and a car was coming.

• 44:23Speaker 05

  Oh, shit.

• 44:24Questlove?

  And you, you know, like when black families are so disheveled and afraid, where you get in trouble even for that, like, why would you do this?

• 44:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 44:35Questlove?

  And I, I remember getting that from my dad, but yeah, I, there was a period where.

• 44:39Speaker 05

  You did the post, that wasn't.

• 44:41Questlove?

  I went through phases. I was Chris Jasper of the Isley Brothers once, always, I mean, why are you always looking at two o'clock up there? Marlon Jackson to have like right leg behind his left leg on, on the get it together album.

• 44:52Speaker 05

  Right, right, right.

• 44:53Questlove?

  Like I would go through phases where I would only do the pose of my favorite album of that moment and yeah, that Commodores.

• 45:01Speaker 05

  Loved it.

• 45:02Questlove?

  What's weird is I almost wore the sweater, it's laundry day in my crib, so I, I was like, I'll put a new shirt on, but I almost wore that poster.

• 45:10Speaker 05

  Oh, man, I loved that.

• 45:11Questlove?

  What was the third one? Uh, wow, every black household in the seventies had that Commodore poster.

• 45:16Speaker 05

  I was weird because there was another, this is an iconic poster too now, there was a poster of a baby who had a whole bowl of spaghetti dumped on his head with spaghetti sauce.

• 45:27Questlove?

  I've seen that.

• 45:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, for whatever reason.

• 45:29Questlove?

  How'd that wind up in your crib?

• 45:30Speaker 05

  Because it made me, it was fucking hilarious.

• 45:34Speaker 05

  It was like a baby with, with this stupid look on his face.

• 45:40Speaker 05

  And he's got like spaghetti dripping and I think the quote was like.

• 45:44Questlove?

  God's not.

• 45:45Speaker 05

  I forgot what the quote was.

• 45:46Questlove?

  It's all, yeah, like B. Faison movie.

• 45:48Speaker 05

  Maybe it was a Murphy's Law or something, I don't know, whatever it is, but it was fucking hilarious.

• 45:53Questlove?

  I remember that poster.

• 46:01Speaker 04

  Hey, it's Nile Rodgers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by Miguel.

• 46:19Speaker 06

  That last year, finishing that record was the hardest experience of my life, to find your creativity and to believe in yourself, because somewhere in the midst of it, I stopped believing that my voice mattered and that I could find it again. That's a challenge. I was not feeling very confident creatively, only, um, again defiant in my belief that

• 46:49Speaker 06

  what this is about is express something honest, say something honest.

• 46:55Speaker 04

  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 47:04Speaker 07

  Hey, it's Covino and Rich Davis from Covino and Rich. Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability and it starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks. Combining power for work, tech for adventures and style in between. Built on reputation for quality and reliability. Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which can mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 47:45Questlove?

  What was the first concert you ever attended?

• 47:47Speaker 05

  George Duke and Stanley Clarke. Yeah.

• 47:51Questlove?

  Where?

• 47:51Speaker 05

  It was in Milwaukee, the Public Arts Center. The PAC. It's a public arts center in Milwaukee, yeah.

• 47:56Questlove?

  So this is like the sweet baby period?

• 47:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 48:00Questlove?

  Heaven sent?

• 48:01Speaker 05

  Oh, my god.

• 48:01Questlove?

  Yeah. It's weird that two, two of the most progressive, intricate musicians.

• 48:09Speaker 05

  Oh, my god, became.

• 48:11Questlove?

  Made such a straight.

• 48:12Speaker 05

  Straight. But the beauty about that project and that song in particular,

• 48:18Questlove?

  Uh huh.

• 48:18Speaker 05

  about music is if you have the most simplest melody and you're like a you or, or, or one of those real musical, musical musicians, you can still have fun.

• 48:33Questlove?

  Yeah.

• 48:33Speaker 05

  There was so much, you had the sitar going, they had the harmonies going, so you can.

• 48:38Questlove?

  So it made an impression on you?

• 48:40Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 48:40Questlove?

  Okay.

• 48:41Speaker 05

  Absolutely. I think partly because, you know, like I told you about the kind of music like, like I just kind of grew up listening to. I love the fact that Stanley Clarke and George Duke come together and make something that could touch top 40 radio.

• 48:58Questlove?

  Mm hmm.

• 48:58Speaker 05

  When their musical well was so deep. And we're gonna make this simple melody like George Duke was brilliant at. When I sing about it's on, it's on, it's on.

• 49:12Questlove?

  Right.

• 49:19Speaker 05

  So it's like he could take that simple, simple melody. It's like songwriting 101. Yeah, you can have your fun, you can have the harmonies and the strings and the this and then doing it that, but you gotta grab them with that simple, simple lullaby melody that anybody can sing.

• 49:33Questlove?

  Well, some of the best songwriters are people that have the ability to have mental level of musical intelligence, but also have the smarts to know that sometimes you have to cut a steak.

• 49:47Speaker 05

  I want to ask you.

• 49:49Questlove?

  Yes.

• 49:49Speaker 05

  So how the fuck do you explain something like Steely Dan? Where in the first eight bars of the song, there's like what?

• 49:58Questlove?

  Are we the same person?

• 49:59Speaker 05

  12 different substitutions and then you modulated, brought it back down. You don't know what the fuck Donald Fagan is talking about in the lyrics, but somehow it's a number one pop song. How the fuck did they do that?

• 50:14Questlove?

  I'm gonna tell you something. All right, so I just had Thundercat on the show.

• 50:19Speaker 05

  He used to be my bass player.

• 50:20Questlove?

  Yo, he, he's played for everyone secretly on the low without.

• 50:24Speaker 05

  I love that dude.

• 50:25Questlove?

  That sounds about right.

• 50:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:27Questlove?

  He was talking about like a Steely Dan song and I just happened to do the, I'm sorry, Donald, I did, I did the Yacht Rock doc.

• 50:36Speaker 05

  I hate, yeah, I mean, I hate the term, but I get it.

• 50:38Questlove?

  Well, I love, I mean, I love it.

• 50:39Speaker 05

  Neo soul.

• 50:40Questlove?

  Right.

• 50:41Speaker 05

  Anyway, anyway, don't get us started on that.

• 50:43Questlove?

  But I realized that I really have not made much space for Steely Dan in my life, probably since the reason why, you know, people are like, oh, you're so knowledgeable with music and everything. Don't get it twisted. If I was allowed to have control of the family stereo in the, in the family car, I'd be playing what I would want to listen to.

• 51:06Speaker 05

  Which, which would have been?

• 51:07Questlove?

  I mean, you know, I was a kid of the moment. I, I wanted to hear Bootzilla, Wine Me Up and whatever. Yeah, but my dad was like, my father was the, just like your family. He was the, listen, he listened to the yacht rock of his day. He liked Mathis, he liked Striassan, he liked singers, because he was a crooner. My dad sounded like Nat King Cole.

• 51:31Speaker 05

  Really?

• 51:32Questlove?

  My mom, however, if she were born when I was born, she would have been ahead. Like she dug in the crates and, oh, this is a funky looking album cover. I'm gonna get this and it's like Bitch's Brew or whatever. So, and then my sister, who's slightly older, in order to fit in with her girlfriends in school, she's bringing home the rock stuff. She's bringing home Bowie and all that stuff.

• 51:52Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 51:53Questlove?

  And so, I mean, there was a period in which I know dad played like Gauchos.

• 51:58Speaker 05

  Ooh.

• 52:00Questlove?

  And Asia.

• 52:00Speaker 05

  Sister.

• 52:02Questlove?

  Right, but he really didn't, he controlled the, the stereo and he really, like, he would go through, maybe he went through it twice, maybe it was just too intricate for him and he couldn't find something to sing along to. He liked stuff he could sing along to.

• 52:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, Steely Dan was not that.

• 52:18Questlove?

  Right, so I just, I've realized that, you know, like I love Steely Dan, but so right now I just started my phase of, I'm on Can't Buy a Thrill now, where I'm like listening to a Steely Dan record for at least two hours a day.

• 52:33Speaker 05

  Have you gotten into the, the, the first Donald Fagan solo album?

• 52:37Questlove?

  Dude, Nightfly is, now that's the thing, like.

• 52:40Speaker 05

  That's one of my top five favorite albums.

• 52:42Questlove?

  I G Y.

• 52:43Speaker 05

  Oh, my god.

• 52:44Questlove?

  I G Y is probably.

• 52:46Speaker 05

  Yeah. Maxine, I G Y, Green Flower Street.

• 52:52Questlove?

  Yeah.

• 52:52Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 52:52Questlove?

  New Frontier.

• 52:53Speaker 05

  Oh, the new, yeah, bro.

• 52:55Questlove?

  So, yeah, like I will say, if I could compile five songs that like, no matter how depressing, and I, all right, I tested this during the night after election results.

• 53:12Speaker 05

  Oh, Jesus, yeah.

• 53:14Questlove?

  Where?

• 53:14Speaker 05

  I stopped drinking, but I was gonna start again that night.

• 53:17Questlove?

  Dude, so I said, I want to see how powerful this is and I played I G Y.

• 53:25Speaker 05

  Oh, that's a great barometer.

• 53:26Questlove?

  And I was like, wow, I still feel good right now.

• 53:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 53:29Questlove?

  But the song's only three minutes and 40 seconds.

• 53:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 53:33Questlove?

  I was back to, back to ground zero, but yeah, I, I gotta give more time.

• 53:37Speaker 05

  Funny, that particular song, talking about an idealized utopian society. It's like, get me out of here. I like that.

• 53:44Questlove?

  No, it's, it's like, it's the next to Herb Albert's. Like if someone were to ask me, gun in my head, like.

• 53:51Speaker 05

  Tijuana Brass and all that.

• 53:52Questlove?

  Well, my favorite Herb Albert song, there's a song called Route 101, which it's the happiest.

• 54:01Questlove?

  No, no, that's the Dating Game.

• 54:03Speaker 05

  Oh, oh, okay.

• 54:04Questlove?

  Route 101 is like.

• 54:12Questlove?

  So one night I'm at.

• 54:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 54:17Questlove?

  When I, this is the, maybe the second time I'm at Dilla's crib.

• 54:22Speaker 05

  Oh, man.

• 54:23Questlove?

  And Batin comes, Batin comes downstairs and says, yo, I want to do something to this. And he hands Dilla the record and he puts Route 101 on.

• 54:34Speaker 05

  Woo.

• 54:35Questlove?

  And they're playing it and it's a happy song.

• 54:39Questlove?

  And I'm looking at them like, are y'all trolling me? Like, because I was in the mind state of, oh, if it's hip hop.

• 54:46Speaker 05

  If it's hip hop.

• 54:46Questlove?

  Probably some gritty, raw breakbeat shit.

• 54:48Speaker 05

  But you, I would think you would have been, because the real dopest hip hop niggas were like deep in that.

• 54:57Questlove?

  This is what Dilla taught me. See, I grew up in a household with 3,000 records and even to this day, I have 200,000 records of maybe I've perused through 7% of that. Like, how much music are we gonna consume in our lifetime?

• 55:12Speaker 05

  Right.

• 55:13Questlove?

  I can also ask politicians, how much money are you gonna spend in your lifetime?

• 55:16Speaker 05

  How much is enough, definitely not a trillion.

• 55:18Questlove?

  Right, and so the whole thing is that once I realized, oh, these guys are serious, like, and I looked at Dilla like, what are you gonna make some shit out of this?

• 55:31Speaker 05

  And he.

• 55:31Questlove?

  And he was like, oh, hell, yeah. I never got to hear what he made of it, but there's been a million times where like I will get a Johnny Mathis record and be like, all right, take this Rick James record and this Johnny Mathis record.

• 55:45Speaker 05

  Woo.

• 55:45Questlove?

  Show me what you got. And he would, the thing I learned from Dilla the most is no song goes unlistened to or no stone unturned, like.

• 55:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 55:56Questlove?

  And so, but I will say like Route 101 is my favorite song and in second place is I G Y. It's something about a shuffle. Black people need a shuffle song. Like I think the last good shuffle song we've really truly had, I mean, okay, there's the whole. But, no, but I'm just saying like the way you make me feel was probably the last.

• 56:20Questlove?

  We need a shuffle song.

• 56:22Speaker 05

  Give me another one of your favorite shuffles.

• 56:24Questlove?

  I mean, Doing It To Death by James Brown.

• 56:29Questlove?

  But in order for us to break shuffle, we have to re-acclimate ourselves again with jazz and.

• 56:37Speaker 05

  It's needed.

• 56:38Questlove?

  Where music is now, I don't know.

• 56:40Speaker 05

  I don't know if they can make it back, make it back to that because it's so diluted down to, let's just take this little part and repeat it and repeat it. Let's do no bridges, no changes, no moder, modulations, no, yeah, so, right.

• 56:54Questlove?

  But, you know, in order for that to happen, we have to work on our emotional state. The music reflects how we feel.

• 57:02Speaker 05

  See? Yo, ladies and gentlemen, that's why he's not Amir.

• 57:10Questlove?

  Thank you, man. All right, when you were 15.

• 57:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:13Questlove?

  What is it that you wanted to be when you were an adult? Like, when you're a kid, what did you think your calling was in life?

• 57:21Speaker 05

  I thought I was gonna be a fashion designer.

• 57:24Questlove?

  Word?

• 57:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, I thought I was gonna be a fashion designer because clothes made me, music made me happy and clothes made me happy and putting the right outfits together made me happy, but.

• 57:38Speaker 05

  Because of my family, I knew that we were special, but at the same time, it was just such a, it was like a fish, like, okay, it's water. Big deal, I can swim in water.

• 57:52Questlove?

  Was the specialness, the fact that you guys were just together?

• 57:56Speaker 05

  I probably felt that it was special because I was with them and then we all harmonized together.

• 58:02Questlove?

  Okay.

• 58:02Speaker 05

  And so I don't think I really, really considered, I think my passion for music deepened when I realized right around that age that if I sang, girls treated me a certain way.

• 58:15Questlove?

  Okay.

• 58:16Speaker 05

  But I still didn't think of it as a career until like my dad was just like, I remember telling my dad, like, right at high school, I was like, Dad, I want to go to this fashion institute. And my dad, being who he was, and he had aspirations of his children being doctors and lawyers and getting their PhDs.

• 58:36Questlove?

  Success.

• 58:37Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 58:37Questlove?

  Safety.

• 58:38Speaker 05

  He's like, come on, man. My dad was like, a black man going into fashion? He was looking at it very from his lenses of going through 1940s, 50s, 60s.

• 58:48Questlove?

  Trust me, I know.

• 58:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, and so I listened to dad and then I went to college for a couple of years, not really knowing why. And feeling like I was wasting.

• 58:58Questlove?

  What did you major?

• 58:59Speaker 05

  Absolutely nothing, wasting money.

• 59:01Questlove?

  Where'd you go to college?

• 59:02Speaker 05

  University of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

• 59:04Questlove?

  Okay.

• 59:05Speaker 05

  And, and I dropped out because after a year and a half to two years, I was like, I don't know what I'm doing here. I can't latch on to anything that I see as my future. And when I dropped out of college, my cousin George let me know that there was a band in Milwaukee that needed a lead singer and he was already playing guitar and my sister Lisa sang and she was just kind of doing her thing in life at that time, too. And so my sister and I joined this band that was already kind of a corporation unto itself, doing like gigs and weddings and bars in Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota, just traveling around, doing stuff.

• 59:48Speaker 05

  And so that started the whole, like, I'm 19 years old.

• 59:52Questlove?

  So you're in college and at no point before then, like, so you just coincidentally just happened to carry this voice around?

• 1:00:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:03Questlove?

  And it was just like a, like almost a footnote, like, and I sing to you a little, like?

• 1:00:08Speaker 05

  My cousin specifically called me because when I was 14 and 15, I would go over to his, he was like eight years older than me. And he had his own place and he saw musical ability in me at 14, 15 years old.

• 1:00:21Questlove?

  That you didn't see in yourself?

• 1:00:22Speaker 05

  I thought it was fun. He was like, yo, come help me write this song. So we started writing songs. Like, oh, this is cool. So I went all through college, like, not making the connection, like, fuck this school shit, I'm gonna do this. But loving music and writing songs and creating all this stuff with him and my sister, until I joined this band.

• 1:00:43Questlove?

  Okay.

• 1:00:44Speaker 05

  And then we were in this band and the band also owned a recording studio and you gotta, we're talking about, we're talking about 1990, right?

• 1:00:53Questlove?

  Oh, that was rare.

• 1:00:54Speaker 05

  That's very rare. So it's like, they own a recording studio? Yeah, when you go in, there's two clocks on the wall, one for the East Coast and the West Coast. Wow. So it was like, it was, it was very, we were easily impressed by that.

• 1:01:07Questlove?

  Right.

• 1:01:08Speaker 05

  So, so they start letting us use the recording studio when we weren't doing the shitty club gigs or whatever we were doing in the band and we ultimately put together a demo, my sister and I. And then we started shelling the demo around and then I got my first deal at EMI Capital with my sister. And I signed to EMI Capital with the three of us writing the songs and the person.

• 1:01:32Questlove?

  And this is Benay?

• 1:01:33Speaker 05

  This is Benay.

• 1:01:34Questlove?

  Okay.

• 1:01:34Speaker 05

  And the, the young lady in the waiting room in there, Allison Ball, gave me that deal. And so we'll flash forward to now where I got a little squirrel to start a little record label. Allison is running the label, JBR.

• 1:01:48Questlove?

  Wow. Okay, so that's how that starts. So.

• 1:01:51Speaker 05

  She also gave me my solo deal at Warner Brothers, Allison did.

• 1:01:54Questlove?

  So you've stuck with her the whole time?

• 1:01:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, we've just been like best friends ever since.

• 1:01:57Questlove?

  That's beautiful.

• 1:01:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:01:58Questlove?

  That's hard to find, that level of loyalty.

• 1:02:00Speaker 05

  Everyone in the industry says that. It's like, it's rare to meet.

• 1:02:04Questlove?

  Someone that sticks with you and doesn't rid you once you don't serve them a purpose.

• 1:02:08Speaker 05

  Especially a record executive.

• 1:02:10Questlove?

  Yeah, because it's all about self-preservation, saving their job.

• 1:02:13Speaker 05

  Exactly, so we've been.

• 1:02:14Questlove?

  That means she believes in you.

• 1:02:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:02:16Questlove?

  That's amazing. Would you say is the first thing, do you remember the first creative project that you made?

• 1:02:24Speaker 05

  Yeah. I remember the first, the first song that I, I wrote. Well, there's the first song I wrote and then there's the first song that I recorded.

• 1:02:37Questlove?

  Okay.

• 1:02:37Speaker 05

  So the first song I wrote was a song called "The Phone", when I was like 12 or 13 years old. But the first song that I recorded was a song called "Gina". And this was like right around that time when I was just writing songs with my cousin. And it actually won an award, like, Wisconsin had some kind of like songwriter's competition. And Gina won an award, you know, and then, and even then, I was like, I didn't like cut the safety net and just jump into the music industry. I was like, this is fun. I guess I'm supposed to go to college and just figure out what vocation I should have.

• 1:03:19Questlove?

  Well, singing wise, who are the three singers that are your?

• 1:03:22Speaker 05

  Great question.

• 1:03:23Questlove?

  Your North Star?

• 1:03:24Speaker 05

  My North Star, top of the list is Ella Fitzgerald.

• 1:03:28Questlove?

  Okay.

• 1:03:29Speaker 05

  And then it would probably, it's a cross between Donny Hathaway and Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin, somewhere in there.

• 1:03:38Questlove?

  Okay. Who is the singer, all right, yesterday I was just talking about like how like Rachelle Farrell has really never truly like gotten her flowers.

• 1:03:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, because she's fucking incredible.

• 1:03:50Questlove?

  Right. Who, who do you see as a singer that you grew up listening to that really just never?

• 1:03:58Speaker 05

  There's a couple of them.

• 1:03:59Questlove?

  All right, who?

• 1:04:00Speaker 05

  As much as people love Bobby Caldwell, I mean, I just, I just, there's something about his tone, the way he perfectly landed the vibrato at exactly the right place and the fact that he played all the instruments. Bobby Caldwell is one of those. Another one is probably Geno Van Nellie.

• 1:04:20Questlove?

  Yes.

• 1:04:21Speaker 05

  Because like he's got those deep jazz fusion roots and him and his brother Ross writing all that deep crazy shit. And, but still, just like, just like Stanley Clarke and George Duke, they could be like, all right, let's zero in on a hit.

• 1:04:37Questlove?

  Right.

• 1:04:38Speaker 05

  But then the well is so deep. Yeah, they, they come to mind.

• 1:04:43Questlove?

  No, I love that. Like, my sister used to always listen to, first out, Powerful People.

• 1:04:47Speaker 05

  Powerful People, oh my god.

• 1:04:49Questlove?

  With JoJo and all that stuff on there and, yeah.

• 1:04:51Speaker 05

  Mama Coco.

• 1:04:52Questlove?

  Yeah, yeah, yes.

• 1:05:01Speaker 04

  Hey, it's Nile Rodgers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by my friend, John Ledge. What still makes you just sit down at the piano?

• 1:05:23Questlove?

  If you sat down at 9:00 AM and then at noon, you had a full song that you recorded and put in your voice recorder or you recorded at your studio, you just created something brand new that didn't exist when you woke up. What a beautiful feeling it is. I'm always excited to write something new. I've been writing for Broadway, which has been a new challenge with new collaborators and amazing performers who are triple threats, who can sing and dance and act and do all these amazing things. And I want to keep feeling that. And so that means not resting on my laurels, going out there and continuing to create something new.

• 1:05:59Speaker 04

  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:06:08Speaker 07

  This is Jason Timp from Hoops Tonight with Jason Timp. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra. Two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. Built on a reputation for quality and reliability, Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which can mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go.

• 1:06:38Questlove?

  Let's go places.

• 1:06:45Questlove?

  All right, so what is the road that leads to? Because I always feel as though like your first album is basically like the totality of your life from birth.

• 1:06:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:06:56Questlove?

  To the moment.

• 1:06:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, and then can you do it again?

• 1:06:58Questlove?

  Oh, wait, well, I mean, you know, for you, the sophomore thing was.

• 1:07:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, the sophomore thing was the one.

• 1:07:06Questlove?

  That was the blessing, but all right, so the true to myself, like the road that leads to true to myself. Just tell me about the experience of getting a deal. Like, were you given agency to create what you wanted? Or was it like you're learning as you're going along?

• 1:07:21Speaker 05

  I think it was a combination of it was a almost like a council of the three of us. My sister, myself and my cousin, along with the record label. And of course, as an individual, I'm going to have my own ideas about how and what songs should be done and who and how they should be produced.

• 1:07:42Questlove?

  Oh, there's the trio album, the Benet album.

• 1:07:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, I did not have that agency.

• 1:07:47Questlove?

  Right.

• 1:07:47Speaker 05

  On that record. So that by the time True to Myself happened, that was my first solo album, that's.

• 1:07:53Questlove?

  But explain to me, how did the Benet situation implode?

• 1:07:57Speaker 05

  It didn't really implode as much as it was like, uh, my sister, very pragmatic, practical person, who she had a pretty good job in Milwaukee at the time. And my cousin, it was always his dream and my dream to be these producers, these songwriters. And my sister said, all right, I'll come along, let's see what happens. And we did the Benet album.

• 1:08:19Questlove?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:20Speaker 05

  And, you know, a story as old as time, it wasn't properly promoted or marketed, or maybe we didn't have the right hit on the record.

• 1:08:28Questlove?

  What year was this?

• 1:08:29Speaker 05

  This is 92.

• 1:08:30Questlove?

  Was Gary at EMI at this time?

• 1:08:32Speaker 05

  Gary, wait, wait, wait, wait, why is that name familiar?

• 1:08:36Questlove?

  Well, Gary, um.

• 1:08:39Speaker 05

  Why is a Gary EMI?

• 1:08:40Questlove?

  I only know Gary because.

• 1:08:42Speaker 05

  Very familiar.

• 1:08:43Questlove?

  He was Dee's guy for Brown Sugar. He was at EMI around 92.

• 1:08:48Speaker 05

  He was probably in the hallways, you know, I was primarily just dealing with Ron Fair and Allison.

• 1:08:55Questlove?

  He dealt with Ron Fair?

• 1:08:56Speaker 05

  Absolutely, Ron Fair.

• 1:08:58Questlove?

  What was that like?

• 1:09:02Speaker 05

  You gotta qualify that question.

• 1:09:03Questlove?

  I don't know if I'm even allowed to answer why I asked you in that sort of way.

• 1:09:08Speaker 05

  No, Ron, you know, I mean.

• 1:09:10Questlove?

  See, I dealt with Interscope, Ron Fair.

• 1:09:13Speaker 05

  Uh, I didn't.

• 1:09:14Questlove?

  And they're very specific on our way or the highway, and I chose the highway.

• 1:09:19Speaker 05

  Well, that's probably, so Ron Fair had to give Allison the okay, because Ron Fair was Allison's boss.

• 1:09:26Questlove?

  Okay.

• 1:09:27Speaker 05

  To sign us. And so, you know, Ron Fair.

• 1:09:30Questlove?

  Shout out, Ron, this is not slander.

• 1:09:32Speaker 05

  We, I just like, like, two years ago, I never really had a relationship with Ron Fair back then. Allison had the relationship with Ron Fair. And, you know, so in that respect, Ron's always been cool with me. We just had dinner a couple of years ago.

• 1:09:44Questlove?

  Okay.

• 1:09:45Speaker 05

  Uh, but.

• 1:09:45Questlove?

  For, for those watching, Ron, um, kind of during like Interscope's glory years, like, if you look at the Black Eyed Peas, Maya's stuff.

• 1:09:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:56Questlove?

  Uh, who else? Aguilera?

• 1:09:58Speaker 05

  Christina Aguilera, yeah.

• 1:09:59Questlove?

  Yeah, Aguilera.

• 1:10:01Speaker 05

  Those are Ron Fair glory years.

• 1:10:02Questlove?

  No doubt, like, any.

• 1:10:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:10:04Questlove?

  Yeah, like Ron Fair, I would say is probably kind of right behind the zone where, that we hold in the space for, like Clyde Davis.

• 1:10:14Speaker 05

  Clyde, exactly, that, yeah.

• 1:10:16Questlove?

  Having the ears. My, you know, my rebellious 20, 30 year old self, you know, was just in another place where, and I think, I believe Will I am, Will, I gotta get you on the show too. When Will talks about the third album with the Peas, they, they gave me the scenario, which is basically Interscope and those guys was like, look,

• 1:10:40Questlove?

  we have what it takes to make you guys winners, or you could just be the Roots.

• 1:10:48Questlove?

  It's like.

• 1:10:49Speaker 05

  See.

• 1:10:49Questlove?

  And they kind of made it, I didn't take it as an insult, because the thing is, is that, you know.

• 1:10:56Speaker 05

  They're basically saying, you can kind of choose not to reach white people.

• 1:11:00Questlove?

  Well, it's like, if you were to ask me now, okay, so, I mean, it's been no secret that with the Roots and the Fugees out at the same time, whatever.

• 1:11:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:10Questlove?

  We're touring with them at a point in which like, they started out as our opening act, and then all of a sudden, it's like, oh, Jesus, like, what's happening, like, you know? And if you were asked me in retrospect, like, okay, uh, if you can go back again and do it all over again, and let's say we put you in that same scenario where your second album will sell 16 million units, but also this is what will come with it, and everything, and those three have a very specific story.

• 1:11:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:41Questlove?

  Of what's happened to them in the last 25 years. Yeah, and while it's happening, am I sitting in a bathtub having a panic attack? Because I have a covered rolling stone, and my electricity's off, and we're never going to make it. Like, I've had many of those nights.

• 1:11:58Speaker 05

  Oh, so have I.

• 1:11:59Questlove?

  But now, man, like, we've survived.

• 1:12:05Speaker 05

  The, the, the idea.

• 1:12:06Questlove?

  A quiet war.

• 1:12:07Speaker 05

  Yes, yes.

• 1:12:09Questlove?

  And it's one that's not tangible enough for us to actually prove that it was a war, because people just see it as like, oh, the Roots and Eric Benet, like, yeah, you guys singing.

• 1:12:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:12:17Questlove?

  But, you know, there's a lot you gotta go through.

• 1:12:20Speaker 05

  The journey along the way is, will kill some motherfuckers.

• 1:12:26Questlove?

  It's taxing, it, it has.

• 1:12:27Speaker 05

  And it has.

• 1:12:28Questlove?

  No, it's killed every motherfucker.

• 1:12:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, because it is, there's so much in what you just said, but I, I just feel like it's so, first of all, what we do, it's so toxic to the human psyche and just our journey to get the individual adulation. Like, and, and you gotta be a really strong emotional person to keep yourself in check. Like, even at, like, I've never been like a really big star, but, but being plucked from Milwaukee and then just having an unhealthy amount of attention on you for crazy shit.

• 1:13:08Questlove?

  I've seen you eight times in my life, and each time, like, the drug of, wow, wow! Like, I, and I was there for key moments in your life.

• 1:13:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:13:20Questlove?

  I was there in the front row of the N W A C P Awards when that moment happened, like.

• 1:13:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:13:24Questlove?

  And I know that's a drug feeling.

• 1:13:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, it is.

• 1:13:28Questlove?

  That it's such a high, and what people don't know is, an hour after the show's done,

• 1:13:36Questlove?

  I've discovered DJing after the show as a way to let myself down.

• 1:13:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, that was wise.

• 1:13:42Questlove?

  To avoid drinking or to avoid any other.

• 1:13:45Speaker 05

  That was wise.

• 1:13:46Questlove?

  You know?

• 1:13:46Speaker 05

  That was wise.

• 1:13:47Questlove?

  But.

• 1:13:47Speaker 05

  People will never understand that part of the journey. You see the snapshot of fame and success, and it's like, I want that, but that's only the snapshot, dude. And I know it sounds so like, oh, poor you guys, I know it comes off like that.

• 1:14:05Questlove?

  This is why I make movies, like, because if you, the DNA of all the movies is, again, to show you the human side of, because, you know, I wanted to know why was Sly Stone sabotaging? You get everything you ever wanted, like, just show up.

• 1:14:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:21Questlove?

  And, you know, I was one of those people that would judge, you know, unfairly, D'Angelo, Lauren, whatever, like.

• 1:14:28Speaker 05

  It's difficult not to unfairly judge them.

• 1:14:32Questlove?

  But I get it now.

• 1:14:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:33Questlove?

  And I, I totally understand that, once you jump in this pool, it's no explaining how to, one is, it's no, it's no explaining the slow horror of it all.

• 1:14:46Speaker 05

  Woo, you poetic motherfucker.

• 1:14:48Questlove?

  It's kind of why I have this space, just to.

• 1:14:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:51Questlove?

  Meet other people, like, I know you know how that feels.

• 1:14:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:56Questlove?

  So, like, when the first wave of what we call Neo Soul.

• 1:15:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:02Questlove?

  Came through.

• 1:15:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:03Questlove?

  For you, how much pressure did it feel? Because, I mean, you're coming out the gate with the D'Angels, with the Eras, with the, uh, Tony Riches, with the.

• 1:15:15Speaker 05

  Tony Rich, that's right, yeah.

• 1:15:17Questlove?

  Dude, like, just literally, at the time, did it feel like, oh, this is the dawning of a new day, like, we're.

• 1:15:23Speaker 05

  That's exactly what it felt like, because I thought it was my idea. You know, you know.

• 1:15:28Questlove?

  You thought you were alone like that?

• 1:15:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, I thought I was doing something, I was like, nah, I want to go back to the Donny Hathaway, I want to go back to the keyboards, and I love the way.

• 1:15:35Questlove?

  Right.

• 1:15:36Speaker 05

  You know, uh, uh, you know, Bobby Caldwell with all these live, I thought, I thought, oh, I got a great idea, that's why I call the album True to Myself.

• 1:15:43Questlove?

  Right, okay.

• 1:15:44Speaker 05

  Like, I'm gonna do it like me, and then it was like, apparently, there was 12 other motherfuckers thinking the same thing, more than that, or.

• 1:15:53Questlove?

  Even starting that record, one, how did it feel dusting yourself off from the rubble of the Benet project before? And then doing it by yourself without your sister, without your cousin?

• 1:16:08Speaker 05

  God.

• 1:16:09Questlove?

  Like, is there a whole, like, the family dynamic and the guilt, or the people pleasing aspect?

• 1:16:15Speaker 05

  There's definitely some family guilt of, hey, hey, y'all, I gotta go do this. But the beautiful thing about having such an incredible family like I have, is like, all right, then, little brother, we support you. And that, how fucking.

• 1:16:32Questlove?

  How'd you make that happen?

• 1:16:33Speaker 05

  I didn't, that was my mom and dad just raising us like, like that, and it was, I, I don't, I don't know, so it's like.

• 1:16:39Questlove?

  No one ever gets over the guilt of, I gotta do it for myself.

• 1:16:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:44Questlove?

  No one ever gets.

• 1:16:45Speaker 05

  I, I have an incredible family, and I never not give it up to my family whenever I'm thinking about my road to being here. But that part of it, it was liberating. It was like, I remember, because Allison will tell you, because Allison saw so much in me uh, from the Benet thing.

• 1:17:05Questlove?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:06Speaker 05

  And she was like, okay, this is what we're gonna do, I'm gonna bring you out to LA. This was after we got dropped.

• 1:17:11Questlove?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:12Speaker 05

  For the EMI thing, I'm gonna bring you out to LA. I know all these producers, all these producers, and they're getting all these placements. And you're gonna be out here for a month, and you're in court with this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy. And then I did that. I went out there and I recorded all these songs that sounded like what was happening.

• 1:17:28Questlove?

  Wait, did you write Spiritual Thing or Femininity?

• 1:17:30Speaker 05

  Well, I'll tell you about that. Yes.

• 1:17:32Questlove?

  Okay.

• 1:17:32Speaker 05

  So, so I'm like, I work with all these producers, and this was like ninety-four, three?

• 1:17:40Questlove?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:41Speaker 05

  And I remember we listened to all of the stuff, and nothing was hitting either one of us. And she was just like, you know what? I just, I spoke to all the producers that you just work with, and they were like, yeah, the nigga can really sing. That's not the problem. He's just not, his voice ain't really fitting on this stuff. And so that's when I was like, how about this? Let me just go back to Milwaukee, and let me just get with my people. Cat Demonte, who is this brilliant keyboard player in Milwaukee, my cousin George.

• 1:18:15Questlove?

  Okay.

• 1:18:15Speaker 05

  Like, let me just write a bunch of shit that feels good to me. And that's where True to Myself.

• 1:18:22Questlove?

  Who were you working with previously before you went back to the woodshed to do it yourself? Are you allowed to say?

• 1:18:29Speaker 05

  I am allowed to say, but if I'm being quite honest with you, I don't remember.

• 1:18:33Questlove?

  Never mind.

• 1:18:34Speaker 05

  Yeah. It was like, it was talented guys. Allison was like, this guy's gotten placements here, this guy. So I would record these songs.

• 1:18:42Questlove?

  Got you. Okay.

• 1:18:43Speaker 05

  After that didn't work, I just went back to Milwaukee, wrote True to Myself. All those songs, I got with this cat, Oshun Lade. Do you know Oshun Lade? He's a DJ producer now, but anyway, he used to be called Christian Warren back in the, back in the day.

• 1:18:57Questlove?

  Okay.

• 1:18:57Speaker 05

  I recorded Femininity with him. And then I remember Allison had just gotten her job at Warner Brothers. And I remember, all right, well, check this out. See what you like about this. She called me, it's like, nigga, this is what, this shit is hot, nigga. And she, she let the people in the building at Warner Brothers hear it, and there was a buzz around. And that's, that's how I got the Warner Brothers deal.

• 1:19:22Questlove?

  Was this still Medina led Warner Brothers, or who was like the head? I never knew what this structure was.

• 1:19:28Speaker 05

  No, who was?

• 1:19:29Questlove?

  Like, after Medina left, I don't know.

• 1:19:31Speaker 05

  So I tried to stay out of the whole executive thing and just be in the studio and deal with Allison.

• 1:19:37Questlove?

  Okay.

• 1:19:38Speaker 05

  If Allison was in there, Allison, come in here. Who's at the head of? I'm Tom Wally, right? No, that was, that was much later. That was much later. Allison knows. Yeah. Tom Wally was much later.

• 1:19:49Questlove?

  So, once these songs start hitting, what is, what is, what is the feeling?

• 1:19:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, Spiritual Thing.

• 1:19:56Questlove?

  Yeah, like, what is the feeling of?

• 1:19:58Speaker 05

  Vindication, maybe.

• 1:19:59Questlove?

  I made it, or?

• 1:20:00Speaker 05

  No, I never felt like I made it.

• 1:20:02Questlove?

  Even now, do you sort of feel like, like, every day is a?

• 1:20:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, I still don't feel like I made it. I still feel like.

• 1:20:08Questlove?

  We will forever be climbing the?

• 1:20:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, I will forever, like, and I think that's the thing. Like, you're a true musician artist, so you're more about reaching an unreachable perfection of something that can never be perfected. And so I always feel like, oh, man.

• 1:20:27Questlove?

  Well, you just said, how much is enough, like, ten minutes ago. And that is kind of, the, the book I'm reading right now is trying to teach me, like, really to settle into not being insatiable.

• 1:20:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:20:46Questlove?

  Or it's never perfect enough, or?

• 1:20:48Speaker 05

  The fulfillment never completely happening.

• 1:20:50Questlove?

  Yeah. Okay, when you got your deal, and I always ask this. What was the first extravagant thing you did for yourself when you got to the other side? Or made it, or got your advance, or?

• 1:21:06Speaker 05

  Shit. Got a condo.

• 1:21:09Questlove?

  Okay. So it was just more like, I need a place to live?

• 1:21:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, I never really.

• 1:21:14Questlove?

  Well, mine was just sneakers.

• 1:21:16Speaker 05

  Sneakers.

• 1:21:17Questlove?

  Oh dude, I went out, when I got my advance, I purchased ten pair. Like, you gotta understand, like, when you, I lived in a one pair sneaker a year household.

• 1:21:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:21:30Questlove?

  And you got school sneakers of which you couldn't wear at home. So it's like your play clothes and your school.

• 1:21:34Speaker 05

  So you just went sneaker crazy.

• 1:21:36Questlove?

  Dude, when I got my advance, I went and got every color code of Pumas ever.

• 1:21:42Speaker 05

  Wow, that's dope.

• 1:21:43Questlove?

  And then I forgot, my dad was like, I didn't tell my dad about The Roots until the second album.

• 1:21:51Speaker 05

  Really? What? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

• 1:21:53Questlove?

  You already know the drill. Like, again, same story.

• 1:21:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:21:57Questlove?

  My dad wanted me to go to Juilliard.

• 1:21:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:21:59Questlove?

  Yeah, I'm going to Juilliard.

• 1:22:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:22:01Questlove?

  Yeah, I'm going to my insurance job to pay for college. I, I did my audition.

• 1:22:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:22:06Questlove?

  And it just so happens, on the train ride home, Tariq was with me. I auditioned at the new school in the Juilliard, got on the train ride home. And it was somehow a Grey Poupon commercial, or the end of what I call a Dumb and Dumber. Finest woman walks up and says, excuse me, are you the drummer in the Spike Lee, Levi's commercial? Now, yes, having gone to school with boys to men.

• 1:22:31Speaker 05

  This is hilarious.

• 1:22:32Questlove?

  Having gone to school with boys to men, I was in the Motown Philly video.

• 1:22:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:22:36Questlove?

  But my dumb ass, I wasn't thinking quick enough, because she was paralyzing, beautiful. I was like, no, that, that's not me. And she's like, oh, okay. And she saw it there off, and Tariq's like, like, and then the next day, we're watching Soul Train, and the Spike Lee commercial comes on. And we have the eureka, like, yo, that girl thought this was us, so why don't we get a bucket and go on South Street and see what's up? So we, no, the anniversary of what you know as The Roots, thirty-four years ago, last Saturday, I took a white chitlin' bucket from his grandmom's crib, some drumsticks.

• 1:23:18Questlove?

  We freestyled for, you know, four hours.

• 1:23:22Speaker 05

  Why did I never know this story?

• 1:23:24Questlove?

  If we don't make a hundred and fifty dollars and change, we're never doing it again. It was just that one time, remember, we played on the street corner and?

• 1:23:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:32Questlove?

  But a hundred and fifty bucks, seventy-five each?

• 1:23:34Speaker 05

  Back, back, back in the day?

• 1:23:35Questlove?

  That was date night money.

• 1:23:36Speaker 05

  Back in the day?

• 1:23:37Questlove?

  Right. So we're like?

• 1:23:39Speaker 05

  I was making seventy-five dollars a week in that band I was telling you about.

• 1:23:42Questlove?

  Dude, we thought we was rich.

• 1:23:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:44Questlove?

  So then it's like, let's do it next week. Let's do it next week. Then it was like, well, let's bring out the real drums. Hey, can I join your band? Can I join your, and?

• 1:23:52Speaker 05

  Oh my God, I love when things happen organically and for real.

• 1:23:56Questlove?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:57Speaker 05

  Out of necessity.

• 1:23:58Questlove?

  So that's, that's kind of how it happened. So, but my dad, I did not tell my dad about any of this, because he was looking at like, you hanging with that hoodlum Tariq, and you need to be hitting them books.

• 1:24:12Speaker 05

  What's up, Tariq? You hoodlum?

• 1:24:13Questlove?

  No, I mean, look, I'm, I'm, I have the parents that will be like, hmm, you better Motown twenty-five them dishes.

• 1:24:20Speaker 05

  Right. Oh, hell, my parents too. My, yeah, my, my mom and dad too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:24:24Questlove?

  Literally like, you better don't believe a hype that homework, you know what I mean? Like, that's what they would do.

• 1:24:30Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:24:31Questlove?

  So, I mean, eventually my cousin's out at me, and my dad's like, uh, what's this? And we're on the, we're on the front page of like, the Philadelphia Inquirer, like, Roots sophomore album, da, da, da, da, everything. I was like?

• 1:24:44Speaker 05

  Similar story. Like, my dad didn't know that I was writing all these songs.

• 1:24:48Questlove?

  Right.

• 1:24:48Speaker 05

  Until I was playing, it was Gina, that won that contest I was talking about. And, hey, that's you? You wrote that? And he did, like, the biggest version of the compliment that my dad could ever do was, hmm, huh, hey, that's pretty good. And, and then that, yeah, that was, that was it.

• 1:25:09Questlove?

  You got me had to get added, no, you got me started getting play on MTV in the afternoon.

• 1:25:16Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 1:25:17Questlove?

  And then finally?

• 1:25:18Speaker 05

  Your bar was?

• 1:25:20Questlove?

  He let up. My fourth album. Then he was like?

• 1:25:22Speaker 05

  God damn.

• 1:25:23Questlove?

  Well, black, black parents are just about the safety of it all.

• 1:25:27Speaker 05

  Absolutely. And it's all coming, and it's coming from love.

• 1:25:31Questlove?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:39Speaker 04

  Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by my friend, John Legend. So you're helping Will I Am write hooks? What made Ordinary People become the one song from those sound checks you knew you had to make your own?

• 1:26:06Speaker 06

  I was just writing for the Black Eyed Peas. I wasn't expecting to write something for myself in that session. But I wrote the hook for Ordinary People, and I recorded a demo, and I'm like, I would rather keep Ordinary People for myself. This station in Chicago, WGCI, they start playing it before we're promoting it. The song spoke for itself. It became the defining song for my first album. I knew it was special, but you never know how special it's going to be and how much impact it's going to have in people's lives. And you never believe that you're going to actually change people's lives with a song.

• 1:26:36Speaker 04

  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:26:45Speaker 05

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• 1:27:29Questlove?

  Who was the figure that you met early in your career? That like had you shook to your core? Cause I know that, you know, you're meeting your idols and all these things. And like, how just intimidating was that first round?

• 1:27:42Speaker 05

  First round was crazy. And the first, I love your questions. Cause every time you ask one, a person or an image pops in my head. It was Natalie Cole. It was Natalie Cole.

• 1:27:50Questlove?

  I have such a great Natalie Cole story. What was yours?

• 1:27:52Speaker 05

  I want to hear your Natalie Cole story. But so my, my sister and I were, were doing the, this was before we got the Benet album. And we were just in that band and we were working on our original songs. And my cousin, George submitted us for this, that and the other. And we did the Jack the Rapper convention back in the day, which eventually got us on this show called Big Break.

• 1:28:18Questlove?

  I remember Big.

• 1:28:19Speaker 05

  Of course.

• 1:28:20Questlove?

  You were on that?

• 1:28:20Speaker 05

  I won Big Break for the, I, okay. So every Big Break for those not watching, it's kind of like Star Search.

• 1:28:28Questlove?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:29Speaker 05

  So my sis, every episode would have a winner. Oh, you got this many votes and today's winner is Benet. And then at the end of the season, they would have all the winners come back and compete for who was the seasonal winner.

• 1:28:45Questlove?

  Right.

• 1:28:46Speaker 05

  And the seasonal winner was R. Kelly and public announcement.

• 1:28:53Questlove?

  I wasn't ready for this. They were on it too?

• 1:28:56Speaker 05

  Yes. And.

• 1:28:57Questlove?

  Wait, what year was this?

• 1:28:58Speaker 05

  Shit, man. This must've been like 91 or some shit, just like that. And so.

• 1:29:04Questlove?

  I never knew this.

• 1:29:05Speaker 05

  Or 90, I don't know.

• 1:29:06Questlove?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:07Speaker 05

  And then, so, and Natalie Cole was the host and I never met a big celebrity before.

• 1:29:13Questlove?

  She was the host.

• 1:29:14Speaker 05

  She was the host.

• 1:29:15Questlove?

  She was the host.

• 1:29:16Speaker 05

  I just remember, you know, when you're plucked from obscurity in Milwaukee, you have an idea of what an iconic legendary celebrity is going to be or going to be like. And she was the antithesis. She was the opposite. She was just so, oh my God, you guys are so, you're so talented. She wanted to sit and have a conversation and she was just so real and raw. And that shook me. I was like, but do you know that you're Natalie Cole? I'm thinking to myself, you're Natalie Cole. And she's just like.

• 1:29:46Questlove?

  She did that.

• 1:29:47Speaker 05

  You're just, you and your sister are just so adorable and I love you and the way you harmonize. And so, yeah, that was incredible. But what, what is your story?

• 1:29:55Questlove?

  All right. Okay. So I have, you said that and you just reminded me that I met Natalie Cole twice.

• 1:30:02Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:30:02Questlove?

  So technically the first time I met her was probably the most dream scenario of all time. Speaking of like Jack the Rapper, there's, um, you know, there's Philadelphia legend, Deanna Williams, who would throw these conventions, you know, conventions were like a thing of the nineties, whatever.

• 1:30:19Speaker 05

  Thing. We ain't had no internets.

• 1:30:21Questlove?

  Right. So we had, uh, the I am convention in Philadelphia. And I would intern, I've interned there like for at least like two or three years in a row. And the last time I did, uh, the I am convention, they were going to give like Stevie Wonder, the diamond award of excellence or something like that.

• 1:30:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:30:40Questlove?

  And Stevie Wonder has a routine that I've, I've learned like throughout the years, where after he gives a performance, he'll have a meet and greet in his dressing room or maybe in his hotel suite upstairs.

• 1:30:53Speaker 05

  Not to.

• 1:30:54Questlove?

  And there's always a piano.

• 1:30:55Speaker 05

  Keep going, but Stevie Wonder, one of the most beautiful, like incredible people that know. Anyway.

• 1:31:01Questlove?

  Exactly.

• 1:31:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:31:02Questlove?

  So it's, it's like clockwork. Literally after he's done giving a performance or does, does what he do, he'll either, there's always a grand piano inside of his hotel room or backstage. And you know, where it's getting out, okay, Stevie Wonder is going to have a meet and greet in his room. So we were allowed, the roots were allowed to come in there. And, um, by the time I get there, like Stevie, the best part of a Stevie Wonder show is, um, this part, which is he's at the piano. And of course, every piano is just surrounded by at least 20 women. And it'll be random things like, oh, there's Valerie Simpson.

• 1:31:45Speaker 05

  Incredible.

• 1:31:45Questlove?

  Oh, there's Kathy Sledge.

• 1:31:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:31:46Questlove?

  There's, you know.

• 1:31:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:31:48Questlove?

  And he's literally going through his albums. Like I got in right when like, I think he started doing, uh, uh, uh, people handing in, uh, visions. He was doing visions, you know? So I'm watching this for a half hour and then, you know, I take a seat and then decided to get some air. He, by this point, he's like on Songs in the Key of Life. Like he's literally going through his discography and they're singing everything.

• 1:32:14Speaker 05

  I love it.

• 1:32:15Questlove?

  And I sit out there and then suddenly like Andre Fisher and Natalie Cole come and sit down next to us. Now, you know, I am one of the biggest Rufus fans of all time. Andre Fisher was the drummer in Rufus.

• 1:32:31Speaker 05

  Oh, absolutely.

• 1:32:32Questlove?

  He's also the nephew of one of my idols, Claire Fisher.

• 1:32:35Speaker 05

  Claire Fisher, who I had the pleasure of before he passed.

• 1:32:39Questlove?

  Work with Claire Fisher?

• 1:32:40Speaker 05

  I, I, I had the pleasure. What, on, on, on a, on a song? Absolutely. A Claire Fisher string arrangement. But anyway, I'm sorry, go ahead.

• 1:32:49Questlove?

  But, okay. So the beginning of, uh, D'Angelo's Really Love is the last thing that Claire Fisher.

• 1:32:54Speaker 05

  Because he's doing all those string arrangements on those Rufus album. Lil Boy Blue and all those beautiful.

• 1:32:59Questlove?

  Yes.

• 1:32:59Speaker 05

  Oh my God.

• 1:33:00Questlove?

  So I had a skillion questions for Andre Fisher and he's telling me about like when Rufus first formed and, and it took me an hour to be like, yo, like Natalie Cole and Andre Fisher don't know me from a can of paint, but they're like.

• 1:33:15Speaker 05

  Blew you away, didn't it?

• 1:33:16Questlove?

  And by this point, he's on side four of like Songs in the Key of Life. Like I'm missing if it's magic and as like in the back, you hear, oh, man.

• 1:33:28Speaker 05

  You're making this shit up.

• 1:33:29Questlove?

  No, like he's, we're on the balcony.

• 1:33:32Speaker 05

  Talking to Andre Fisher, Natalie Cole with Stevie Wonder, just.

• 1:33:36Questlove?

  However, my, my fun Natalie Cole story is night one of the Voodoo Tour. I learned what the term 86 means. Like I thought I was in this industry between, you know, and this is, uh, Voodoo comes out in January. So we're at the, we're doing a week at the House of Blues.

• 1:33:57Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:33:58Questlove?

  Just as warm up shows before we start the tour.

• 1:34:00Speaker 05

  House of Blues gigs.

• 1:34:01Questlove?

  There's nothing like, and I feel guilty for it because you know, people, when they talk about LA, they're like, ah, man, I hate LA, LA is not real and I'm leaving here and da, da, da, da, da.

• 1:34:11Speaker 05

  Those House of Blues gigs.

• 1:34:13Questlove?

  Yeah. But I, whenever we go to LA, it's just like, oh man, what's going to happen tonight? And so we did a week at the House of Blues and every night, like I thought I was in this industry. But to be there for a two month old Voodoo album of which now it's in everyone's system.

• 1:34:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:34:34Questlove?

  And we're testing these shows out. And, um, there's a point in the show where, you know, I get like a two minute break while something's happening on the stage and I'm listening on the walkie talkie of like one of the, and I keep hearing the term 86, 86, she's getting 86.

• 1:34:55Speaker 05

  She's getting 86.

• 1:34:56Questlove?

  I get backstage and Tina Ferris is like, yeah, man, we had the 86 Natalie Cole. One more again is probably the most night. If you would ask like, what's the experience that was the hardest of the Voodoo Tour? It's doing one more again, because either a fight's going to break out or sometimes the women would, would get smart and be like, okay. And they were running like football plays, like, okay, three security guards are on that side and one's over there. So this is what I'll do. I'll run on stage. It never failed.

• 1:35:29Speaker 05

  Really?

• 1:35:30Questlove?

  Two will run on stage and then four security guards would get them.

• 1:35:33Speaker 05

  And that's the opening.

• 1:35:34Questlove?

  And then they were open and.

• 1:35:36Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 1:35:36Questlove?

  So then it just became a, how can we keep D'Angelo from bleeding? You know, scratching him.

• 1:35:44Speaker 05

  I ain't never had them problems.

• 1:35:45Questlove?

  Dude. But at one, or even worse, it'll be a fight in the audience. And I don't know what happened, but Natalie Cole was not getting out the way for nobody. And I heard they were scrapping.

• 1:36:00Speaker 05

  Who was, who was actually scrapping?

• 1:36:03Questlove?

  They had the 86 Natalie Cole out of the House of Blues and two other women for either about to get into it or whatever. I never knew what the term 86 meant until the Natalie Cole moment. Wait, I, okay, I have something hilarious to tell you. So is Summer Fest held in that sort of outdoor amphitheater thing?

• 1:36:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, by the water.

• 1:36:24Questlove?

  Okay. I have a.

• 1:36:28Speaker 05

  Another story.

• 1:36:29Questlove?

  Oh God, I don't know if I should tell this story.

• 1:36:32Speaker 05

  Yes, yes, yes, yes.

• 1:36:33Questlove?

  I told it, okay, I told it in his obituary, but you know, we're sound checking. This is the one show that we had together.

• 1:36:43Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:36:44Questlove?

  It was Eric Benet and D'Angelo in Milwaukee. The summer of 2000.

• 1:36:49Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:36:50Questlove?

  Now you know what your situation was back in 2000.

• 1:36:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:36:55Questlove?

  And it wasn't a rule, like, you know, keep people away, you know, like principal have like motherfuckers like.

• 1:37:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:37:00Questlove?

  You can't come on stage and watch shit or whatever.

• 1:37:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:37:02Questlove?

  And so we're playing and we're, we're, we're sound checking Devil's Pie. And we're just sound checking.

• 1:37:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:37:10Questlove?

  So it's basically like just sound checking. Like we're not going through the motions or whatever. And we looked to the left and I'm in my communication mic.

• 1:37:22Questlove?

  I'm in my communication mic.

• 1:37:25Questlove?

  And I said, oh my fucking God, yo, she's here.

• 1:37:32Questlove?

  And she's watching us.

• 1:37:35Questlove?

  And it's like, make her go away. And again, it's like, we were frozen, but the thing was, I noticed that we started getting more intense.

• 1:37:44Speaker 05

  Of course you did.

• 1:37:47Questlove?

  But then Dee's getting, and I forget that Dee can hear my communication mic. I said, yo, man, I can't.

• 1:37:54Speaker 05

  You told us at the obituary?

• 1:37:56Questlove?

  I told this, yes, because this is one of the funniest moments in life.

• 1:37:59Speaker 05

  Okay, okay.

• 1:38:01Questlove?

  And next thing I know, like, he looks to the left and I instantly see his body freeze, like, holy shit, she's here. And the next thing I know, like, he's now like,

• 1:38:14Speaker 05

  He full.

• 1:38:15Questlove?

  Hit me two times and shit. And I'm like, dude, wait.

• 1:38:20Speaker 05

  Sound check, nigga.

• 1:38:22Questlove?

  Yeah, I'm like, let's just, we're good. Like, we tested everything. And he, we went through like the 14 minute. This is what happens.

• 1:38:33Questlove?

  Now we're doing full fledged double pie for nobody. There's nobody in the house.

• 1:38:40Questlove?

  And I'm like, oh, God, like, like, we're, we're literally like a boulder, like headed down.

• 1:38:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:38:47Questlove?

  And he is in his James Brown bag and he's like doing the splits and all that stuff.

• 1:38:53Speaker 05

  Shit, I was kidding. And he was.

• 1:38:55Questlove?

  No, but this is what happens. He, there's a point in the song, right when the all the lie, all the lie where, you know, we learned this from Prince, where he runs to one side of the stage and slides in the home plate. But this is what he didn't know. It was a wooden floor.

• 1:39:10Speaker 05

  Oy, splinters.

• 1:39:11Questlove?

  Oh, worse. There was a nail.

• 1:39:13Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 1:39:18Speaker 05

  It's Milwaukee, man. Nothing's put together properly.

• 1:39:20Questlove?

  It was like, there was a nail inside the stage, right? So he's running.

• 1:39:27Questlove?

  And when he slides in the home plate.

• 1:39:29Speaker 05

  Just.

• 1:39:30Questlove?

  The nail. Slices, like he has very thin cotton slacks on. You ever watched Charlie Brown, where he's at the pitcher's mound?

• 1:39:43Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:39:44Questlove?

  And he throws the pitch?

• 1:39:45Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:39:46Questlove?

  And then next thing you know, he's like butt naked because the,

• 1:39:52Questlove?

  D'Angelo had pants on. And then he did the slide. And the nail just ripped a perfect, like literally his pants.

• 1:40:03Speaker 05

  Oh, my God. But it got his, it got his, him too, right?

• 1:40:08Questlove?

  I mean, he was bleeding, but it was also like, dude, you're commando. What the fuck? And.

• 1:40:13Speaker 05

  Well, that worked out kind of good.

• 1:40:14Questlove?

  No.

• 1:40:18Questlove?

  Then it was like, all right, stop the song, even though I was staging, got new pants, but literally.

• 1:40:21Speaker 05

  Oh, my God.

• 1:40:23Questlove?

  We've never done a more intense sound check in my life and.

• 1:40:27Speaker 05

  Oh, I love that.

• 1:40:28Questlove?

  Sorry. I had to bring that up.

• 1:40:30Speaker 05

  I love it. I love it.

• 1:40:31Questlove?

  Okay, so for you, you've, and I mentioned at the top of, of the show that you've created

• 1:40:40Questlove?

  the wedding song. When something is successful.

• 1:40:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:40:46Questlove?

  And overtly successful, does it become a burden? Now, having done the Earth, Wind & Fire doc, Philip shares a story where he has to break people's hearts because they don't know that Reasons is, is a cheating song and not a wedding song. So he talks about the insane amount of times they've been asked to perform Reasons at a wedding or whatever. For Spend My Life With You, like, at what point did you realize, like, and were you ever given any wedding requests to perform this and?

• 1:41:19Speaker 05

  So.

• 1:41:21Questlove?

  And do you get tired of singing it?

• 1:41:23Speaker 05

  To answer that part of the question, I remember being a kid and seeing some of my favorite artists who were known for certain songs. And I remember thinking, wow, I bet they get like tired of doing that same. There's, here they go. They're doing that same damn song. And so I would imagine that if I were ever to make it, I would just get sick of doing the same song over and over again. I don't have that sensation. I love performing my music. I think it's one of the things that keeps me feeling young. I think every time I sing, Sometimes I Cry or Spend My Life.

• 1:42:04Questlove?

  Well, I was gonna say, Sometimes, I want to ask you, because the times I've seen you perform. You have, that's an intense song to go through. And when you do it in concert. It's super intense.

• 1:42:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's no way to lightly do that song.

• 1:42:17Questlove?

  So what if you're just not?

• 1:42:20Speaker 05

  It has.

• 1:42:20Questlove?

  What mind state do you have to be in, in order to put yourself through that, that rigorous process?

• 1:42:26Speaker 05

  That's, that's a great question. So Sometimes I Cry is one of those songs where we wrote the song and, and the song was mixed, wasn't mastered yet. And I'm just driving around, listening to the song for a week before we actually master it. And as I'm singing along, when it gets to that modulation, I'm in the car and I hit like three or four full tones above what it was on the record. I called my engineer and I'm like, man, get your ass to the studio. I think I could do a higher note. And so.

• 1:42:59Questlove?

  You wouldn't let it go?

• 1:43:00Speaker 05

  I went to the studio and then he punched me in at that modulation. And I hit that note. And as I'm doing it, I'm thinking, I don't know what the fuck I'm gonna do live. Because I don't know if I can do this live every night. So

• 1:43:17Speaker 05

  Sometimes I Cry becomes the number one song. And I'm thinking, goddamn, I have to do, I'm trapped. I painted myself in an, an audio corner. And so the first night I do it, I nail the note. Because when I was in the studio, I didn't nail it at first. I had to, you know, as a singer, you have to find, there's places in your throat where you can sing certain things. And I'm like, it took me a while to be like, okay, if I go to that part, I can hit it. And so I hit it the first night, hit it the second night, hit it the third night. And then I realized if I do that song four nights in a row,

• 1:43:57Speaker 05

  by the fifth night, that layer of my falsetto is gone. So I just have to be, I think I've successfully fooled people into thinking that I can always hit that note because live I always do. Because I always make sure that if there's a fourth night, I, I can't, I'm not singing nothing for three days to get that falsetto to back where it is. So, so you just gotta work with what you got.

• 1:44:21Questlove?

  So what is your, what is your care routine for singing? Because, look, having been at the Tonight Show.

• 1:44:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, you've seen the best and the worst.

• 1:44:33Questlove?

  Well, I'm gonna tell you something.

• 1:44:35Speaker 05

  But maybe by the time they get to the Tonight Show, you can't suck.

• 1:44:40Speaker 05

  Maybe they can't suck.

• 1:44:40Questlove?

  Hey, dog, it's 2026. Anything can happen. No, no, no. I was saying that I have, all right, so on our wardrobe, I mean, we haven't utilized it in a long time, but there was a point where we actually had winter suits, summer suits, and then a small part of our wardrobe that says Aretha.

• 1:45:04Speaker 05

  What? What?

• 1:45:05Questlove?

  So Aretha has this thing where it's like, if I enter the building. No air conditioning.

• 1:45:12Speaker 05

  That's right. That's right.

• 1:45:13Questlove?

  And she has enforcers to make sure, like those dudes in Steve Harvey suits that, you know, like.

• 1:45:20Speaker 05

  Twelve button. The Steve Harvey suits.

• 1:45:21Questlove?

  No, she sends, like, those guys are, they get there, she's been on the show three times. They will get there at two in the morning and literally sit there.

• 1:45:32Speaker 05

  Really?

• 1:45:33Questlove?

  In our catacombs, in our basement, to make sure that not one person, and you know, 30 Rock is an old building in which it's no individual air, like, can be like, uh, let's turn all the air off in the hallway and in the studio. The whole floor is affected. When Aretha Franklin comes in, there's a memo that comes out and says, hey, Aretha's gonna be guest, so.

• 1:45:53Speaker 05

  Everybody gotta be in mesh, mesh tank tops.

• 1:45:56Questlove?

  Dude, people thought Jimmy was like on coke, like literally the sweat on his face and. And it's, no, it's, but part of me was super cynical back then. I was like, is that psychosomatic? Like, is it true that like?

• 1:46:11Speaker 05

  I wonder if it is.

• 1:46:12Questlove?

  But, no, but I'm asking a singer, like, what is, are you the vocal rest person while on the road? Is it every three shows, I need a day off? What if the day off falls on a Saturday and the gig is lucrative? Like.

• 1:46:27Speaker 05

  So to answer your question, there is a direct correlation with overextending your voice and just tearing away at certain layers of your tone until you just gotta heal. Maybe somebody who's more disciplined in all the things you need to do to be able to do five shows a day for a week straight, I, I can't do it. And it's not psychosomatic. It's, it's definitely, you can hear it if I talk, you can hear it. So, but for me, a big part of it is no sugar, I cut alcohol out, I drink water, I try to eat foods. My whole perception of food is food is to nurture me. And if it's, if it's got additives.

• 1:47:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, if it's got chemicals, if it's got that, then I can't put it in my body.

• 1:47:16Questlove?

  No sugar during touring season or like if off season, are you allowed to have fun on Thanksgiving?

• 1:47:23Speaker 05

  If I hang out with some relatives, you know, and I got that peach cobbler right there, I'm eating that damn peach cobbler. Right? But then as a result of that, probably for the next four days, I'm not, I definitely won't eat any dessert and there's no candy. Yeah, I will do things that you're not supposed to do. I'd be, even though I say I don't drink anymore, like once a month, I might have a glass of wine.

• 1:47:45Questlove?

  Gotcha.

• 1:47:46Speaker 05

  But I, alcohol, nah.

• 1:47:55Speaker 04

  Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by Miguel.

• 1:48:13Speaker 05

  Man, I'm a black and Mexican kid from San Pedro, and I grew up in Inglewood as well. I never liked to be boxed in. Both of my parents colored outside of the line. I mean, even them being together at the time in L.A. was just not typical. And so I think that has always been a part of my DNA. There's a defiant something in me that feels like what we get to do with what we're given that's greater than us is to maybe connect people to ideas that they wouldn't naturally, you know, connect to. That's really me. I'm just kind of like defiant with love, though.

• 1:48:49Speaker 04

  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:48:58Speaker 07

  This is Jonas Knox from Two Pros and a Cup of Joe. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota Ford Ability, and it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. Built on a reputation for quality and reliability, Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 1:49:41Questlove?

  All right, so long ago, like I knew the story of Better and Better. And I always wanted to ask you this. So I always considered Hurricane your acoustic soul album because of the presence of the acoustic guitar?

• 1:49:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, Dean Parks.

• 1:49:55Questlove?

  Woo, that was Dean Parks?

• 1:49:56Speaker 05

  That was Dean Parks, bro.

• 1:49:58Questlove?

  Dude, that explains everything. Okay, because on what I didn't know, Dean Parks is on, I think, eight songs on Songs in the Key of Life. And once I heard the broken-down stems of it, I was like, wow, I never knew that this song had acoustic guitar on it.

• 1:50:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, because it's layered so brilliantly.

• 1:50:21Questlove?

  Right, and so instantly I was like, wow, the presence of acoustic guitar on this record, like that replaced the Fender Rhodes to give that album the personality it has. But I wanted to know, was the direction of Better and Better just what wound up being Hurricane? Or is that, what was the direction of Better and Better that told Warner's like, no, this isn't it?

• 1:50:43Speaker 05

  It was such, you talk about, hey, Tom Wally, I'm about to talk about you, bro. So that was one of the frustrating aspects of just being an artist at a big machine like Warner Brothers. Because, you know, I come off the success of A Day in the Life, which did really spin my life, and Georgie Porgy and all that. And I go into the studio, and I'm working on a lot of the songs I did, some of them in Philly. Larry, Larry Gold, Eric, I got your strings, I got your strings for you, pretty baby.

• 1:51:23Questlove?

  Yeah, Larry Gold.

• 1:51:25Speaker 05

  So one of the things I remember feeling so good about that Better and Better album because there were songs on it, like I Want to Be Loved, Pretty Baby, and Better and Better, Mike City. So I turned in the record, and Warner Brothers was just like, no, we don't like this record. And I was like, really?

• 1:51:51Questlove?

  So I take it there wasn't a day-to-day person that gives notes or whatever, like, you're at the place now where it's like, here's my record?

• 1:51:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, I had a lot of autonomy at that point to just go make your record. So I turned in the record, and you know, there's always that corporate turntable, there's always somebody else moving in and out. And this is when Tom Wally came in.

• 1:52:13Questlove?

  Okay, new blood.

• 1:52:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, new blood. And I remember feeling so good about Better and Better and turning it in, and then be like, no, this really isn't a good record. And I'm like, okay, so, and this is at a time where, you know, y'all got to understand, we didn't have laptops where you could just like go and

• 1:52:34Questlove?

  Make an adjustment.

• 1:52:35Speaker 05

  Make an adjustment or write a song or just throw it out there. You needed a marketing promotion distribution machine. And so I was like, okay, so does that mean two things are going to happen? Can you let me out of my deal so that I can go somewhere else and take this record? Nope. Okay, so does that mean I get a budget to go record some other songs and add to this record? Maybe I can salvage it and make a complete product that you feel good about releasing? Nope. So what happens?

• 1:53:09Questlove?

  Wait, is that why it took so damn long?

• 1:53:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:53:12Questlove?

  Because I was going to say, like, you damn near took, what, six, seven years?

• 1:53:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, it wasn't six or seven years, but it was quite a bit of time.

• 1:53:21Questlove?

  Came out in 2005.

• 1:53:22Speaker 05

  Hurricane?

• 1:53:24Questlove?

  Yes.

• 1:53:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, so, yeah.

• 1:53:26Questlove?

  And Day in the Life, that was 99, you came out the same year.

• 1:53:29Speaker 05

  You're right, you're right, that was. So I was basically stuck. I was stuck. I had Better and Better, they wouldn't release it, they wouldn't let me out of my deal. And so I had to figure out, how do I get myself out of this mess?

• 1:53:43Questlove?

  How do you survive?

• 1:53:45Speaker 05

  You don't. But so basically what I did was I just, I don't remember how I came up with this idea. I was probably talking to my cousin George, probably. But I was like, this is the situation, like, they won't let me out of the deal, they won't release the record. And at the time, I've always been a massive fan of David Foster. Like, where he used to do all the stuff he did with Chicago back in the day and

• 1:54:11Questlove?

  And Earth, Wind & Fire.

• 1:54:12Speaker 05

  And Earth, Wind & Fire, and Shaka Khan and all that stuff. And David Foster was kind of like a resident producer at Warner Brothers, for lack of a better term. And I said, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to bum rush David Foster and be like, this is what's going to happen. No, no, I'm not that cocky. I was like, Mr. Foster, you know? Your excellence. I remember it really well. I knew he was going to be at this function, this event. And I'm like, oh, David Foster's going to be there? I'm showing up. So I ran into him, and I was like, David, Mr. Foster, I'm Eric Benet. Oh, bro, I know who you are.

• 1:54:56Speaker 05

  And I was like, look, Tom's not going to let me out of my deal, and they won't let me do another record, but maybe, and this was, like you said, this was after years of me just being stuck, not knowing what to do. And I said, maybe I can come by your place, and maybe we can fuck around with some stuff. And David, God bless him, David Foster, you know David?

• 1:55:21Questlove?

  I know, yes.

• 1:55:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, he was just like, yeah, bro, shit, come by the house. He calls it the house, the house, Canadian S. His house was a big Tony Montana monstrosity on the beach in Malibu. And I just remember pulling up to this thing like, god damn. But he still, just David, yeah, come on, man, come to the studio. Humberto Gattika was there, yeah.

• 1:55:44Questlove?

  Damn.

• 1:55:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, engineering. And that's where we did, and the first song we wrote together was Hurricane. Yeah, and then we did The Last Time, and then, hey, I got some cats that are going to come over and be like the cats for the album, Dean Parks, Vinnie Caliuta.

• 1:56:03Questlove?

  That explains.

• 1:56:04Speaker 05

  And it's like, I'm like, what?

• 1:56:07Questlove?

  Because I was going to say, the musicianship on that record, there's some, and I couldn't call, I was like, there's something so different about this without, I see that.

• 1:56:14Speaker 05

  So David saved my whole, like, I don't know what, I don't know what I would have done, because Warner Brothers, it had been years. They wouldn't let me out of my deal, they wouldn't let me fix the album that they did not like. Oh, and so what I ended up doing is like, three or four of those songs, like Pretty Baby, some of those songs that were on Better and Better, I would just sprinkle them on later albums. One or two of them was on Hurricane, another was on The One that came. So I made sure some of those Better and Better songs got out.

• 1:56:48Questlove?

  Okay, so as a singer, I would like to think that your entire outfit has to be vulnerability, the ability to show emotion. However, you know, I believe around 96, 97, kind of hip-hop shadow takes over the entirety of black culture.

• 1:57:12Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 1:57:14Questlove?

  And the armor of emotion sort of sets in, which really doesn't allow for

• 1:57:22Speaker 05

  It made what I do less cool.

• 1:57:24Questlove?

  Right, like, oh, softness, or that's what it, R&B, whatever. How hard is it to navigate such a sensitive, beautiful art form inside of this sort of Roman calicium of toxicity? Where you stand out like a sore thumb for something that, if this were the 70s, you'd be one of a million people doing it. So like, how hard is it now to navigate where just singing is? I'm not even saying R&B. Just singing in 2026?

• 1:58:08Speaker 05

  Man, that is an insightful dope question. I think-

• 1:58:11Questlove?

  And let me add to it.

• 1:58:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:58:13Questlove?

  Especially where you are in your mind state right now.

• 1:58:17Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:58:18Questlove?

  And, you know, I mean, you were touching shit with the Gerald Levert and the song he did with-

• 1:58:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, Pay.

• 1:58:23Questlove?

  Like, you, you always had your little message joints, like, sprinkled throughout.

• 1:58:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:58:28Questlove?

  But-

• 1:58:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, we got a joint in this one.

• 1:58:30Questlove?

  Yes, of course. I'm always from Philly. But, like, how do you navigate your art in 2026?

• 1:58:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:58:39Questlove?

  In which you now have to represent every singer. You have to be the message person.

• 1:58:45Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 1:58:45Questlove?

  You have to be the emotive person.

• 1:58:47Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 1:58:47Questlove?

  You damn near have to represent your whole lineage. Oh damn, I'm depressing you now.

• 1:58:54Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:58:54Questlove?

  I don't think you thought about this.

• 1:58:57Speaker 05

  I didn't, no, I'm really trying to take in this question because as you're asking the question, I don't think of it that way because if I did, I would fuck my shit up.

• 1:59:07Questlove?

  Well, I see, that's my, my, living in my brain so long and less in my heart, I always analyze first. Like, I'm, therapy's like helped me to let it go of-

• 1:59:18Speaker 05

  That's beautiful.

• 1:59:19Questlove?

  Analyzing shit. Well, it's hard.

• 1:59:21Speaker 05

  First of all, God bless you for doing therapy because a lot of people just don't take the emotional health seriously, so that's what's up.

• 1:59:28Questlove?

  It's either that or I'll wind up in the obituaries I put on Instagram.

• 1:59:32Speaker 05

  No, I hear you.

• 1:59:32Questlove?

  So I don't want to be that person.

• 1:59:33Speaker 05

  I hear you.

• 1:59:34Questlove?

  But, like, as the roots, when I'm going on stage, I'm like, yo, like, we gotta be Confunction and the Wu-Tang Clan.

• 1:59:42Speaker 05

  You feel that.

• 1:59:43Questlove?

  And Prince of the Revolution. That's why people always ask, like-

• 1:59:46Speaker 05

  You feel that pressure before you go on stage?

• 1:59:49Questlove?

  What black bands are left like that?

• 1:59:50Speaker 05

  That's true.

• 1:59:51Questlove?

  There's-

• 1:59:52Speaker 05

  That's true.

• 1:59:53Questlove?

  I, I feel like in those two hours, I have to be the breakbeat band, I have to be the disco band, I have to be the hip-hop band. I, we, we have to do everything in two hours. Like, I feel like I'm-

• 2:00:04Speaker 05

  Yeah. Do not ever stop going to therapy.

• 2:00:08Questlove?

  Oh, never. I got two fingers.

• 2:00:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, I get, because the way you phrase that question is like, if I thought about what I do, like you just described, I don't think, I, I, I would have so much anxiety, I wouldn't get on the stage.

• 2:00:28Questlove?

  I feel like I planted that seed in you now, now that's all you're gonna think about.

• 2:00:31Speaker 05

  No, you didn't because what, what, what cured that seed-

• 2:00:34Questlove?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:00:35Speaker 05

  Was the very first Benay album to True to Myself. Because, because the Benay album was me feeling like I need to be part of this collective decision on this art.

• 2:00:49Questlove?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:00:50Speaker 05

  The True to Myself album cured what you were just asking me because True to Myself was, fuck what people want from me as an artist.

• 2:01:03Questlove?

  Expectations.

• 2:01:03Speaker 05

  Fuck what's happening on the radio.

• 2:01:05Questlove?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:01:06Speaker 05

  Fuck what the radio state, what the record label feels like they want. Quincy talked about it all the time. There's a goosebump factor in the studio. That's what I'm going for. Whether, whether I'm writing it or vocally I'm singing it, my, my goosebump barometer is gonna let me know it's done or it feels good. Put it out there, see what happens. So it's like, and I feel like my major influences are the greats that we've been talking about through this whole conversation. So I feel like creatively, somewhere in my subconscious, I'm always stacking my shit against that, which I feel like I will never reach. And

• 2:01:49Speaker 05

  we talked about never reaching the unreachable, unreachable but always striving for it. So I feel like I got the Quincy Jones, I got the Steely Dan, I got the, the, the Donny Hathaway, I got the Stevie Wonder, I got Ella Fitzgerald.

• 2:02:04Questlove?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:05Speaker 05

  And I know how they make me feel on a visceral, emotional vibration.

• 2:02:10Questlove?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:02:10Speaker 05

  I'm never gonna reach that, but I know that if I'm in the studio and I'm at least, oh, man, feeling a little bit of that giddiness that they give me, I'm like, hey, I did my best and if they don't dig it, shit, fuck them.

• 2:02:27Questlove?

  True to yourself. My last question to you.

• 2:02:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:02:30Questlove?

  If you could freeze time for a day, press the pause button.

• 2:02:33Speaker 05

  Woo, I love you. I love these Amir questions.

• 2:02:37Questlove?

  I didn't even ask the question yet.

• 2:02:38Speaker 05

  I know, but I love the way they start.

• 2:02:40Questlove?

  Okay. If you could astral travel back to your 16-year-old self.

• 2:02:45Speaker 05

  That nerdy motherfucker. Yeah.

• 2:02:48Questlove?

  What would you say, what three things would you say to your 16-year-old self back in 84?

• 2:02:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:02:56Questlove?

  Okay.

• 2:02:57Speaker 05

  One day you will have sex.

• 2:02:59Questlove?

  Okay.

• 2:03:02Speaker 05

  It's coming.

• 2:03:03Questlove?

  Oh, let me tell you. All right.

• 2:03:05Speaker 05

  But, yeah, 84, I was very much, what is a word for the person who's the introvert but shields it with comedy and goofiness?

• 2:03:17Questlove?

  A human deflector?

• 2:03:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, but prefers to be alone.

• 2:03:21Questlove?

  Oh, that's a human being.

• 2:03:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, okay, well, I was, I was that, I was that human being. I would, I would probably tell myself, I was at, recently asked a question like this. I would probably tell my 16-year-old self who had this incredible imagination and wanted to see the world and wanted to do all these things and at 16, I didn't even know that I wanted to be a singer, even though I was very much a singer and a songwriter at the time. I would probably tell myself, you might want to rethink going to college. But see, see, this is the tricky part of that kind of question.

• 2:03:58Questlove?

  That experience part you hear.

• 2:03:59Speaker 05

  Would you go back in time and save baby Hitler?

• 2:04:03Questlove?

  No.

• 2:04:04Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:04:05Questlove?

  Right.

• 2:04:06Speaker 05

  You know what I'm saying?

• 2:04:07Questlove?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:07Speaker 05

  It's like, ah, shit, then-

• 2:04:10Questlove?

  What lessons would you learn?

• 2:04:12Speaker 05

  Yeah. I would probably try to be as coded and muted in specifics and just say, your dreams will come true and you will affect the dreams coming true of so many people, but keep working on the stuff you're good at.

• 2:04:32Questlove?

  Okay.

• 2:04:33Speaker 05

  And, uh, you know, now that my parents are gone, like, just, I told them every day anyway, but probably not so much my dad, because he was so emotionally, like, work a little harder on trying to pull a connection out of your dad, because he's so stoic and, you know, because you're gonna really wish you had that one day and just-

• 2:04:55Questlove?

  Well, hopefully now you're doing for your kids what you wish that you had for you.

• 2:05:00Speaker 05

  Every day I'm trying to be better. Yes.

• 2:05:03Questlove?

  That's all we can ask for.

• 2:05:04Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 2:05:05Questlove?

  Brother, I've always loved your voice, but especially now in 2026, I really appreciate and love your voice.

• 2:05:16Speaker 05

  Ah, boom.

• 2:05:18Questlove?

  And we need more of that.

• 2:05:19Speaker 05

  Boom.

• 2:05:19Questlove?

  Thank you.

• 2:05:20Speaker 05

  Man, I appreciate you, man.

• 2:05:21Questlove?

  Thank you.

• 2:05:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:05:22Questlove?

  Great Eric Benay on The Questlove Show, and we'll see you next go around, y'all. Thank you.

• 2:05:30Questlove?

  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 Conboy. iHeart video support by Mark Canton. Logos, graphics, and animation by Nick Alois. Additional support by Lance Cole. Special thanks to Kathy Braun. Special thanks to Sugar Steve Mandelli. Please subscribe, rate, review, and share The Questlove Show wherever you stream your podcasts. Make sure you follow us on socials.

• 2:06:16Questlove?

  That's at Q L S. Check out hundreds and hundreds of Q L S episodes, including the Questlove Supreme shows in our podcast archives. Questlove Show is a production of iHeart Radio.

• 2:06:45Speaker 07

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• 2:07:21Speaker 04

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• 2:07:59Questlove?

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.