Huge afro, great personnality, very talented on the drums... I had the pleasure to interview Questlove back a couple of years ago when he came to the Montreux Jazz Festival with D'Angelo. Not only is he a musical genious but he's great company and very fun to talk to. Here's a great interview with Sara Moskovitz and Kenny Fresh where he talks about Public Enemy, Vitamin Water, Lady Gaga and working for NBC among other things... ENJOY!!
If you could ask one deceased musician one question, who is it and what are you asking them?
If Jimi Hendrix were able to have a DoLorean-esque time machine, I would like to know what his take on modern technology is. Because he pretty much, with his second album Bold As Love, he damn near invented half the things that are now standard to modern music—it’s just that he sort of had to invent them the hard way. He wanted flange on his record, and he had to take three of his reels and play them all together simultaneously. Whereas now, there’s a flange invention. I would like to hear Jimi actually tell me, “Oh yeah, I would have invented auto-tune.”
What do you think has been the most influential piece in the American evolution of hip-hop?
“Rapper’s Delight” has stood the test of time. “The Message” is what made people take it [hip-hop] seriously and Run DMC made it accessible and Nation Of Millions made it art and Three Feet High and Rising made it fun and the first two Beastie Boys albums made it relateable. But just on a matter of a song coming out and me seeing the instant results of it, I think that no hip-hop song has had more cultural power—and it’s not even my favorite hip-hop song but I acknowledge the fact of it’s power—”Nuthin’ but a G Thang,” to me, was the first time that I saw a black hip-hop song make white kids feel black and like, with instant results. It’s almost as if “Nuthin’ but a G Thang” was Bill Haley’s “Rock Around The Clock”. To me, that signified rap as the new rebellion music for kids to piss their parents off to.
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