Questlove Can't Take a Compliment, Revisited

the hardest working guys ever. We love you so much, you know, and you and the guys, this is the coolest. We've been doing this together for what like seven years. Years he's been called America's bandleader. The forty five year old drummer is also a DJ, and he's been a caterer. He just came out with the book about Food this year. Quest Love is constantly creating, trying to do the many

things he loves seemingly all at once. But why thing Quest Love doesn't do well is take compliments, which explains his reaction to a very flattering profile in The New Yorker. I was pleased you were, Yeah, I don't know, I've been taught to not relish and celebration of of press stuff because I do so much. Um, you can't let it matter. I mean, after a while, it's just like, okay, I'm it's like now, I don't think I've watched Tonight Show episode like two years. You haven't watched your show

unless it's super epic. I mean, if it's like Phil Collins, then I'll watch it to make sure. Have we firstly started? We started? Okay? Um? I read this piece in the New Yorker, and I mean, just from my money, I mean, these press things aren't that important. You're right, but this piece is very complimentary and real and honest. And I'm thinking, what do you miss about them? What do you miss about Philly? Is it Osage Street? You having a mom and dad, the drums, the basement? What do you miss

about back before you made it? You know what? You know, it's weird. Um. My sister always rags me about this, um, and this will probably mark the first time that I haven't made a pilgrimage. Um. There's certain luminaries in hip hop that will go back to the old hood. And I'm like, dog like, why are you? Why are you driving a Bentley through the projects, you know what I mean? Like that having that moment I'm in mind is the exact opposite because my car is like I'm still driving

my first car, which is still driving. Yeah, I'm never going to give it up. I mean, I have other cars, but my scion is is my baby. But um uh, I don't know, like I have this. I often have this craving to drive back, just drive back and look for old ghosts. Um it's it's weird, it's it's even uh even with with food, Like I'll question why am I sticking to a certain diet from my childhood? Am I hoping to to find old ghosts? Or I don't know what it is, But what's a diet from your childhood?

I mean, I'm in a place now, in a position in which I could be at the prime healthiest of my life if I chose to. And you know, as I speak to you, I'm back on that bandwagon in the piece you talk about a Greek chorus of health people around you. Whatever, they're back, They're back and singing louder than ever you asked for it. Because I let two thousand sixteen be two thousand and sixteen, and it's you know, it took a toll on me. So I decided after Thanksgiving, I'm going back to you know, to

to fight for my life again. Um and I think during Thanksgiving, I don't know, it's just thinking about those psychological process and I'm like, well, you know, what is it when you taste these college greens? What is it when you when you eat this particular type of soul food? Like are you missing memories of of of grandmam On on a Sunday? Like food was a very big part of our my childhood and uh, I'll say, like the

process would start on Thursday. I'd stay at my grandmother's house and it was always like it was an event. And Thursdays, like she and her sisters would start the process of cooking Sunday dinner. So Thursdays, Fridays, Saturday's even like while watching Soul Train, I'd help with snap beans. Uh. They're the type of people that would like start a cake on a Monday and drown it in uh brandy for about three weeks. Don't touch that game here and

you know that sort of thing. Uh. So it's like always a big process for this sprawling Sunday dinner, like every Sunday was like Thanksgiving. Every Sunday was Thanksgiving and special. Yeah,

it was special. So I don't know, maybe I'm looking for my identity now that I've been sort of Uh, I don't want to say misplaced, or you know, I've I've transitioned to another life, another lifestyle which I'm kind of separate from my childhood memories, which probably explains the Soul Train obsession, which explains like now now that I've I've had time to really think about it, and especially

in the last week, it's it's making sense. Like I don't think I'm collecting seven episodes of soul Train because I really think that's an awesome show. Of course, I think it's an awesome show. But you know, in my mind, I'm thinking, yeah, in my mind, I'm thinking, Okay, the Frankie Valley episode of Soul Train, my sister and I almost burnt down the house using the Jiffy popcorn on the stove. Uh. The Johnny Guitar Watson episode of Soul Train. I remember like cutting my hand on the the no

Frills Ravioli from Path Mark. Uh. The seventy nine episode of the Jacksons remember stupping my till in the coffee. Like there's there's certain childhood memories that are associated with every episode of souldring. So I think that's why I hang onto it. Um. And plus like being part of a uh you know, being in the quote unquote hip

hop generation, a culture that celebrates youth so much. Um. I think just the idea of transitioning or metamorphosis or even just vanishing, which I think I think the idea of vanishing is what's really can trolling a lot of Americans thoughts in two thousand sixteen, the idea of not mattering old traditions leaving the idea of change. The idea of this is related to the election or not. No, just every yeah, everything. It could be the election, it could be me personally. I think they have a sense

of somethings vanishing. Um. Yeah, I think just in general, there's something about two thousand and sixteen that is transitioning more than anything. I for one, um as a musician and a lever of the arts. Um, you know, this is the the largest amount of I mean this yeer volume of people dying in two thousand and sixteen. Um, it's for me. This is this is uh a message. I feel more of my childhood being I feel more me being stripped away than just like, oh, Natalie Cole died, Oh,

Mauric's White died, Prince died. Oh. Like you know, it's it's up to light piece of your twenty three key members of my life that you know shape my life are like now going in this year, this year, dude, I mean my It's to the point that even when I was writing um on my Instagram the there's a well known, well loved house singer named Colonel Abrams, I was hesitating to write a tribute to him on Instagram because now, like it was to the point where people

were like, oh, mirror, you're just the the obituary historian, Like your Instagram has come become nothing but these long two paragraph tributes to that of I was life like. It's it's almost like a joke down and that's that's where it's come to you. But I think more than that, it's just I think that all of us right now are fearing a transition, if you will. So you know, when I when I do drive back home and you know, sit there in the parking lot and and here at

the house and everything. I don't know. I think I'm maybe in my mind, I'm Jacob Marley looking for my younger seven year old self on going to school or something. You see, this is the thing I want to get to, which is when I read the article, and I don't want to keep referencing that article. But when I read the article, it's like you kind of get the sense of like how much longer are you going to do this?

That this is gonna be enough for you? Meaning music will be in your life maybe in some other way. Something tells me your love, your worship, music being in your DNA in the way it is so completely from what I read. I mean, you being you people, you're like some company of like, uh, you're like Mozart and Alan Turing. You know this savantage freak in a good way about music and so for an entertainment for that matter. But I'm wondering, so I assume you'll have some place

in your life where do you think it's weird? Because since that New Yorker article came out, um, it is blossom and bloomed tenfold um to the point where I guess at that time, uh, I had let's say I had maybe eight jobs, um up until early January. I mean I had six sixteen jobs. Like, I just decided maybe a month ago to not return to m y U to teach, um because what were you teaching there? Um? I taught music history. I taught at Clive Davis Music School.

Me and Harry Wagner, who controls all of Universal Music's reissues. So anytime you get like, he's the guy that has to sit back and figure out how to resell you Marvin Gaye's box set or anything from Motown or anything from the Rolling Stones, anybody Universal related on that label. So he and I taught at n y U for the last five years, um, and mostly we we I

like with that experience. Uh, it got scary the last year because suddenly I realized, I mean, I mean you you you have children, so I'm sure that there's a point in your life where you just a sentence started with millennials like you know, I go there, right, And it was frustrating. It's it's it's an amazing mystery because the rich kids, no, I mean some some are I mean some are well to do. I've realized that some came from the lineage of Oh, that's your father, you know,

that sort of thing. Um. But it was to the point where, because the information is so abundant now, I actually caught myself wanting them to teach me as I was. I mean, the questions they were asking about, Uh, like the production methods of Michael Jackson's thriller, Well, you know, on human nature. Uh here a fairlight synthesizer. But what do you think that was the eighty two module or the yeah that's using that class. It got scary for

a minute. But um, what what I specifically taught about was, um, the departure record. I'm really I'm really obsessed with the idea of self sap tajing Um. There's a movie that came out by comedian Mike Rabiglia called Don't Think Twice and actually, um coming up the follow up to Whiplash is the film called uh Land of La La with

Emma Stone La La La La. I'm sorry, I'm getting that uh La La lamb with Emma Stone and um Ryan Gosling, which sort of uh deals with the same uh premise, which is have you seen Don't Think Twice

or heard about this film? Okay, so Don't Think Twice is a film about um a groundlings or uh kind of a comedy troupe, um you CBS comedy troupe of like seven people, um who are really like at the top of the game with improv and then one day a Steve Higgins figure comes in and changes one of their lives by offering them a spot on an smlish type of platform. And uh, one of them, one of the seven that have been tightened it forever will clearly

be a star. Um. And of the seven, you know, it's like it's how they deal with the idea of again separation and and it's it's just an amazing two hour exercise and self sabotage. So how it relates to the class that I teach uh, I teach about departure albums? Uh? In other words, Uh okay, So the Beatles got tired of being the Beatles. They got tired of playing in stadiums in which they couldn't hear themselves of the screaming

and yeah, yeah, you know the story. Assuming that you're in love, love love, assuming that you're listeners are on your i Q level. Um okay, So they get a SHA stadium. After that they pack it in right then they decide we're tired of being the Beatles, so let's just make uh you know, a psychedelic record and Tim Panaley references and and we'll stop being the Beatles. And then it backfires. It really makes them like the greatest

band of all time. So speaking of Sergeant Peppers, that's an example, or the opposite is sly Stone, whom uh after having a massive like one single, hits off of his records, finally hits jackpot in uh n nine with the stand album and then a very you know uh uh uh a victorious uh uh run at at Woodstock uh leaves his audience like just you know, begging for more.

In whatever is follow up records is going to be like, you know, it's it's the ultimate alley you set up someone just shot of alley you and all he has to do is run to the to the rim and dunk it. And what does he do? He makes one of the most depressing let's go get that what is that's called there's a riot going on? Now? The thing is that, yeah, family affair. Here's the thing, there's a riot going on. Leaves a lot of people in conflict

because it's essentially the first funk record. But what I try to explain to the class is the equivalent of you know, how like your first okay, not for you personally, but how a person in two thousand and six, how their first instinct will be to pull out their cell phone. If a car accident happens, they pull out their cell phone. Oh, fight happens, I'm gonna pull out my cell phone to

watch it. What there's the right going on is is really you're you're watching in real time a human being having a meltdown on wax and it's it is It's like, do you know personally, why was he melting down? Well, that's the thing. There's there's survivor's guilt that people don't

talk about, especially with black people. The idea of like you reference in the article where you say the thirty three kids and this one's dead, this one's in jail, this one's bright and you made it dude, survivor's guilt. Survivor's guilt is real. Where is he from. He's from the Bay Area, Oakland. So I mean there's the pressure of staying true, staying true to yourself, not not selling out. Uh, the just the pressure of having to now deal with be careful. You know, you here all the time, be

careful what you asked for. And I feel as though in those two years of of the pressure of now, I have to live up to the expectation and the brilliance that people expect of me. And what does he do? He? I mean, Slim and Family Stone was in the age of Martin Luther King, the the utopian dream. It was a group of black and white musicians, a male and female musicians. I mean, it was the utopian post idea of what Martin Luther King's dreams should have been. And

he just piste on the legacy. In turn, he also gave us funk music. I mean, you know, historians will be like, you know, it's the first time a drum machine was used, and it's the first time, you know, the e cord was used on a on a base for funk reasons. So it's like, what's the big hit that comes out before this album? What's he riding the wave on? What song? Uh? The the hit before was? Uh?

I mean the album before was stand Now. To sort of stall for time, Epic Records put out the Greatest Hits Album and put three other songs that weren't associated so thank you for myself, thank you for letting me be myself hot fun this summertime. Everybody's like, even even the Throwaway singers were like, yes, we're waiting, we're waiting for this big statement and he pisses all over it. But you know it's the same for you know, Michael Jackson wanting to escape the family and be his own

man Like. Making Off the Wall was a departure record. The Beastie Boys not wanting to be known as these these party frat guys and want to make a serious, uh piece of art with Paul's boutique, the follow up to License to Ill. So what I basically do is I take eight or nine records of departure records. Some of them they were all made with the premise of I need to throw away and run away from what I once was. Some of them made a more successful all the be Les. Uh. Some of them were complete bust.

I mean, there's the jury still out on Satanic Majesty's request by the Stones, but you know it's it's you know, it's it's it's the Stones were never gonna get Beatles love, and they know it well. They tried. I mean, you know, I have to give it to them. They tried. So it's really it's really just about examining the psychological process of of making music and why we run away from success or the idea of doing it. Did you wait, let me ask you, because this is the first did

you did you run away from success? Um? Okay? So the Roots were everyone's favorite underground secret, Like you know, that's if you ever meet a music snob and there's like that that one thing that you know, there's the band that they know about that you don't know about, and that makes them cooler than you, and then suddenly you discover it, and then everyone discovers it, and then it's suddenly it's like, uh, like everyone has my toy

now in the pool. Yeah, we were that for a lot of people, and then with our fourth record, suddenly we hit jack pop because we realized what the formula was to not to monetize, but to to two gain acceptance. We realized what the formula was, but acceptance with what you It says, it seems to me you wanted acceptance with something else, meaning something tells me, because you're so acute about music, you didn't have a number one single.

This is what you're gonna learn about me? And you could and you could have sat down and something tells me, and I'm not saying this to be kind, you could write a number one single in the car on the way to the office right now when you leave here, and you didn't do that because fear fear. This is what happens. Okay. So when we started in UM, the idea of the roots, the idea of we would be pegged into alternative hip hop. Now, when we first came out,

they were like or they asked jazz. It was like, basically, if you weren't, if you weren't holding your middle finger out to the camera, you know, saying singing straight out of Compton, if you weren't in way, you weren't the status quo of what people perceived to be as hip hop. UM. But again, like for people that are not immersed in hip hop culture and when they just turn the channel and just see no no bitches, no no, no, no no, no no, then they just think, oh, that's all it

is UM, which it isn't. Like hip hop is a wide array of art and it just so happens that the five percent that catches on is what's in embroidered people's minds as what it is, but emotionally violent, that's what they think it is. But it's so much more than it is. So I came into uh metaphorically speaking, we got to the train platform as the first wave

of alternative hip hop. Uh train was leaving, you know, like when you run for the train and the doors closed and you see the train leaving, you have to wait for another twelve minutes for the next train to come. That was the roots. The first train was the Jungle Brothers, a tripolic quest de las soul. Uh. It kind of uh ended with arrested development like a ninety one, like

they won like four Grammys. They were the darlings of you know, finally hip hop as in art, like you know, people were were exclaiming that like our new savers, and then the backlash happened, like imagine that being the Obama era, like finally a new beginning. And then suddenly the next train comes in and the night Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg coming in with guns and bitches and ship and people like, no, this is what we want. So imagine this election, like how can we go twelve steps back?

And that was the mentality, and so we had to wait it out and waited out and literally embraced for it's a tsunami. We just said we're gonna, Paul Hendricks, We're gonna leave America. We're gonna move to London as a hub, find refuge in in in London. Uh, get our musicianship together, get our show together, get our songwriting together, get our production. Uh. We got a record deal in ninety two. We exiled in Um three years when three

years you live we were on. We were on Geffin Records, and In Records had so much money, Guns and Roses, Nirvana, Uh, Aaron Smith. They made so much money that Geffen was like, Yo, let's start a black music department where rock label. We have no black acts, and you know we want to cash in on on you know, the craze and so name you just stayed ge Well, I mean there was a d G C. But um, we were basically kind

of their guinea pig experiment. Um. They were like, you know, we'll we'll build the staff eventually, but for now, look just keep the receipts. Here's the credit card. Like that's what we did. And then, um, anybody married back then with kids that they had to pull over there or no, everybody was single. No, we were all single, were all out of high school and college and everything. And so what winds up happening was when we first signed, Aerosmith announced, well,

we're gonna leave Geffen. Remember Pump came out and it was like really big seller. So they went back to Sony and so I was like, all right, whatever. And then a little bit later it was kind of obviously like Guns and Roses was not going to have a follow up to use your loosen one and two, and I mean they had an ep of the spaghetti incidence, but that really didn't make any noise. And so Guns and Roses wasn't there to have a fill up record to make the more millions. And then Nirvana came and

you know, just changed everything and make gazillions. So then when April comes and Kurt Cobain makes his exodus, my manager called me at one in the afternoon and said, playing and simple, we're fucked, And I was like, what do you mean. He's like, dude, Aerosmith's going, Guns and Roses ain't coming back now, Kirk is gone, and what they're gonna do is they're they're just going to drop and cut the label in half. I was like, so what do we do. He's like, we're gonna go to

the studio for four days. We're going to finish the record. I was like, eight songs, ye, I don't have any ideas, make them up on the way there. And he's like, we're gonna shoot three videos next week. We're gonna shoot the album cut like totally russ and then we're gonna take that money because we were controlling our budget. They'd have a staff, yet we just had the credit card.

We're gonna take our leftover money and we're gonna buy tim plane tickets and get an apartment in London and Pola Hendricks and just lived there and pray to God that's our only hope. And you know, that was our only hope. And it worked. Uh, we miraculously finished an album and even in rushing it, I'm shocked. I mean it was critically claimed and all that. So we were

in the right mind frame. Shot three videos, Uh, kissed everybody goodbye, came to London with a stick in a bundle on her um, stayed in a hotel for like maybe a day or two, and then eventually found a flat god. An agent said, work is to death. We don't care what it was, and like that was our Beatles in Hamburg moment. That was our our Hendricks living

in in in Europe moment. And we made two other critically acclaimed records, but by the fourth one we felt if we didn't deliver the goods, uh, we'll be in trouble. And so we had a scientific conversation with our label. We said, look, before you, you know, divulge all this money into us, let's have a conversation. We told them that no matter how good the records are, no matter how critically claimed, how many top ten lists we make, unless you build us a movement, it's never gonna work.

And they said, well what is that. So we said this is what we need. You want the short version, long version? He said, give us a short version. We said, we need three fifteen passenger fans, we need uh expendable kind of uh studio equipment, uh, and we need to hire two chefs. And they looked and said what the hell? And we explained the plan. We said, what we're gonna do is every Tuesday, at this particular spot, we're gonna have jam sessions, and every Friday in the Mirrors living room,

we're gonna have jam sessions. The chefs are going to cook all the food to entice the artistic community. Because if you say free food, every everything, everybody be surprised. Everybody comes over and we'll just have jam sessions. And eventually, what we figured out in those four years was that no one has ever had success in music without being

contextualized in an artistic community. So you think you like Stevie Wonder, but it's like, no, you associate Stevie Wonder with Smokey Temptations, Uh, Diana Ross's Supremes, the Motown family. You look at look at someone without design, take Justin Timberley. You're automatically gonna think, Oh and Sink, Oh, Backstreet Boys, Oh Brittany Disney, Christina Aguilty. You think of the Disney set, you think of I mean, Prince grew his own crops,

Prince Sheila e Mars, Dame of Time. Like everyone that has success, the only people that have never had success, that had success without a family or contextualization was one Hit Wonders, Where Alan kick the guys that say Macarena, Tiny Tim Maybe the McArthur part person. But everyone's associated with the movement. You look at the Police, Okay, they were part of that post punk punk movement, early new wave movement. Talking heads like even if they don't do

it by design, we as consumers think that. So we had to grow on crops. So as a result, m these three years of having the chef the Jam sessions week by week, Um, suddenly we were writing the story of the next millennium of soul. So that's explains Erica Bado D'Angelo. Uh, most def tali quality basically the fourteen or fifteen or so platinum based artists in the future of course. Uh, starting in our living room and then

expanding having their own careerson my words yours. But but if if London is graduate school, if you all decide to stop. We found success by our fourth album, and then you know, the one thing that we didn't plan on was succeeding. Everyone got successful, so we stopped paying it for it. Like suddenly it's like, oh, we don't need the Jam sessence no more, Like we're an MTV every week, Like that's that's what the mentality was. And then it all came to I'm not saying it came

to a screeching halt. But people often asked me, what do I talk. There's there's a movie we did with Michelle Gandry and Dave Chappelle in two thousand four called Black Party. It was Dave Chappelle's version of of watch Stacks. It was Dave Chappell's version of Woodstock, which was basically kind of the alternative, the alternative hip hop gathering you know of in Brooklyn, of all the great acts Kanye West, Uh, the Roots, Dead preys Erica, Baudoo, common Um, all the

all the people that are under our umbrella. And something happened that day and I realized, just like, Okay, if you look at wood Stock, wood Stock is not the beginning. You would think like, oh, what Stock. All these new acts I've never heard of, They're going to be big. Wood Stock was the end of the sentence. People think that what stocks at the beginning of the sentence? What Stocks?

The end of the love movement? Because next was Altamont and Pay the seventies, the club everyone diing, Uh, Saturday Night Fever. People think the right about disco. Nope, that was the end of disco. By the time Hollywood puts to on screen, it's over right, It's over. So this was that morning. I was like, ah, this is how it all ends, and you know, it's like a brace. It was. It was a the mentality that you have,

which how am I going to survive the next four years? Well, not you personally, put for the average American, like I gotta hang on tight. I don't know what's gonna happen. That's the feeling I had. I mean, on on screen it looked very beautiful, like Mischelle Gandry is one of the best directors of all time, and you know it.

It looked like a beautiful celebration. But in my mind, I was like, well, this is where you know, I once held the baton and now this youngster named Kanye West is going to take over the reins and he's

going to be a new leader. And then I'm um, he yeah, at the time, he was the new leader because when he arrived on the set, suddenly and I looked in everyone's eyes, any anyone that was on the set that was like under nineteen suddenly came at attention and all the energy and attention went to his direction and he was just there like stand outside for a second and looking, but he was new. He just got it. Well. He he sort of came in his wolf in Sheep's

clothing approaches is kind of brilliant. I really regret, like we tried to hide our true aspirations and our true heart because we didn't want to upset the system. So our thing was like, yes, we represent the everyday man, the common man. I mean, there's there's nothing in the Roots narrative that looks appealing to black people, Like we don't have any tales of there's no tales of of of there's no look, Mom made it, that's the narrative. Jay Z's narrative is I made it. I made it,

like it's just it's a winning lottery ticket. I made it. That was never our narrative. So thus the reason, I mean, the Roots are more known to be Fish or the grateful dead of hip hop than you know, the winners of hip hop. But you know, don't sleep. Fish is a group that somehow still made eight figures a year under the radar. They didn't have to shake their ass in the video, they didn't have to get mired in controversy.

They quietly sell out Madison Square Garden three nights, and so that for us was a better was a better way of survival. Coming up, quest Love explains the magic of Jimmy Fallon and how Fallon convinced the Routes to join him. On Late nine TV explore the Here's the Thing Archives, I talked to Danny Bennett, who has spent his life managing the career of another musical giant, his dad, Tony. I had this epiphany and I'm like, I'm gonna run.

I'm gonna do this like I'm running for president. And I went to him and I said, you know, presidents would not go to Iowa if they didn't have to go to and and you know, shake the hands I go instead of having people come to you in Vegas. I said, your music transcends, right, He's reinventing himself. He's really kicking ass. I mean in terms of like taking chances. There's a transcendent quality and great art that that, like he says, defies demographics. Take a listen at Here's the

Thing dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. My guest today is a mere quest Love Thompson. While he's best known as the drummer and music director for The Roots, the house band on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. He's also sat in for Erica Badou, Fiona Apple, jay Z, saxophonist Joshua Redman, and he's managed to put out several books. While some people were surprised when The Roots took the Fallon gig, quest love is a man who has a lot he

wants to accomplish. People think it's money, money, money, and because it's not money, money money, you run and do something that frees you so you can go do this other thing. And was this gig with Jimmy frees you can? I ask you go for it. I hate to be the guy that answers your question with the with the question. Okay, so when your first approached to do thirty Rock, I mean this is the tail the tail in of of Scorsese film Baby Eater, No, No, No, even um um

the Cops Boston departed. Yeah, so even on the tail into that, like anyone else, I feel, I mean, this is why imire you so much. Anyone else would have overthought the situation and defiantly been like no, like you know, the particular legacy. I want to read leave behind is this and that? Or you know, I don't know if you're thinking about your Wikipedia entry as you do this. I'm all, no, see, I'm obsessed with how's this going to look on my Wikipedia? Because you say that, trust me?

Critic critics. One critic actually said, you know, the sad the sad thing about listening to a Roots record is that I can hear quest Love imagining his Wikipedia entry as each song is right exactly. So I mean, how easy was it for you to make that transition? Because people say to me, like I didn't have posters of Shaffer or Doc Steverson on my walls, like one day I'm gonna do this, and then it's like you've met with the opportunity and it it was it was a

no brainer. But it was also on the other hand, I was very it's just about it, and my manager at the time said, look, this is what's gonna happen. The critics that have been and you have to understand

how the Roots are perceived in the critical community. And we kind of unfortunately paying yourself in this corner where you know, they just thought like we were oh so serious, and you know, you know, like a surface person will look at Bono and think like he just thinks of himself too seriously and that sort of thing, and like overthinks everything. That's what critics were thinking about us. And there he was like, we need this because what what we'll do is it will help break the perception of

the political seriousness of The Roots. And I was like, yeah, but you know, like I had dreams of of doing what he does, like selling out stadiums and producing, you know, releasing other records and da da da da da, And he was just conventional goal we all have. Yeah, this is a lot there's a lot of good there as well. I don't want to put it down to be decaprio.

There's a lot of great things about being Decaprio. It is, but I was I so fought it, and he says, look, this is like some critics going to snark you, and we've got to use it as our motivation to really come back. And I was like okay, And sure enough it happened. The first blur news blur about the Roots are actually going to be a late night band. The guy says, this is the most depressing news I've heard. It's the equivalent of Miles Davis being a uh subway

a street subway. Uh busker busker, yes, exactly, which ironically is how the route started. Um. It's like it's like watching Miles David busking the subway and he's like, there you have it. Like we've always been in the position where we are always and that's the thing. We've always been underestimated, Like these guys walking in with these instruments, they're not real, they're not real hip hop. You know, we've always been in the underdog. What are you guys

gonna do? And he's like, just repeat it again, use it to your advantage, Like we should define and redefine the coolness of it all, not to say that oh, you know, they're same or corniness associated with the position of being a late night band, but it was our chance to make it and for us at least, the coolest thing ever. And that's basically what it was like. We weren't even really going to accept the position, and then Jimmy did something that no other human being was

able to do. Uh. With us, by this point we were like the complete opposite of what we were in ninety two. This is like two thousand seven, you know, two tour buses, you know, high off the hog and everything and in our glory, and uh, we just thought, okay, well, yeah, come to the show, Jimmy. We just figured like, at least we'll have a friend on television so that when we release records, we can be on his show and promote it. But we're not going to accept this gig.

And the funniest thing happened. I went away for five minutes to do. We were in U c l A campus. I want to do a quick, uh interview with the campus newspaper in my dressing room. And when it was over six minutes later, I opened the door and on the on the field grass, Jimmy and all eight members of the Roots we're in the eight is Enough human pyramid stands and I looked at my manager and we

are the most cynical, snarkiest, smartass know it all. You're we're the smartest guys in the room and not you. We just looked at each other and we're like, we're not getting rim this guy or and he just looked like, no, we're not. And what Jimmy managed to do was disarm us in less than ten minutes. Like Tarik alone, anything that Tarik wears is worth twenty dollars, like he's not driving a spark was on. Yeah, I mean Tarik drives before he wears like ten thousand dollar Japanese denim. You

know what I mean. He was on the bottom, like Tarik with nerve put his jeans on on the dirty I'm like, what did this guy do to talk? What did he do? What did he do? I don't I'm still trying to figure it. He has he's that guy. He's that guy like when you watch the movie and the the guys are trying to dissemble the bomb. In like point three seconds, he as the leg of the draw. He knows exactly how did disarm. He literally disarmed us and showed us the prose of the situation. It was

as if we agreed to it already and forgot. Well. But but let me let me say that this that I worshiped, Jimmy I adored. And the thing is, Jimmy is guileless. Jimmy's a kid, and and that freedom and that Jimmy's gonna flow with the ground. But we're all kids, right. But what's great is you guys in behind him with I'm not gonna say cynicism. But there's a gravity, you guys, there's a balance exactly, there's a great there's a great

balance there. There's a great balance there. What I what I discovered the first month in first of all, what I discovered about myself and about the band um starters for a band that sat and Rolling Stones twenty best band Live Bands of All Time list. I noticed that we never ever practice as a band because our shows are Springsteen length, three hours every night, and we we did two hundred shows a night. Like every show was like its own. I never wanted to snack before the meal,

you know, you don't wanna before the orgy whatever. Uh right, And so when we got there and we were in this closed in room, eight of us looking at each other, it was the hardest thing in the world to do because we never did this before, and like I had to call my manager, like yo, we did not know how to It was like being naked in public or something like. It took three weeks, but suddenly we rehearsed

and became better musicians. We became better songwriters, became better producers because they it's all these challenge is of Okay, I need a ten seconds sting for d Da Da Da da Da. Here's the name of the song now, and it made us more focused song like we're now. I felt like we've robbed our fan base those initial fifteen years because we're so much wiser now at songwriting, at being musicians, at entertaining. Like there's so much knowledge that we've gotten that we didn't know. I thought it

was gonna be a cushy retirement gig. Okay, we'll just set off in the sunset. I'll be fine. My mom's house will be paid off, my b that'll be cool. But that was foolish. I was made for this gig and didn't realize it yet. Are you guys gonna tour perform any time? Thinking about it? We what was once thirty eight weeks on the road is now a normal two days on the road is now We're gonna go out again, which is normal. We do weekends, We have hiatuses,

talk about your books. Yeah, well it's the first you find time for that. Well. The thing is, I'm I'm a serial tweeter, which is why I know, like people are ragging our current president elect about you know, why do you get up at three and and five that's the best times to tweet. Ever, I don't want to defend him publicly that way, but trust me too. I got the pad next to my bed lighting scenes down for TV shows. So um because of the the paragraph

nature of all my instagrams and and thoughts. Um, they were basically like, well, why don't you just write a book already? And at first I was resistant to it because I was like, how many ideas do I have in me? But um, so far, I've written three books and I'm kind of proud of it. The first book, Momento Blues, is kind of a a music memoir where I talk about life and music, and the second one

was a passion project. Uh. I'm very obsessed with the show Soul Train, so I wrote the Ultimate Coffee table book about Soul Train and uh my my last book was something the Food, about which is I discovered that comedians and uh chefs are kind of onor on a parallel creative level as musicians. That's what I learned in in fallon watching I'm observing David Chang and Dominique Ganzel and all these these great chefs when they're preparing foods

for our show. I started to notice that they think like musicians and became friends with them and then did a kind of observational study at their creative methods. Um, and I guess the next book I'm gonna work on is also about creativity and creativity. Well, I'm I'm the guy that doesn't necessarily I don't marvel at the vehicle more than I'm marvel at the machinery that makes it run.

And I'm always curious about the preparation process, Like I beg Higgins daily to let me sit in on that, Like can I I want to enter in at SNL so I can be And Lauren is not having none of this, by the way, uh too be there on the pitch meetings, like to to when I watched the show on Saturday. I'm always wondering what was the pitch, like, like how do they pitch this? And how did it

morph into what I'm watching right now? I want to know what it's like in the beginning, So like I'm always sneaking around on the seventeen floor trying to figure out, you know, how SNL works, So like between steps and Comedians, I'm trying to inspire myself with the restless the creative process. Yes,

and I'm also wrestling. Well, the thing I admire and the thing I'm so drawn to about you and that's so attractive about you is there's this discipline, there's this sense of history and at the same time, like Tony Bennett, who I always use him as the standard of this, it's like, but we also have to have a good time. This is what we dreamed of doing, we dreamed of being here. Let's have a good time, yes, and enjoy it because this is what we wanted. And I get that.

I get the two from you. I get the discipline and and and and and the the the the professionalism, if you will, But I also get where you're like, let's I enjoy it. Well, I enjoy it now. Before uh maybe five years ago, I didn't enjoy it because you're so immersed in the work. But uh um, a lot of it. Well, I discovered meditating because well, yeah, I mean I hate to be so more of it.

But it was like, you know, again, growing up in hip hop culture, the number one fear in your twenties is like bullets in the club, So it's like, stay off the club. But then at the age of like strokes became a new bullet. So it's like insulin. Yes, I I had to make a choice. So yes, having a clear mind and clear thoughts helps, and I know it's it's such a hard sell. It saves my life, Like there's no way that you can have my rigorous schedule.

I feel so bit like my inner circle of nine people, I'm the only person without gray hair, and I look at them like, wow, I pay you people to take the gray hair that I I'm not getting. Well, let me just say this that you're not married now, I have a girlfriend, no kids, no, no, So here's what I want to here's what I want to try to close with. If I'm if I'm able, do you want to raise kids as well? Absolutely, that'd be so cool. You would be such a great parents. Anybody that would

have you as a parent would be so lucky. Well, yeah, thank you. It's weird. I'm bad with compliments like yeah. I feel as though everything that I'm doing is eventually to pass it on and pass the love to to someone. Drummer, DJ author and fingers crossed Future of Father a mere quest Love Thompson. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing