Even Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson struggles with imposter syndrome. The Grammy Award-winning bandleader for The Roots says the feeling was particularly acute in 2021, when his documentary Summer of Soul was nominated for dozens of awards, including the Oscar.
"Even though my experience with Summer of Soul was one of the most magical, transformative moments of my life ... there's a fear of winning, because if you're too successful then you're singled out," Questlove says. "And being singled out for positive reasons or negative reasons is such a nightmare for most Black people."
The alienation of success — particularly as it relates to Black artists — is one of the themes Questlove explores in his new documentary, SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius). The film focuses on Sly Stone, a funk musician who headed up Sly & the Family Stone in the 1960s and 1970s.
The group's hits, including "Everyday People," "Dance to the Music" and "Family Affair," had a profound influence on music and culture. "Sly will invent the alphabet for which most of pop and R&B or Black music will write from for the next 60 years," Questlove says. "We're still writing from his dictionary to this day."
But success took a toll on Sly, and he struggled with fame and drugs: "As with most Black artists, the guilt of being the chosen one, the guilt of being the winner sort of sets in, and Sly will be kind of the first domino in a long list of people that will self-sabotage a good thing," Questlove says. "And so that's what this film explores, like, why do we self-sabotage?"
Questlove says he called the documentary SLY LIVES! because he wanted fans to know that the musical trailblazer has been clean for close to a decade and has been doing well.
"He has an everyday, normal existence, like he plays with his grandkids," Questlove says. "To be normal, to be human, not to be the scary Black guy, not to be the oversexualized person, but just a normal, relatable, everyday person. To me, that's the dream."
Interview highlights
On Sly writing the 1967 hit "Dance to the Music" to be sarcastic
What people don't know is that Sly basically considered "Dance to the Music" his sell-out song. Sly had released this really intelligent debut album called A Whole New Thing, which is probably my favorite album of his entire canon. But it was way too wordy, way too smart, way too nerdy, just so ahead of its time that only a certain few latched on to it. And the rejection of that album kind of depressed Sly and his label said, "Look, you're doing way too much. You got to simplify it. People aren't as smart as you are. Like, instead of you being the smartest guy in the room, be a relatable guy in the room. People just want to dance to the music."
And kind of in a very bitter, scoffing way, he's like, "Alright, well, people want to dance to the music. Fine." And so he did a very sarcastic thing. … But what Sly doesn't realize is that in his very sarcastic, bitter middle-finger type of way, he includes everybody and people grasp to it. And so "Dance to the Music" is one of those accidental No. 1 songs that he didn't intend on catching on.
On the 1969 song "Stand!" with the break beat at the end
I kind of think that was Sly's nod to the Black community, because by that point, Sly was such a pop hit, but he really didn't have much numbers on the board for his Black audience, like when he first came out of the box, his white audience immediately latched on to him. I know with certain Black artists, even though it's unspoken, one of the burdens of Black genius is sometimes, like, the burden of being white people's favorite Black person. That's, like, a mark of shame like, "Man, I gotta get right with my people first before the rest of the world loves me."
So I almost feel as though in a sort of code-switch way, he wanted to add a part to that song that really made Black people say, "OK, he's still down with us." You know? So he adds this really funky part at the end that really solidifies his genius.
On Sly as a musical pioneer
Sly's the first person to use a drum machine. Sly's the pioneer of the bedroom, do-it-all-yourself musician. There's the pressure of feeding the machine, of writing the hits of keep winning. There's the idea of what you are versus who you really are. As the generations go on, Sly was unable to do that. And when he drops the baton, there was someone in the wings waiting to pick that baton up, and at the time, that person was 12 years old and that person's name was Michael Joseph Jackson. So Michael Jackson will wind up picking up the baton of what should have happened to Sly.
Then, 10 years later, in 1982, Michael himself will go through that same process of being the chosen one, being the God, being the unifier, being the center of attention, and then suddenly he'll just wind up on a kind of a hamster wheel of chasing perfection. And this happens to everyone: Prince, Whitney Houston. It's that level of pressure that one puts on themselves. And there's just no space for humanity in entertainment, but especially in Black entertainment. So I feel as though now's the time to have that conversation … especially with Black people, [because] we are now in a space where we are open to things like the discussion of therapy and mental health.
On the pressure Sly faced to respond to the civil rights movement
The messaging of his music was always encouraging, always a cheerleader of justice and a cheerleader of positivity. And unfortunately, even though the music spoke of that optimism, inside, he was sort of falling apart at the seams because there's a pressure — or a burden — which is why we call it "the burden of Black genius," there's a burden when one puts themselves in that position where they often have to come up with the solutions or the answers to why society is the way it is.
On Sly's music becoming "Blacker" and moving into funk
What winds up happening is for every time the pressure is on Sly to prove his "Blackness," the more success he gets, his only answer is to create "Blacker" music. … The pinnacle of it will be his fifth album, which is There's a Riot Goin' On, which every critic salivates over that album like, "Oh my God, it's the most amazing funk album ever." Yes, it's the very first funk album, but for me, it's probably 41 of the most painful, documented minutes in a creator's life. Like, this is clearly someone who is an unwilling participant in his journey. I hear someone crying for help, but because the music is so awesome and so mind blowing, we wind up fetishizing his art and you don't see the pain of it. ...
This is definitely not just the story of Sly Stone. This is the story of anyone I've ever worked with. This is the story of Frank Ocean or Lauryn Hill or Dave Chappelle, Kanye West. Like anyone who's ever been mired in trouble. Anyone you ever ask, like, "Why are they doing this?" Like, everyone goes through this.
Ann Marie Baldonado and Anna Bauman produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Jacob Ganz adapted it for the web.
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