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“Listening to Them Blew My Mind” | Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Sly Lives
Still from Sly Lives!. Courtesy of Sundance Institute. Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why?
There are two days that stand out. The first one is located not in this movie, even, but in my last film, Summer of Soul, which featured a performance by Sly and the Family Stone at the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969. The energy of that performance leapt past that film and stayed with me. I knew this was a story that needed to be told, and that needed to be told a certain way—especially since I was also functioning as the publisher of Sly’s long-awaited memoir Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin), which related that life from within Sly’s mind. This film had a different charter and a different path. This brings me to the other key day, which was the day that, after much negotiating, hoping and then negotiating some more, I got access to tapes of studio sessions. Listening to them blew my mind and then put it back together again—hearing how he operated in the studio as a bandleader and a thinker not only gave me new thoughts about his process (an outsider’s insight, you could call it) but gave me fuel for going forward.
See all responses to our annual Sundance Question here.
