Questlove has offered plenty of insight into what inspired his upcoming documentary about Sly Stone, the bandleader of the influential Sly and the Family Stone.
In a digital cover story for VIBE, The Roots drummer went long about how the project, titled SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius), came to be and explained how it’s just as much about Sly as it is about other artists, specifically Black ones.
“Before I started the film, I just started with small focus groups. I went to my moms like, ‘Alright, what do you think happened to Sly Stone?’ ‘Oh, man, he was such a genius. Then he started hanging with the wrong crowd and doing drugs,’” Quest said.
“What I wanted to know is, and this is what’s addressed in the film, what’s happening in your life that makes drugs (the outlet)? Because the thing is, Black people have not been taught to have emotions,” he said.
“Because we have zero touch with our emotions, we know that happiness feels good, and then when something dark happens, we don’t know what to do, right? What gets me happy? This drink, this tattoo, this sexual release, (you’re a) shopaholic…we have so many vices that we go to. But it was important for me to kill the notion of just the drug addict to be the drug addict,” he added. “Just doing drugs to be doing the drugs? Why? What does (the artist) feel inside? These are questions we don’t ask ourselves.”
Elsewhere in the story, Joseph Patel, a producer for SLY LIVES! and Quest’s creative partner for his first documentary, Summer of Soul, also spoke about the inspiration behind the upcoming film — including its distinct title.
“Ahmir had that idea; the subtitle of the film, ‘...the Burden of Black Genius.’ It’s the first thing he talked about when he talked about the Sly story,” Patel said. “He’s like, ‘Look, a lot of my peers have gone through this, and they self-sabotage.’ It’s because of this other thing that we don’t see, this invisible thing, invisible pressure that specifically Black artists — but really you can extrapolate it to all artists — go through. And that the public, especially in the age of social media, doesn’t really understand or appreciate or see.”
SLY LIVES! premieres February 13 on Hulu, and will include appearances from a number of well-known names: D’Angelo, Chaka Khan, André 3000, George Clinton, Vernon Reid, Q Tip, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, dream hampton, and Mark Anthony Neal. It had its debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The film serves as the follow-up to his brilliant Summer of Soul documentary released in 2021. Along with Summer and SLY LIVES!, Quest will be directing a documentary on Earth, Wind & Fire.
Read more of Quest’s VIBE story here.
source https://www.okayplayer.com/questlove-behind-sly-stone-documentary
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