Ahmir Questlove Thompson - Mo Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove

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Copyright 2013 by Ahmir Thompson

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the authors intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the authors rights.

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ISBN 978-1-4555-0136-6

well Tariq?

I dont talk about the past.

Prince

So whats this gonna be, Ahmir ?

A memoir.

The fuck does that mean?

You dont know what memoir means?? A life story, told by the person who lived it.

I know what the word memoir means. But what about the idea? What does it mean to you?

Well, that depends. This book should be different. I dont want it to be your average book.

What does that mean?

I dont know yet. Maybe its just an ongoing process of questions leading to more questions. Ill say this: as a reader of music memoirs, I never begin where Im told to start. As a rule I find myself starting at chapter 3 or 4, because before that, every music memoir has the same shape. It starts off with a simple statement about childhood: I was born in this city, in this year. My dad did this. But I dont want to start that way. I cant start that way. I wont.

Then, after that, theres a predictable move. The main character discovers music. Dudes walking past a window and hears a symphony that turns his head, or hes at a favorite uncles house and someone puts Louis Armstrongs Hot Fives and Sevens on the record player and, just like that, bam, its like hes been struck by lightning. His life is changed forever. Thats an exciting moment, but its also predictable and oversimplified, for sure.

So those first chapters arent important?

How can you say whats important in a life, really? Could you sum up a whole life in twenty chapters? Or would it take twenty-one? And why is the person who lived the life the only one talking? Could you pass the mic, let someone else talk, and just shut the hell up for a minute and let them call you on your inevitable bullshit? I dont know exactly what would work, but experimenting is more interesting than just telling the story straight through from A to Z.

Im just glad that you dont want to do a whole fucking book about obscure soul tracks. How many times can you talk about Clyde Stubblefield or Gene McDaniels and make lists for Pitchfork or Rolling Stone?

But sometimes I only remember things through records. Theyre a trigger for me, theyre Pavlovs bell. Without thinking about the music, I cant remember the experience. But if I think long enough about a specific album, something else always bubbles up.

Well then maybe you should do a book that just goes through your life, year by year, using only records.

I could try to pick one record for every year of my life, but Id have to stop in the mid-nineties, cause its not the same picking records as a fan after I start as a recording artist. Would that work? It might. Think of all the different ways that stories get told. Im working with the James Brown people on a movie that will end up being the closest thing to a biopic that can possibly exist for a man like that, who was actively working for fifty years. The story is too big to tell straight on through, so they decided to deal with it by breaking it into five different episodes, five representative short stories. Or take that Hendrix movie that Andr 3000 is starring in. It has nothing to do with the legend of Jimi Hendrix, really. Its about twenty-four hours in the life of a working musician, and all the stresses that come along with thatthe girls, the drugs, the managers, the need to find time to breathe creatively. Or maybe theres a book that tells a story somewhat straightforwardly, but with a growing awareness that its only telling part of the story. How can a man in his early forties hope to really talk about his life as a whole? Its like reviewing the first half of a song.

Dont people want to hear about the groupies in the hotel? Dont they want to hear about the time you got into a limo with a certain female head of state, who shall remain nameless?

Look, man, Ive read plenty of hip-hop memoirs, and most of them have only one story to tell: rise, bling, fall, and lots of debauchery along the way. Thats not my story. I havent lived an interesting life in that sense. I wont pretend otherwise. I havent had many Motley Cre evenings though I know those guys and I hung out with them one night and I saw things.

What kinds of things?

Thats another issue. Do I keep certain stories to myself? Do I betray confidences? Does no other musician writing a book struggle with this shit? I dont get it. If I was with someone and I saw something crazy, is it really my job to tell that story and expose that person just to make other people more interested in my book? Lets say I know a juicy story about Singer X. Do I tell it? Do I keep him or her anonymous? Create a composite? Fudge the details? It seems like most of these books are content to be Jell-O from the same mold. So maybe the answer is in some unholy hybrid: some straightforward memoir, some fodder for the recordheads, some tricks and treats, some protecting the innocent, some protecting the not-so-innocent.

You really think you need a special form to tell it? Come on, dawg. At the root, why does your story require that?

Is that a joke?

Why would it be?

Because of the Roots.

You mean because of that simple pun? You think Id stoop to something like that? What the fuck? Tell me why your story matters.

Because were the last hip-hop band, absolutely the last of a dying breed. Twenty-five years ago, rap acts were mostly groups. You had Run DMC and the Beastie Boys and Public Enemy, and you even had bands of bands, like the Native Tongues collective, which was three loosely affiliated groups: De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and the Jungle Brothers. I grew up looking at that model, at the sense of community and of a larger purpose. Even the negative things that came out of that arrangement, like competition and tension and sibling rivalry, were productivethats what you get when you group. But today its all solo acts. Maybe its just simple economics. Everyone thinks, Im Michael Jordan and I can do this on my own and pick up the big check. And maybe you cant blame people for that. The system isnt set up to think about it, not at all. New acts worship the star system because they see the highlight films, and thats all they can see, because thats how the experience is packaged. Solo acts are also easier for labels to deal with: theyre easier to control, and you dont need to do any dividing to conquering. Even if I think of this as my book, its never only my story. Its the story of other musicians, of other hip-hop groups, of other minds. The Roots is literally the last band on the caboose of that train. But maybe I should save that for the book.