Ahmir Thompson, aka Questlove, aka ?uestlove, the director and executive producer of the new documentary film "Summer of Soul (...Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)" with IndieWire's Anne Thompson.
The producer's pitched the documentary project about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival to Questlove in the green room at The Tonight Show. He assumed he knew everything important in terms of major musical milestones, and he had no idea that there was an event where Stevie Wonder and The Staples Singers and Sly and the Family Stone and David Ruffin and BB King and The Chambers Brothers and The Fifth Dimension and all these acts happened in Harlem in 1969. There was no "Woodstock The Movie" music documentary about the Harlem Cultural Festival, which took place a mere 10 days before Woodstock.
Soul Train was America's first popular look at Afro-centric culture and music and eccentricity.
Every creative person has a moment in their life where they experience something creatively that opens their mind to the possibilities and beauty of what life can be. Ahmir Thompson's father was a doo-wop singer in the 50s in Philadelphia. When Ahmir was 17, he heard Public Enemy's "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" and first time in his life, it made his father's 3,000 plus record collection seem cool.
As an occasional DJ, ?uestlove always plans his sets based on the last song. What does he want to leave the people with at the end? He approached "Summer of Soul" the same way. What do I want to end the movie with and how do I want people to feel at the end.
It took 5 months for them to process the original 2 inch reels of the archival footage. The raw audio files were pristine and and they only needed 15 microphones to capture all the performances.
Drake's father was Larry Graham, the bass player for Sly and the Family Stone.
Playing with The Roots, Questlove often felt that he had to code-switch depending on who they were playing with.
Shot and edited by Viva Videography.
11 фев 2022
