Speaker 1: The Quest Love Show is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: What's going on? This is cousin Jake, producer of the
Speaker 2: Questlove Show. I'm sitting here with the man himself, Questlove, Amir.
Speaker 2: We just finished a conversation with Flee and you asked
Speaker 2: three questions that I thought were really interesting and I
Speaker 2: want to put them right back on to you. When
Speaker 2: you think of your show going years and the formative
Speaker 2: years of the Roots, what are two or three concerts
Speaker 2: when y'all were cutting your teeth and you're looking at
Speaker 2: peers and looking at the bands, the groups, the crews
Speaker 2: that you're modeling yourselves after or taking this or that
Speaker 2: from what comes to mind? What concerts?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 4: So we finished, We were mixing that skeat on December
Speaker 4: thirty first, nineteen ninety three, and for.
Speaker 3: New Year's it was.
Speaker 4: Soul's a Mischief Day Las Soul in a Tribe call Quest.
Speaker 4: This was the last concert that Tarika and I went together.
Speaker 4: Really ass fans, even though we had a record deal,
Speaker 4: Like we grew up in the period where you know,
Speaker 4: we got to the venue early so we could be
Speaker 4: in the front row. And it was ninety one, so
Speaker 4: everyone was just having jump go Itis.
Speaker 2: Go Go Go ninety three, right.
Speaker 3: Right ninety three.
Speaker 4: But I'm just being like that that early period of
Speaker 4: you know, karras One comes home, say.
Speaker 3: Chop Chop chop.
Speaker 4: But it was weird because this time it was almost like, man,
Speaker 4: one day, that's going to be us. So I was
Speaker 4: really just taken in the environment of like it's New
Speaker 4: Year's I'm seeing like my three favorite rap groups in
Speaker 4: a It was just a time. So for me, the
Speaker 4: energy of it, I mean, the show was good, but
Speaker 4: it was just such an innocent magic moment for us.
Speaker 4: I will say the second show, seeing Fishbone at the
Speaker 4: Trocadero in nineteen ninety one, when the realities of my
Speaker 4: surroundings came out, Like to me, this was peak Fishbone
Speaker 4: doing a lot of material like we knew all knew
Speaker 4: that album left and right, and we knew In Your
Speaker 4: Face and the first album and Truth and Soul. So
Speaker 4: I actually felt that they were just right on the cusp,
Speaker 4: right on the verge of greatness. And what's kind of
Speaker 4: cool is after the show, shout out to our dear
Speaker 4: friend and posy Talbert, who took a lot of the
Speaker 4: roots for very early first photos. He told those guys
Speaker 4: about like, yeah, you know, there's this club called Billy
Speaker 4: Bob's at a University of Penn That's where the Roots
Speaker 4: she used to play and whatnot, like come you know,
Speaker 4: like we actually hung with Fishbone at Billy Bob's, had
Speaker 4: chicken cheese steaks, and I got to nerd out on
Speaker 4: those guys like they were like really really really cool.
Speaker 4: So that was like a great experience.
Speaker 2: Are there photos of that when you mentioned.
Speaker 4: I'm certain maybe IMPOSI had. I've not seen the complete
Speaker 4: collection of his of his work. I parades in there,
Speaker 4: probably the most surprised I've ever been at a show,
Speaker 4: so the further I became quest level whatever. It's just
Speaker 4: hard to be a fan because I'm the guy that
Speaker 4: still runs to the soundboard and be like, yo, keep
Speaker 4: like turn up the high at like one k a
Speaker 4: little bit, just give a little bit of highs like.
Speaker 3: And they're looking at them like what the fuck like,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, those.
Speaker 2: Are famously curmudgeony people to the sound.
Speaker 4: Oh dude, so so protective of big gear whatever. But
Speaker 4: I tell them, I'm like, dude, I went to the
Speaker 4: back of it. They can't hear the drums, like you know,
Speaker 4: you can hear up here, but they can't. They're trying
Speaker 4: to protect the system, you know. But I got to
Speaker 4: tell you, man, one of the biggest shocks of my life.
Speaker 3: And it's only because.
Speaker 4: All right, so we're at Glastonbury last year doing this
Speaker 4: festival and War is playing. Now the thing is like, dude,
Speaker 4: with legacy groups and whatever, I'll go there just to like,
Speaker 4: all right, let me see them one last time before
Speaker 4: because you never know and whatever. And you know, there's
Speaker 4: either like phone it in from home thing or vegacy
Speaker 4: aspect to it, you know, and you can only as
Speaker 4: a guy that's collected all the footage from the seventies
Speaker 4: or whatnot.
Speaker 3: I never once.
Speaker 4: Thought like, man, because I always wanted to know what
Speaker 4: was it like to see a show in the seventies,
Speaker 4: Like was it as good as this live album tells
Speaker 4: me that it was? Or is it good as footage
Speaker 4: that I found on YouTube or whatever? And I gotta
Speaker 4: tell you, man, War is probably one of the best
Speaker 4: legacy acts I've ever seen. I come from the school
Speaker 4: of I won't say mirroring or mimicking, but when I
Speaker 4: cover any artists that I work with, I'm trying to
Speaker 4: put them in the place where they were at their
Speaker 4: peak musically. So the times I jammed with Prince, I
Speaker 4: will tune the drums to sound just like his drums
Speaker 4: sounded on and Prince notices like, oh, you detuned the
Speaker 4: snare drum to sound just like and I'll play exactly
Speaker 4: the licks that he played or whatever the era that
Speaker 4: you want, right, I can shape shift into any era
Speaker 4: that serves that song. And I kind of thought me
Speaker 4: training the roots and whatever like two degree association of
Speaker 4: you know, some of the musicians around the sort of
Speaker 4: capture onto it. And plus it's und to mimic the
Speaker 4: j Dilla sound or whatever, so people do it now
Speaker 4: with modern stuff. But I kind of just lost hope
Speaker 4: on the seventies thing. And I got to tell you, man,
Speaker 4: those guys they sounded like war, real war, and half
Speaker 4: the guys were like new musicians or whatever. So I
Speaker 4: was just really impressed. It's good to hear that they
Speaker 4: weren't overplaying or anything. So, uh, I will say, if
Speaker 4: you get a chance to see War play, do it.
Speaker 2: Did they play Galaxy or did they do like.
Speaker 3: They opened with Galaxy?
Speaker 4: So okay, So the deal was, you know, Kirk came
Speaker 4: in the room and was like, yo, what's coming on?
Speaker 3: You want to see it?
Speaker 4: It was raining like hell and I had on crocs
Speaker 4: and it's mud and I'm like, nah, I'm good. And
Speaker 4: I heard the bass playing from my dressing room. I
Speaker 4: was like cool and I let it go and then
Speaker 4: they played I Forget Oh. They played Baby Brother. Now
Speaker 4: we cover baby as a warm up song of the
Speaker 4: tonight show. So I turned the volume down off my computer,
Speaker 4: I had music warn and I just opened the door
Speaker 4: a little bit. And when I opened the door, Smokey
Speaker 4: Robinson was right next to us, so he sees me, like,
Speaker 4: hey me, how you doing. So now I got to
Speaker 4: go out and hug smoking. Once I was outside and
Speaker 4: I heard the music, I was like, yo, this sounds good.
Speaker 3: All right, let me check.
Speaker 4: And I just ran this set, you know, side of
Speaker 4: the stage to see for two seconds and I wound
Speaker 4: up standing there. And so by the time they got
Speaker 4: the low Rider, they gave me the six like you
Speaker 4: do it, and I was like, wow, really I remind
Speaker 4: your trust, Like I don't think you guys know me
Speaker 4: from a can of.
Speaker 2: Paint, but you sat in on low writ.
Speaker 4: I sat in on Lowrider and had my phone set up.
Speaker 4: I was like, take me doing this and I nailed it.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, man, you asked Flee a really good question.
Speaker 2: I know this is maybe more of a Tarik question
Speaker 2: in watching hip hop shows, and again maybe even to
Speaker 2: the warpoint does have to be hip hop. Was there
Speaker 2: ever somebody in your formative years that you watched do
Speaker 2: things on the highest level that challenged you in terms
Speaker 2: of focusing on your craft? You asked him that question
Speaker 2: about punk in a front person, but put.
Speaker 4: It to you, I had ten years of you know,
Speaker 4: my dad's iron fist of tyranny. So you know a
Speaker 4: lot of my reputation I know now like it serves
Speaker 4: me well where people are like, oh man, he plays
Speaker 4: so disciplined, and he plays so like when you're saving
Speaker 4: for like a Shwin ten speed and your dad turns
Speaker 4: around and signals ten dollars to you and you're only
Speaker 4: making fifty dollars at night, like fuck now, I gotta
Speaker 4: do three shows to save up money to buy my
Speaker 4: ten speed. So my dad was so and he was
Speaker 4: one of those leaders who even when he was wrong,
Speaker 4: he was right. So of course, you know, I'm I'm
Speaker 4: trying to catch up to you know, all the drummers
Speaker 4: like I'm in jazz class with John Roberts, Little John Robert,
Speaker 4: like all these monsters who are playing with Miles Davis.
Speaker 3: Who were like they are established.
Speaker 4: I felt this need in eighty seven, like, oh, I
Speaker 4: have to learn how to gospel role and all those
Speaker 4: things that drummers are doing now. And when I brought that,
Speaker 4: you know, the way that my dad would just penalize me, like, no,
Speaker 4: twenty twenty, we're up to twenty now, oh really forty.
Speaker 2: The breakfast club, you know, detention detentions.
Speaker 3: Yes, he you know.
Speaker 4: So just the fear of my dad's right hand signaling
Speaker 4: you owe me money kept me very much in the pocket.
Speaker 4: And so I'll say that that was the first half
Speaker 4: of it. To be honest with you, probably the best
Speaker 4: thing that ever happened in my life is me inheriting.
Speaker 3: It's at least gotta be.
Speaker 4: I'll say, seventy five hours of just Prince rehearsals and
Speaker 4: I haven't even gotten through all of them yet, and
Speaker 4: you know, it served me well then, but just to
Speaker 4: hear how he runs rehearsals.
Speaker 3: Now, the thing is he was also tired.
Speaker 4: I got tapes of him be rating Lisa for reading
Speaker 4: a comic book or.
Speaker 3: Bobby slowing the beat down or whatever.
Speaker 4: So just to hear him as a bandleader taught me
Speaker 4: a lot about musicianship and ways to interpret songs and
Speaker 4: all those things, especially with the time, like the time
Speaker 4: they would always start off doing it like the record,
Speaker 4: and he would always pushing more like no, you need
Speaker 4: more chords there, and the whole like it has to
Speaker 4: be better than the record. So I'll say that really
Speaker 4: listening to a lot of prince rehearsals and my dad's
Speaker 4: just tyranny era of being under his leadership is kind
Speaker 4: of what built me now. But also the you know,
Speaker 4: the whole underestimation card of people like scoffing like what
Speaker 4: y'all about to do.
Speaker 3: And you know, and then having to prove them wrong.
Speaker 2: So on the hip hop side, just because again with Flee,
Speaker 2: you asked him about a really specific careerd of punk culture,
Speaker 2: which was interesting to see his reaction on the hip
Speaker 2: hop side when you and.
Speaker 3: Trico go those shows. But was there ever a.
Speaker 2: Moment, because I mean, you know, you work with one
Speaker 2: of the greatest MC's of all time back in those
Speaker 2: teenage years or in your twenties whatever, where you saw
Speaker 2: a hip hop show even after that, where you were like.
Speaker 3: Okay, So here's the thing.
Speaker 4: I probably see more carous One shows pre record deal
Speaker 4: as far hip as hip hop was concerned, than any
Speaker 4: other show. Philly, of course, has like five different colleges.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't go to the clubs to see them, but
Speaker 4: where it would be that like he Carris One's playing
Speaker 4: at Cheney or at Lincoln or you know wherever is
Speaker 4: on the main line.
Speaker 3: So I've seen like three.
Speaker 4: Or four blue print edutainment era Carris One shows. There
Speaker 4: are a lot of tricks that I borrowed from him
Speaker 4: that to this day work like Gangbusters.
Speaker 3: On top of that, Kris One wrote a book in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: Five, I believe out of print.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this book we just happened to be.
Speaker 4: We were coming down from the Bay Area to LA
Speaker 4: and we made a rest stop and you go to
Speaker 4: the gas station, you know, the bus is fueling up,
Speaker 4: and you go to the truck stop and there's all
Speaker 4: types of you know, paulp. Novels and all those things
Speaker 4: like throwaway books and Harlequin romance books. And then I
Speaker 4: saw the bottom like Carris Ones, and I forgot.
Speaker 2: What the name of the book was with the mind
Speaker 2: or so I know.
Speaker 4: Yeah and so, but it was really a guide to
Speaker 4: the business of hip hop and we brought it, but
Speaker 4: we kind of got it to playfully mock carris One because.
Speaker 3: His voice was very easy to emulate.
Speaker 4: So to read the entire book in the voice of
Speaker 4: car ars One, and I mean they're telling you. He's
Speaker 4: telling you everything, like always have thirty eight x ten
Speaker 4: photos on your person, so that way you could negotiate
Speaker 4: your way into a restaurant, say if you would like
Speaker 4: to go to a red lobster and da da da.
Speaker 4: You showed you know, your managers was, hey, I have
Speaker 4: an artist here with me. So we at first it
Speaker 4: was jokes, and then he talked about three things about
Speaker 4: the stage. He says, when you go on stage, make
Speaker 4: sure that you suit up your armor by wearing four
Speaker 4: to five. He's like, make sure you have a T
Speaker 4: shirt on. He's very specific, have a T shirt on,
Speaker 4: like have a cutoff T shirt, and then a cotton shirt,
Speaker 4: a different cotton shirt on top of that, and then
Speaker 4: a button up shirt and a hoodie and a coat
Speaker 4: and if you could do it a vest he say.
Speaker 4: Then the reason is He's like it's a psychological trick
Speaker 4: that you can play, which is basically, you come on
Speaker 4: stage with all those things and song by song take
Speaker 4: a layer off and the side of that tells the audience, Oh,
Speaker 4: they're taking their job seriously and they're they're rolling up
Speaker 4: their sleeves. So by the fifth you're just down to
Speaker 4: your T shirt and that tells the audience like, oh,
Speaker 4: he's really working hard.
Speaker 3: So we laughed at that.
Speaker 4: He's like a rhythmic run whenever your first song is like,
Speaker 4: let it play, and then you rest left right like
Speaker 4: he's giving instructions on what to do. And we would
Speaker 4: laugh and laugh and mock and laugh and laugh and
Speaker 4: mock and laugh and mock, and.
Speaker 3: Then like we do it on stage.
Speaker 4: But then the audience has responded to it, and suddenly
Speaker 4: it wasn't funny anymore.
Speaker 3: It was like, oh, damn, this does work.
Speaker 4: And his biggest trick was and you know, I really
Speaker 4: did it during the D'Angelo tour. He's like, always like,
Speaker 4: whatever your your your most prominent verses is always had
Speaker 4: the dj uh put the music down to a whisper
Speaker 4: and then talk to your audience and break down. And
Speaker 4: he said it in a way if you ever seen
Speaker 4: my philosophy video. The first verse he does a cappella
Speaker 4: let us begin where he does that of spoken word,
Speaker 4: and we started doing that trick and that shit worked,
Speaker 4: so so you know, it started off as jokes, just
Speaker 4: like saying it in the authoritative voice of kars one,
Speaker 4: and suddenly that became our.
Speaker 2: Bible thirty five years later. That's why Treek's wearing fur
Speaker 2: coats and robes on stage and slowly.
Speaker 4: Yes, to this day, it's that that book still stays
Speaker 4: with us.
Speaker 2: I did interview kras When one time, and he was
Speaker 2: at a red lobster and that blew my mind. So
Speaker 2: it's funny that you choose that restaurant for anyone that
Speaker 2: wants a great Karras One story the Quest Love Supreme
Speaker 2: episode with Chris Rock with what is the punchline? My
Speaker 2: rhymes will oh, my rhymes will destroy you? Yes, exactly,
Speaker 2: it required listening. Last question you asked Flee what peer
Speaker 2: never reached the level that they deserved?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: And you know this doesn't have to be Philly, it
Speaker 2: could be anywhere and again your formative years. But and
Speaker 2: this question is asked with love to whatever the artist is,
Speaker 2: But do you feel that way about anybody that you
Speaker 2: truly admired or were absolutely amazed by their stage show
Speaker 2: that never translated to album or to the type of
Speaker 2: career they deserved.
Speaker 4: Okay, so when I was asking for you that question,
Speaker 4: I was thinking about Fishbone, and you know, especially after
Speaker 4: doing the slide doc, I asked Flee about what happened
Speaker 4: a minute after they got off stage at SNL to
Speaker 4: do under the Bridge something. I didn't know the backstory,
Speaker 4: but I clearly saw a unit fighting against the success
Speaker 4: that they were about to experience. And there's nothing more
Speaker 4: fearsome than sort of rabbit holing into worrying about what
Speaker 4: other people think. I'll say, probably on the hip hop
Speaker 4: side of things, like the first time I ever heard
Speaker 4: Bean's rhyme. Beanie Siegel came to my house house with
Speaker 4: Malik b And I mean, I've told the story and
Speaker 4: the lore of what eventually became Black Lily, but kind
Speaker 4: of the jam sessions at my house that let the
Speaker 4: things fall apart was literally like a screenwriter couldn't ask
Speaker 4: for a more perfect scenario in which Blow in the
Speaker 4: ninth grade is singing this crezy like you know, we
Speaker 4: love loud now but like to watch a ninth grader
Speaker 4: do all that weird shit, like what kind of crack
Speaker 4: is this guy smoking? Like he's making bird noises and shit.
Speaker 4: And then you got a ten year old Jasmine Sullivan
Speaker 4: who clearly should not be in that house. Music with
Speaker 4: the pizza Yeah, music as the pizza guy, and like
Speaker 4: literally it's like I'm exaggerating this whole moment. And to me,
Speaker 4: the tipping point was like when Malick to start bringing
Speaker 4: his boys over. I didn't know his boys were Freeway
Speaker 4: and Beanie and all those cats and whatnot.
Speaker 3: And man, Beanie did the.
Speaker 4: Verse that he did on Adrenaline, but that verse like
Speaker 4: Beanie had no mind to structure, like, oh, let me
Speaker 4: just do twenty four and he had if you listen
Speaker 4: to Adrenaline on things fall apart, like everything in rhymes
Speaker 4: with and them easily went on for ten minutes in
Speaker 4: a row, like it gave Tarik pause.
Speaker 3: It was like we didn't know he was that good.
Speaker 4: Like he just kept rhyming, and to me, I was like,
Speaker 4: there's literally just he's literally painted every scenario that you
Speaker 4: can rhyme within them, every scenario Like he talked about
Speaker 4: gun battles and drug scenarios and his lifestyle and going
Speaker 4: to games and the celebrities meeting women and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: But after eight minutes, it just became a.
Speaker 4: There's more, there's more, there's more by the end, like
Speaker 4: a high tiled the.
Speaker 1: Rich, like, Yo, we gotta get that dude on the record.
Speaker 3: Like and yes we did have.
Speaker 4: We had first DIBs on both, even Beanie, but we
Speaker 4: weren't in the business mind state to push him further.
Speaker 4: So I'm glad it worked out the way it did.
Speaker 4: But for me, man, I just wonder in an alternate world,
Speaker 4: like man like Beanie was the wasn't still is the god,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean? And I just wish the
Speaker 4: world knew.
Speaker 2: That level of that side of him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wish things didn't play out the way that
Speaker 4: they played out, and that he just allowed that transformation
Speaker 4: to happen.
Speaker 2: Leaning to that side of his artistry
Speaker 1: Questlov shows a production of iHeartRadio.