00:00:00
Speaker 1: Quest Left show is a production of iHeart Radio. I'll never forget it. Sorry forget it. Sorry, that was a rough day. Okay, So what should we speak on? You wanted to know about agis and well, not so much agism, more like aging. Okay, like I was, I am.

00:00:25
Speaker 2: Still like some part of me is still dealing with like by power passing. Yeah, and yeah, for transparency's sake. I mean, you know, you had given me his contact and I had been talking to him about being the next guest on what had happened, and like you said, he.

00:00:43
Speaker 1: Was having me pitching on it. He was having me, and it was tough. It was tough.

00:00:48
Speaker 2: He didn't want to talk about He felt like I was asking him to tell other people's stories.

00:00:55
Speaker 1: No, he has his own story. That's and that's what That's the conversation we were having. And of course he passed away.

00:01:02
Speaker 2: And much like your platform, what it happened was was really all about giving people their flowers. But obviously we're not going to be able to give everybody their flowers.

00:01:12
Speaker 1: People don't want that half the time. But I don't understand why that is. I know, for me, like I used to see, now I'm to the point where I've to even watched my words. I can't say I hate D D, because then it'll happen. I think we are trained to think and live small again, despite the primitive, exotic package here. I hate attention, despite everything on my outside beeing like look at me, look at me, I have the things to get out of my hair and a bunch of legover my heart, and you know, like, but I think that maybe if we avoid compliments. You heard this when you were a kid, Like I don't want you to get big headed, or I don't want you to get a big head. I think it's the fear of separation or the idea of you being alienated because your light shines a little brighter than someone.

00:02:07
Speaker 2: The trouble I have with wrapping my head around that notion is the amount of ambition it takes to do a lot of the stuff that we want to give people flowers for. Like you're stepping up to the plate to hit a home run, and you hit it, so why would you not want to hear the people cheer?

00:02:29
Speaker 1: Sometimes I think people are from the ground wul double or just a trip or getting walked.

00:02:38
Speaker 3: But usually people don't get flowers for getting walked. I will tell you that I went through a four year period where I was absolutely happy. Look Midsummer Soul maybe seven months before the Oscar.

00:02:54
Speaker 1: I'm gonna see the point where I was having my management contact Disney to take us out of the road to the Oscars is paved with at least forty to fifty other smaller well not smaller, some like you know the Sundance thing, or if you went to can or like other award things you have to do, film festivals and whatnot, and you know coming out the gate first of all, I mean timing is what really helped Summer Soul. I had content when other people weren't prepared to have their content because the world shut down. It just happens that I finished my film right when the pandemic started.

00:03:41
Speaker 2: I mean, to a lesser degree, that was the same kind of time and network for what had happened was at the same timing.

00:03:46
Speaker 1: It just you just had something to entertained people. And you know, again, had it been released at any other time period, it would have just been like, oh that was that was a nice little thing you did. Like I've done three other things that didn't get that level frenzy, but I understand the times that we were in and when it was award time, an award season, I mean, we just started drinking everybody's milkshake. And after like the thirtieth plaque comes in my house or whatever, like I started to feel like the Grinch that stole Christmas because versus like, oh, and there's like request love, you know, And then I started feeling bad, and you know, it was to the point where I was just like, you know, I've heard of situations before where people will take themselves out of getting nominated or whatever because they don't want to stand out or whatever. So and it took a long time. So there's a whole other deserved this thing. I don't think as humans we really have dealt with do we deserve love?

00:04:48
Speaker 2: Which is an interesting question given how much you have to fight through that same thought to make something like It's not like it's not like you roll out a and make a masterpiece album or a great documentary.

00:05:03
Speaker 1: It takes so much work. People are not honest. People are not honest on what it is that they really want. So one of the exercises I went through with therapy is this writing exercise where I have to write the twenty things that I went for my life right, and wrote down the twenty things, turned it in, looks at it. Nope, hey you what it's like? Those aren't real dreams? Like do it again? All right? And this happened like seven or eight times, and I was like, why do you keep making me do this? And the person pointed out of those twenty things, none of those things were for you. You wanted to fix your moms sink. You wanted to buy your banda da da da. You wanted to give raises to all your staff. You wanted to da da da da da da. She's like, it took you eight drafts before you actually said the basic things like oh I want to like myself better or love me. I didn't even think about because I think we're just trained to be so self sacrificing, so people aren't honest. Like when people ask me like yo yo, I just want to get your feedback or what you think. Sometimes I have to just straight up ask them like okay, because I don't like that whole Simon Cowell on the Spot, you watch me as I do demo nod whenever you do that, that then that means like oh, this is a very awkward moment and yeah, let me hear whoa Okay, Okay, Like when people start doing demo nod, it's not authentic and so like I know there's an idea of the quest love co sign. In my mind, I think it's also a curse. Like if I say, like shied away from doing that often because I don't want to jink someone's project or whatever. If someone thinks like I'm tired of seeing them, at least in my mind, I think that's the thing that happens. I'm tired of seeing them thing. So I mean, yeah, every day we wrestle with that.

00:07:05
Speaker 2: Some of that seems to be about perception, I guess, tudo right, Like you don't want to be perceived as winning too much or perceived as getting too many And I don't mean you specifically, but I mean a person shying away from receiving compliments or accolades or awards for their very real hard work.

00:07:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there's a lot that comes under that. Okay, So where we are politically right now, I know, like there's some I don't know if I should call them political pundits or people that give commentary on what's happening now. But you know, the general belief is that the and the whole revenge of the nerds, like nerds versus jocks thing. I think we're now realizing that, like everyone that's running stuff now, we're definitely the nerds. And I definitely had my moment where like, you know, oh, girl breaks your heart and you're in the bathroom mirror like looking like I'm gonna show them. Like literally, I willed this character named Questlove Delight because of like some girl breaking your heart and it didn't work out the way you wanted to. I've done big stuff out of Spike, yeah right, and literally like the whole joker way, they get a little to me thing, Like I think the first four years of The Roots was just based on that. And first of all, I had to totally rework that whole thing because if you don't rework that, I believe that what ends up being made isn't as effective at the end of the day, it won't resonate as much if it comes from like this kind of broken and selfish place. I think that reflects in the product. So the question, I mean, obviously with your music, like your music is so transparent and so of the moment of the present of how it is that you feel like, I'll say right now, like I as far as like my hip hop consumption, Quelli, Chris, you of course a gene as well, you know, some sort of whatever, the best of the rock, Marciano, Griselda, whatever, gritty, underground, the drum less, the drumless period of what we're dealing with hip hop, which you know, I mean, I'm very selective in what I take in. I mean, for you though, like you're the voice, You're definitely the voice in my head, Quelle. Also for him as well, like a lot of that what I deemed nerdy hip hop were kind of done by voices that didn't look like me. So you know, I'm finally, like, finally, like the people that I relate to or who I see myself in are now speaking for me. So that's the thing though, Like I believe that at the end of the day, yes, this is a business, you are surviving on it, but I know for you that this is a therapeutic, healing, cathartic process of just you as a human being. Right that to me is authentic. I think that ninety five percent of the participants in music now, especially in Black music, is based on survival sick. But who am I to judge that because I too used to live fifty second to No Sage Avenue, dreaming of the day where I don't have to look to the left, look to the right outside my to make sure that you know, said bully is not anywhere in proximity. I gotta get out of here by hooker crook. So a lot of us are are kind of in that survival still the residue of survival or.

00:10:56
Speaker 2: But even even in that, right, I mean, I'm assuming you're talking about even the early Roots album still having that sort of energy of trying to get out of your situation through making this music.

00:11:10
Speaker 1: Because of the pureness of how the Roots really started. Of course, you know part one was just me lying to a girl in school. Oh right, right, I'm in agree with him, like that was the first seven years was just you know, yeah, we're a group, just so that we can we wanted to get girls phone numbers, like you know, but just the whole the way that the dominoes fell on, that whole college audition that led to a girl thinking we were in a commercial that we weren't in. Hey, let's try it. Like I'll put it this way, I'm about to embark on a really big presentation with jay Z for the Roots Picnic, and the way that I'm sweating overthinking every song, every segue, and the fact I'm very shocked that we did what we did as a shrug. You got a bucket, Yeah, I got a bucket. My grandma got a bucket. All right, So what three thirty, I'll meet you in South Street? Cool? Like it was so casual as a matter of fact, it's no overthinking, no, none of that stuff. And that's the level of what we need to get to. But like, who, like do we even see this as an art or beauty? Do we? Who's the we? It's participants? Like is it a means to an end to get out of a situation? To get see?

00:12:38
Speaker 2: Okay, So this is and this is kind of where I'm getting at right cause you're asking that question. I developed in the wake of your art. Do you know what I'm saying? And you see the way I do it? And I can sit here and tell you that part of how I do what I do is inspired by what y'all did, even though you were still asking that question.

00:13:01
Speaker 1: Well, you are now literally the back to the future plutonium. No, I'm not lying to you, Like right now the main people are asking what is the hold up? I want to feel the way that I feel when I hear your thing, Like right now, the beats are incredible, the musicianships up there, Tarik is at ace level of game spitting like all the parts are technically there. But I still I still think that we lack we feel emotional because so adapting Phyla's warribly kind of sense of rhythm makes it feel human. I think that the frequencies from certain patches we use the Fender roads like, it feels human, So that is what gives the illusion of human this. But I don't think that the roots have created much in the way of Yeah, I relate to that because a lot of it is rhyming for the sake of Riddomly, well, am I breaking your art? Right? No? No, no, you're not, You're not.

00:14:16
Speaker 2: But I'm like, I'm like, now, see, if these mics were on, I would ask you a bunch of different questions that I'm not going to ask right now.

00:14:23
Speaker 1: I ask questions, and the most diplomatic where you get ask, I mean the most I could do is not answer.

00:14:33
Speaker 2: What it's got me thinking about is what do y'all even think of the roots music in twenty twenty six as trying to have a conversation about something?

00:14:46
Speaker 1: All right, this is what I do know, I think because of my attempt to try to be all things to all people, because this is what I'm thinking about when I'm thinking about the roots today. What I'm thinking about the roots today is Number one, everyone worth a damn is dead. Anyone who's really worth a dam is dead. So that's for starters. So let's say I already lost half my collaborators that way. And I don't mean like, oh the gods are dead. I mean people I actually know, brilliant people. They're dead. So that's number one. Number two is all right. So a plus for us was the idea of being a band. But even for us to be a band and get to where I am right now, where I can sit here and talk to you, we had to leave the United States to move to Europe to live for four years just so that we could survive as a band. So there's no bands. Were one of few black bands with a deal. Well, I mean having a deal now is not the same cachet as well in the nineties. So being a black band that's viable in today's society. The idea of a group, the idea of more than one person presenting something. And then just like you know, jamming, the idea of jamming, Like there's four or five or six things that are passing dangered species that's not left. So thus when we do that two hour show, I'm thinking of all right, there's people that neither backscratch for a classic hip hop that they miss. There's people that neither backscratch for tarik'spitting lyrics. There's people that miss dancing to music that's good that doesn't feel like a wedding band, like to be a good musician in a wedding band where I'm not overplaying none of that shit. Like there's so much missing. I'm so busy checking off the marks that maybe perhaps the roots have lost their identity.

00:16:56
Speaker 2: Well, I mean cause the question and if you're checking all of those boxes is much like the conversation you're talking about having with your therapist. It's like, when does it get to what you want? Like what music that you want to be in the world.

00:17:08
Speaker 1: And this is why this is a ten year wrestling match with this record, because one the most glaring part is that Richard Nichols isn't here exactly. So this means that Tarik and I have to really one as individuals grow. So there's been a lot of therapy just individually between he and I, but then also he and I have to do our kind of level of couple's therapy or that sort of thing. You know, this is thirty eight years behind this, and so a little.

00:17:49
Speaker 2: Bit right there, right, you're talking about a thirty eight year relationship. To me, it seems like there's a ton of conversations to be had about that, and you're talking about not necessarily feeling like what's on the table right now is relatable outside of the instrumentation, but it's like that's where it would be.

00:18:10
Speaker 1: Right. So I came under you know a lot of stuff I have to like, wait a minute, why am I in therapy again? Wait a minute, I think this is what our fan base was complaining about. Tell me about Project Blude, Man, what the fuck I think? Watching the way that my dad did business growing up, there's always unsolicited advice that either a parent or uncle figure. It gives you that this is always in your head. And what I learned was if you build a business, do not build it with your relatives or your friends. And I think I had a fear that our friendship issues would be key in the demands of the group. And I think in my fight or flight mode, it was what do I have to do to never return home metaphorically home to West Philly, tail between my legs and defeat. The group is over and now here I am as a thirty eight year old without a degree. I dropped out of Kylee to do this. What am I going to do? Now? You know? And trust me the amount of my hip hop peers that I now. I mean, there's a hip hop hero of mine that came up to me reaped like last month that was like, yo, dog, let me tell you something. And I thought, like, you know, a compliment was coming, like about my music or whatever. And he's like, yo, man, you're the greatest. And I'm thinking, like, oh, wow, he listens to my music or whatever. I said, Oh, thank you, and I'm really shocked at like, oh, I never thought you'd listened to the roots whatever. And he was like, yo, man, you are when I tell you you're one of the best uber eats tippers I've ever had in my life. And I tried not to get but no, it's real to feel like that. It's real. Some of our heroes have to get sneaky, theay jobs whatever. And that was kind of a Jacob Marley moment for me, like that's my worst and again it's not me shaming someone for doing that. Look, I'm still doctor nine jobs. One of these jobs is being in the roots I do, but you know those are my passions. But when he said that, it instantly brought me back to man like, see, this is why I got to keep business, business and friendship separate. But you know, but I also know that we need each other as humans. So we are slowly when I mean slowly, trying to get back to the space because I do envy when I watch Daylight Soul together. Every time I ask pos, I'm like, damn, like you guys, are you guys are really friends? Yeah? And they're looking at me like are you shocked? Like I'm really Jimmy jam and Terry Lewis, I asked them like, wait, why are you guys still acting like you like each other after fifty one years? Like not one argument, I have to rewrite the narratives of I've learned that any relationship where you don't argue, someone's not communicating right, and so I just have to read to reprogram all those things, which this is what I'm doing. So we are in the very slow process of getting back to the same fifteen year olds that loved hip hop back in eighty seven.

00:22:03
Speaker 2: I mean, I think these those conversations between y'all, those conversations that would end up in the music even you know, whatever conversations may come about the riffs, the challenges that y'all have had to deal with over the course of the years. Like again, like there's another generation coming behind us, and there's no instruction manuals for any of this shit. So it's like we need those lessons, like we need those like we need to understand how to be in high stakes organizations with people we don't necessarily agree with but are both good at the thing.

00:22:43
Speaker 1: So this is why I am also just very meticulous in terms of representing whatever creative moves come next. This is why I'm doing the movies so that way that you know this particular group means something for other reasons. Besides, they were money makers and for us, I you know, I really want to be exemplary in terms of walk it like they talk it, show the growth. So yeah, man, there's a lot of you know, we're both in our mid fifties and there's just a lot of personal work. We had to do a lot of partner work that we had to do. And to do this in wake of a two apocalypses, you know, are we depressed now?

00:23:34
Speaker 2: I mean, look, aging is a tough subject to talk about, Okay.

00:23:41
Speaker 1: Okay, So in your world, in your ecosystem, at one point you came to this in form of a group. Now, I don't know if you do collaboration projects just as a one off or as a hey, let's let's keep this a thing. Do you like working essentially by yourself or.

00:24:03
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm very comfortable working by myself, and I've and I'm in a group now. I'm in a group of previous industries right now, me Video, Dave, and steel Rift and we work together every week. But it is a different It touches on like a different part of my creativity to try to filter my ideas through a group of people because we're not always aligned on everything, and these are and it's interesting too. Like Rift I went to high school with, day If I went to college with I've known these dudes twenty thirty years and we have decided in the last five years to start doing music together. And it's difficult.

00:24:37
Speaker 1: Sometimes.

00:24:38
Speaker 2: It's difficult because we all see things a bunch of different ways three MC's. I mean, you don't see a lot of groups with three MC's ever, And this is a part of why. It's because it's hard.

00:24:48
Speaker 1: To get three people to agree on anything. And I enjoy it.

00:24:53
Speaker 2: But yeah, like when I do that, I've noticed working on this group stuff, it ends up making me work on my solo stuff faster.

00:25:04
Speaker 1: It's like, in.

00:25:05
Speaker 2: The process of generating creativity with the with the group thing, it's like it makes my own ideas even clearer.

00:25:14
Speaker 1: How much time do you guys devote to non musical things together or is it like outside out of mind when you're like not working, you know, not not nearly enough. But that's the thing too.

00:25:25
Speaker 2: I mean, we're all mid forties, we all got like you all the same live in the same city, but you know, in different different parts of the city, and we all make a living different ways, and so the vast majority of our time is devoted doing what we got to do to eat because right now the group isn't paying none of our bills, gotcha.

00:25:43
Speaker 1: You know.

00:25:44
Speaker 2: So it's that whole aspect to it too, where I think we've certainly to have already been friends, we've gotten closer doing this, but it's there's been some strife even with the low stakes sort of sort of.

00:25:56
Speaker 1: An environment that we've been in. It's it's still it's how they make decisions when they're this conflict, And what's the typical conflict, like how many dates we can devote the touring or I don't like this beat? Oh god, I don't like this beat? Is the Oh my god, I could.

00:26:14
Speaker 2: I could run through that wall just just thinking about how many, how many difficult conversations we've had about trying to agree on beats, and there is no there's no compromise really on that, because like if somebody, if you got three rappers and one of them does not like a beat, do you know what they're gonna do on that beat if they don't like it beat exactly, And it's not even going to be out of spite. It's just like if it's not making them feel the thing. Then they're not going to bring that best to it.

00:26:46
Speaker 1: See, you gotta do the deal of method. Do you know how they made fantastic Volume one? So what is it? He just did drums high hat, just a high hat and imagine what you think it gonna sound like, literally a high hat. That's so wild. And they would just round their ass off and then he would go and add the music later. See that's the thing. We don't have a musical genius in the group. So go backwards, man, go backwards, go backwards. Well that is a mini hopefully more to come, and I think eventually this will probably wind up being its own platform, and you never know where. We check in, check in with each other, starting open open my Questions. There you go, there you go check it with checking in with open my questions. All right, see all that please question Up Show is a production of iHeartRadio.