Summary

Questlove has been focused on a music career since the age of five, but has since gone on to become a multi-hyphenate and is currently nominated for an Emmy for his work directing ’50 Years of SNL Music.’

Questlove describes himself as a completist but admits to having imposter moments as he works to deliver on his vision for his various projects.

Although he has work planned through 2028, Questlove is making the effort to slow down, take vacations, and enjoy life.

Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson prepared for a life of music from the moment he got his first drum set from his parents at the age of five. Since then, he’s become known as one-half of the hip-hop duo The Roots, the drummer for the in-house band on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, a music producer, a movie director, an author, a foodie, and a professor at NYU, among so many other things. And now, he’s well on his way to becoming an EGOT, having already won an Oscar for Best Documentary for Summer of Soul and six Grammy awards, and with his work directing the 50th anniversary documentary Ladies & Gentleman… 50 Years of SNL Music up for an Emmy. To the outside viewer, Questlove is a skilled documentarian and curator of music history, but to Questlove, who admits to bouts of imposter syndrome and who actually thought he was being called to Lorne Michaels office to get fired rather than being offered a job, he’s just a completist who had to be absolutely thorough with everything he decides to take on. While he’s trying to put that same focus into taking some time to himself and going on the occasional vacation, he also has a very clear plan for the next few years. Collider recently got the opportunity to chat 1-on-1 with Questlove as he reflected on his current Emmy recognition, how he never even dreamed of all the things he’s already done in his career, what finally convinced him to do Summer of Soul, the seemingly impossible challenge of bringing his vision for Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music to life, the struggle he has with trying to slow down with work so that he can enjoy life, why he ended up watching the entire catalog of Friends episodes, and his plan for the next few years.
Questlove Has Grown to Appreciate His Unexpected Career Path

“As much as I’ve heard, ‘Live in the present and be here now,’ I hated that because I’m such a meticulous planner.”

Collider: I’m a fan of your work as a musician yourself, but also as a music curator. When you were dreaming of what your career could be, at any point could you ever have imagined that you’d be halfway to an EGOT and that you’d already have Oscar checked off that list? Is that totally wild to think about? QUESTLOVE: I was having a heart-to-heart with Marc Maron about our life journeys, and we bonded over the fact that both of us came to prominence in a field that neither of us really dreamed about when we were kids. When you go through a whirlwind experience, like I did post-pandemic, especially with Summer of Soul, there was a period, maybe five or six months after the Oscars, when suddenly the world opened up. It was like being the hottest person in high school, like being the football jock or the head cheerleader. I was the Letterman varsity guy, or whatever. There was slight anger there because I was like, “Wait a minute, man, I didn’t ask for this. Since the age of five, when my parents bought me my first drum set, and all those records I invested in, I prepared for a life of music. Me and my best friend are supposed to be selling out Madison Square Garden or the Forum in L.A. That’s my journey. What’s this book writing, movie directing, food curating, Lazy Susan designing, popcorn bowl, adjunct NYU professor teaching, podcast host for iHeart, of all places? Why is the universe elevating me in ways that I didn’t even ask for? Forget dreamed about, I didn’t ask for this. Why is the universe doing this to me? Why can’t I just get on a drum set and see that 22,000 people in the stadium paid to see me?” To be honest with you, it was maybe September of 2024 when I finally got it together and was like, “Okay, I get it.” As much therapy as I’ve had and as much as I’ve heard, “Live in the present and be here now,” I hated that because I’m such a meticulous planner. I’m like, “The album is going to come out in 2027, and then I’m going to do this and that.” By September, I was just like, “Okay, I get it.” I decided not to try to control the way I want my life to go. To answer your question, the last five years have been very surreal because I’m doing everything I never dreamed about. You also approach things in a way that is unexpected. You think you know what you’re going to get, when you sit down to watch a documentary about 50 years of the music that’s been on Saturday Night Live, but right from the jump, you give us something unexpected. Was that intentional? QUESTLOVE: With Summer of Soul, it took seven months for me to even agree to do it. Every day, they were harassing me, and I was like, “No, man, get a real moviemaker. I don’t want to do this.” Of course, nothing happens by accident, and especially the pandemic. The growth and the maturing I did during the pandemic was the best thing that ever happened to my life. It was only then where I truly felt like, “Okay, obviously this project was meant to be in my lap. I have no more excuses. I have no tour to do. I’m not too busy working on this and that.” There was nothing to do. So, I was like, “All right, let me work on this thing.” A lot of my initial imposter syndrome is about having one foot in, “Am I?” while the other foot is in, “I am.” When I was in my, “I am” transition, part of my thing was like, “I’ve taught at NYU for five years, but I never went to film school at NYU and I don’t know the first thing about this.” It took a bunch of in-my-head smacking to be like, “Dude, you can do this. You know what you’re doing.” Me not knowing what the rules are, especially the way that our school systems are now, I believe, for the most part, schools are training you to get a job, not to live a dream. Nothing subjective. It’s always, “Here are the rules,” and then you get your receipt, you can get a job, and you can be part of the system. For me, the naivete of rule-breaking, there have been moments when it’s very unconventional. I had to be very careful when I told them what my dreams were for the intro and instantly, they were like, “Dude, there’s no way you can do that. First of all, it’s going to be a publishing nightmare.” And so, I gave up. And then, maybe six months later, I was like, “No, I have this vision and I’m going to see it through.” It was hard because the thing that helped me get it made was that we had to make it first. John MacDonald (the music montage editor) did 20 to 25 seconds a week, and it took 11 months to put that together. We had to invest a lot of time in putting it together, and then I had mere weeks to show [the artists and get them to sign off]. It was worth the fight of doing it. Obviously, the universe is teaching me that I’m not just a drummer from high school with his best friend in his band. There’s something more out there for all of us.
Questlove Went Above and Beyond to Bring His Vision for ‘Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music’ to Life

“‘SNL’ is a part of my DNA.”

Questlove on the red carpet for SNL50: The Homecoming Concert
Image via NBC

I actually found the intro for the documentary to be really emotional. I’m such a fan of music and there are so many songs that have meant something to me throughout my life in that six minutes. And then, you get to watch the different artistry of the performances and how each artist planned out their performance. And then, there’s all the different types of artists and all the different genres. It just felt like a life of music flashing by in six minutes. QUESTLOVE: I’m glad it hit you emotionally. Lorne [Michaels] approached me about that project mid-2021, right when Summer of Soul had just gotten wrapped and I was on the festival circuit. He was first out the gate. The second we won Sundance, he had summoned me to the 17th floor, and to be honest with you, I thought I was going to get fired. No one gets called to the 17th floor unless they did something they weren’t supposed to do. All day, my heart was beating. There was no context. I went to see Lorne at 6pm on the 17th floor, and to my surprised, he was like, “I saw the movie twice.” That was shocking. I said, “You really sat and watched something that I did twice. You really know what I do? I’m not just one of Jimmy [Fallon]’s guys on drums? You actually know my value?” And he laughed and was like, “Yes, I know about everything.” So, he presented this challenge to me. To be honest with you, my main motivation for doing it was that the two shows that shaped me the most as a kid, taking all PBS programing out of it, like Sesame Street and Mister Rogers, were Soul Train and Saturday Night Live. Soul Train was normally a 12 in the afternoon cleaning the house experience for Black America. In Philadelphia, Soul Train was a one-in-the-morning experience, but because my parents were so cool, at one point, we had an agreement. The agreement was that they would wake you up at 12:30 at night to watch Soul Train at 1am. I’d wake up like clockwork at 12:30 at night, and the formula of SNL was different back then. Weekend Update used to be two segments, and after the second Weekend Update, there was a Jim Henson Muppet moment, and then, after that, there might be a short film, and then there were two musical guests. Around 12:45am to 1am were the two music songs, which I watched religiously, and then I watched Soul Train from 1am to 2am, and I would go to church at seven. I just always wanted to watch all the SNL shows. Working at 30 Rock, there is a database that lets you watch every show that’s ever been on NBC. You hook up your computer to the feed, and I can watch Little House on the Prairie from 1974, or Circus of the Stars in 1975. Anything that’s ever been on NBC, you can watch at 30 Rock. I was like, “Great, now is my chance to take all one thousand-plus episodes home with me. I wanted to do it just so I can have a hard drive and watch, and I watched every last episode. On average, on a weekday, I could do two to three episodes a day. On weekends, I could knock out maybe seven between Saturday and Sunday. It took about a year and a half for me to watch every episode and take meticulous notes on what story I wanted to tell. Part of it was the job, but really, it was to scratch the emotional itch of a time portal of me being eight years old and my sister doing Jiffy Pop popcorn on the stove and us watching SNL. That’s the real reason. I think that’s the emotional part that you got out of it. It could have easily just been a clip show. We could’ve easily just phoned it in. But SNL is a part of my DNA, even though I’m not necessarily in that world.
Even Though He’s Making the Effort to Slow Down, Questlove Has Plans Until 2028

“The scariest thing for me is vacation.”

Questlove in a black t-shirt and gold necklace whiel playing a DJ in Episode 10 of Season 3 of Abbott Elementary 
Image via ABC

You’ve done this SNL documentary, you have all of these different music docs, you’re working on an Earth, Wind & Fire, you’re finishing a Roots album. Is the next thing a live-action narrative? What’s the next goal? QUESTLOVE: I’ll be honest with you, the goal, which is in month seven of its implementation, is to do something I’ve never done in my life, which is to slow down. I had 12 jobs by 2017. It was ridiculous. And then, when the pandemic came and everything came to a screeching halt, my girlfriend and my therapist saying, “You don’t have to do 12 jobs. What lights your world on fire and makes your heart sing, and what are you just doing because you’re bored?” It took a long time to make that list, but right now, I’m happy to say that I’m down to five jobs, even though there’s a heavy workload for all those jobs. Right now, in the movie world, including Earth, Wind & Fire, there are five more projects yet to direct, so I’ll probably be directing until 2028, and then I’ll see how I feel. I’m saying no to things, and it’s a scary thing to say no, especially when you grew up like I did. You take every job and you stack your money because you never know what’s going to happen. I’m trying to get out of that fight or flight thing. Now, I want to do things like enjoy life. The scariest thing for me is vacation, but I’ve taken a few of those in the last year or so. I was very frightened by how easy it was. I don’t know if I’ve ever told the story, but Jay-Z happened to release a video for his 4:44 album, called “Moonlight,” and the video was a repurposed Friends episode where he had six Black cast members in those roles. It was literally a Black version of Friends. Next thing I knew, I was in Hawaii at Shep Gordon’s house on my very first vacation, and I drove to BestBuy to get the Friends box set to look at the episode shot by shot and to see that they actually choreographed it shot by shot. The next thing I knew, I watched the entire 10 seasons on a beach in Hawaii on land in front of Shep Gordon’s house, facing the beach with my computer. I watched all 10 seasons in a week and a half. So, when people were like, “What did you do on vacation? Did you go parasailing?” I lied to them. I was like, “Yeah, we went canoeing.” I literally sat on the sand and watched probably 200 hours worth of Friends episodes, just because I’m a completist like that. So, doing less and doing nothing is a life goal. But I still have a few albums to finish for The Roots and four to five films to do. I’ll be busy until 2028. Ladies & Gentleman… 50 Years of SNL Music is available to stream on Peacock. Summer of Soul is available to stream on Hulu.