The following story is featured in the latest issue of our print quarterly, The Pitchfork Review. Subscribe to the magazine here.
Good drummers know that time is plastic. The beat must go on, but you can play ahead of it or behind it, make it swing or switch up the tune entirely. Drumming is a heartbeat art, concerned with music at its most elemental: questions of momentum, time, sound, and space. Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson has devoted his life to reinventing what a beatmaker can do. He got his start tapping out bucket rhythms on Philadelphia street corners and has steadily worked to become America’s most iconic drummer.
Some know him as the guy in the Roots who leads TV’s coolest in-house band on “The Tonight Show”; others recognize him as a key architect of the late 1990s neo-soul sound of D’Angelo and Erykah Badu. A cultural omnivore, lately his bold-name dinner parties, featuring some of the best chefs on the planet, have become the stuff of foodie legend. And wherever he pops up, you can’t miss Quest: He stands at a hefty six-foot-four, and that’s before you factor in the Afro and hair-pick.
Questlove’s work spearheading the annual Roots Picnic provides the best way to think about what his unique sensibilities look like writ large. Since 2008, the fest has brought eclectic lineups
to Quest’s native Philadelphia, and this October 1 and 2, the one-day affair expands to a two-day concert at New York City’s Bryant Park. Even amid the drummer and DJ’s constant flurry of activity, the event is a big moment for this tireless artist, whose work ethic becomes even more impressive when you meet him—how can a man with such a full plate be so funny and relaxed?
Pitchfork:Why did you want to start your own festival in the first place?
Questlove: The genesis of it all was when I went to Japan in ’97 and picked up all sorts of concert
footage. At that point in life, I literally was YouTube. Especially during the Voodoo sessions with D’Angelo, I was carrying these large Kipling bags full of nothing but videotapes and DVDs of performances you couldn’t find anywhere. One of those performances I always held dear was an event called the Police Picnic, which happened in Toronto every year between ’81 and ’83. Each member of the Police curated each night, and the lineup was really diverse, from the Specials to B.B. King to P-Funk All Stars. Now America has finally caught onto festival culture—it’s not close to Europe but at least there’s a good 20 to 30 festivals going on in the United States that are worth making a pilgrimage to—and I think it’s more special when artists curate them.
What did you want to bring to Philadelphia when you started the Roots Picnic there nine years ago?
You gotta understand: Around that time, the City of Brotherly Love was flirting with being the city with the highest murder rate in the United States of America. And I always felt like we owed Philly something. I don’t mean something like, Here’s a token gesture Philly, thanks for all of the support, see ya. The dream always was to pay it forward. It’s not like the festival is going to change the world or have the same impact as Coachella or Bonnaroo, but doing that one small gesture a year makes us feel like we’re doing our part giving back to the city
of Philadelphia.
In the beginning, we did it without sponsors—and these things cost a lot of money. And we insist on keeping the ticket under $100. I wanted something very affordable, very accessible. For some of these acts, we’d talk them down from the normal price: “Come on, Animal Collective, you guys need 12 cases of wine?” That’s a hypothetical—I don’t want people thinking that Animal Collective had 12 cases of wine! I just mean that you have to be seriously hands-on and call a lot of these acts that you meet throughout life and explain to them that this is for a bigger cultural cause.
What do you think makes musical festivals important for musicians?
Every musician wants to think that he’s gonna have this legendary Woodstock moment. But for Jimi Hendrix, I’m sure Woodstock was just like, “Oh, that’s Sunday. I gotta go on at five in the morning? Fuck.” With the Roots, for a lot of our magical moments, the further and more obscure the festival, the more ass-kicking it’s been, so my thought is that people’s enthusiasm grows when they have less access to music or festivals. And if that theory is correct, then we might be troubled at Bryant Park! Which is why we’re going all out to make this more than just your average random lineup of six acts you heard of and 20 acts you haven’t.
As a curator, how are you approaching the New York Roots Picnic?
Our egos definitely want to do a slam dunk where the backboard comes off the rim with this one. Initially, everybody except Barack Obama was gonna perform a song onstage, and I was just like, “This is too good. We’re setting ourselves up to not be as powerful next year.” So we decided to
hammer down a concept, which stopped the overflow. The first night is going to be reminiscent of our jam sessions back in [’90s NYC club] Wetlands, where anybody would come up onstage and occasionally some magic would go down. So, I felt like if we just advertised two strong names and a supergroup with D’Angelo and John Mayer—and then still booked a lot of acts that we won’t advertise, as a surprise thing—that’s magic in itself. The goal of that night is to create an intimate atmosphere. It’s hard to do that in front of 15,000 people but, we’re gonna try.
The next night we’re dubbing our love letter to New York City, with some really iconic New York artists from all walks of life: Wu-Tang, David Byrne, and Nile Rodgers, and then a slew of unannounced guests will join onstage. My only worry is that I have yet to do a New York show and really enjoy it because of the fact that I’m also the traffic cop and referee. No one knows the pain of when it’s 10:59 p.m. and you know the second that it hits 11 p.m. [curfew officials] are looking at you like, “You know it’s $16,000, right?” I got to figure out how to plan the perfect two-hour show where the audience feels as though they got their money’s worth and the artist feels it was worth coming down.
For some reason, we waited nine years to see if New York even wanted a part of this. A lot of it was just in my head: I thought there would be too much red tape, too many headaches. Then one day my manager was like, “Why don’t we just ask?” And much to my surprise we sent them an email, and they came back full force like, “When do you want to do it? What park do you want?” We were like, “Slow down!” We were shocked that they were so open and welcoming.
As the Roots Picnic grows, how do you plan to maintain that spirit of making a special moment?
I want people to know that we are personally involved—I’m calling D’Angelo, I’m calling John Mayer. It’s not just like, “Hey Live Nation, can you get Beyoncé for us?” One of the other ways I figure we could make this really special was to incorporate other areas of entertainment other than music in the future: DJ tents, food tents, comedy tents, movie tents. So Bryant Park is a testing period, and if we can prove that we do good business and that we’re culturally on-point, then I think the doors will open.
Everything you’re doing has a fair amount of discovery in it. What’s your secret to finding the new thing?
You should never be the smartest person in your crew. In my circle, we’re a bunch of smart asses, and smart asses are always trying to one-up each other—I’m constantly at the receiving end of someone’s one-upmanship, and I welcome it.