This is a story about Questlove “Summer of Soul” first appeared in the special Documentary Issue of ’s awards magazine.
Ahmir had a record career. “Questlove”Thompson knew exactly what he wanted. Even before he’d make an album with his band, the Roots, he’d envision what it would be like and how it would be received, going so far as to write fake record reviews and even do illustrations that might accompany those reviews, in the manner of the Rolling Stone magazine reviews that he hung on his walls when he was in his teens.
“I’m absolutely calculating in the music world,”He said. “I literally will do a full-scale model of what I’m planning. I’m known for this level of obsession with my records — but when you’re coming into another area where you’re not familiar with the lay of the land…”He looked up, then he laughed. “I find it strangely ironic that everything I dreamed of for my recording career is happening here.”
It’s happening not with an album but with “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),”This movie turned the drummer, songwriter and Roots bandleader into a deejay. “Tonight Show” musical director into a film director. This is the culmination of a year filled with music documentaries. “Summer of Soul” was the first one out of the gate, premiering on opening night at the largely virtual 2021 Sundance Film Festival in January and going on to win the audience award and the jury award as the festival’s best nonfiction film.
It landed a $15million deal with Searchlight Pictures, Hulu, which was the largest ever for a Sundance documentary. In the fall, it started racking up awards or nominations, from the Gotham Awards to IDA Documentary Awards and Cinema Eye Honors. It won the Critics Choice Documentary Awards in all six categories.
For a guy who turned 50 earlier this year and never really thought about success in the movie business, it’s all come as a delicious and somewhat baffling surprise.
“I’m (not usually) this willfully ignorant going into something,”He said it with a grin. “I just knew my intentions: If I were still teaching (music) at NYU, what’s the film I can show my students that’s entertaining and I can pack a whole bunch of information in it? That part I know I have covered, and all this other stuff is…”A smile. “You know, I’m just glad that people are receiving it.”
“Summer of Soul” is in many ways a joyous film, drawing on footage from the Harlem Cultural Festival, a series of concerts that took place in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood in the summer of 1969. The concerts, which were filmed but largely unseen for 50 years, featured R&B icons Stevie Wonder and Sly and the Family Stone, jazz masters Max Roach and Sonny Sharrock, gospel greats Mahalia Jackson and the Staples Singers and the incomparable Nina Simone, among many others.
’s review called it “a documentary in which politics and music are inextricably linked, in which culture flows from the church to the street to the concert stage. You can come for the music and stay for the politics, or vice versa; either way, it’s a vibrant document of an inspiring event that never loses sight of what that event meant for a community, a city and a culture.”
Questlove admits that there are many highlights in the film, but that is part of what made it so difficult for him to produce a film with footage from the festival producer Hal Tulchin’s basement. “They’re not just giving you footage, they’re giving you 40 hours of footage,”He said. “Between Peanut Butter Captain Crunch and Fruity Pebbles, I love cereal all day. But if I eat seven bowls in a row, that’s a wrap. And that’s sort of what it was like to receive 40 hours of footage.”
Questlove cut a huge supercut of the footage to make it easier to navigate through it without becoming boring. He then put it on a computer, which could serve all monitors in his home and his work at NBC. “I have a system where I could watch it in my dressing room, on my phone if I’m traveling, in my bathroom… I had to process it organically and have it on casually — when I’m eating, when I’m on the phone and when I’m asleep, much to the dismay of my girlfriend.”
His rule was that he’d only consider footage that gave him goosebumps and made him stop what he was doing—and even then, he ended up with a three-and-a-half hour first cut. He removed 25 minutes worth of comedy footage, and he eliminated a Chambers Brothers performance. “Time Has Come Today”Because its impact was dependent on its 16 psychedelic moments, it gradually got down to two hours.
Along the way, he also figured out that while he’d initially envisioned a straight concert movie, this one had to include the context of the time, in which Black neighborhoods around the country were a powder keg of frustration and tension after the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King. The Harlem Cultural Festival shows were partly intended to calm the anger in Harlem.
Questlove realized his first goal was to become a therapist. “a well-curated, well-paced concert”It would appeal to those who remember the performers, but it would not be as interesting to younger viewers if they didn’t understand that the concert was held in a similar climate to today.
“When 2020 came along, I realized that the adhesive that was going to connect Gen Z and the millennials was that they were living in the same conditions that caused this concert to happen in the first place,”He said. “And then each day it became more urgent politically. And what was once going to be a 15-song affair with little snippets on the side suddenly became a history lesson on where we were and how we got there.”
Artists on the stage were, in a sense, also at the edge of making those connections through their music. Stevie Wonder was leaving his 1969 stage as he eased out. “Little Stevie Wonder”The persona of a bright, energetic child star was poised to make socially conscious masterworks. “Talking Book”And “Innervisions”The Staples Singers had plans to bring their gospel music (a genre that was created in slavery) onto the pop charts. They were going to hit urgent hits like “Respect Yourself”Sly and the Family Stone were moved by the celebration of “Dance to the Music”towards the dark visions “There’s a Riot Goin’ On,”This is a difficult masterwork by a man whose fame brought increased drug use and self-destructive behaviors; and Black music was entering a phase where it was dominating the charts with songs dealing with inner-city life and race relations.
“With this movie, timing is everything,”Questlove stated. “So many of those acts were literally on the diving board, about to jump. Sly more than anybody. I watch this footage, and I know that Woodstock is a week later, and Woodstock will change his life. As I was editing it, I was like, ‘Wow, Sly doesn’t even know that in the next 14 days, he’s not just going to capture the zeitgeist, it’s going to be a paradigm shift that’s going to change him forever.”
He paused. “It seems like such a victorious time, but I see it as a period that will lead to something that’s going to change my life, which is funk music, but also something that’s going to cause one of the weirdest erosions or unstrategic exit plans I’ve ever seen. Sly was building up to a level of success, and it was like, ‘Be careful what you ask for. We’ll give it to you.’ And he almost kicked it away.”
At one point as he was watching the Sly footage, he added, he mentioned to producer Joseph Patel just how fascinated he was by Stone’s career. “I said, ‘Man, that’s the story I want to see.’ And I swear to God, three hours later Common called me and said, ‘Yo, man, I don’t know if you know this, but I got the rights to Sly Stone’s life. We’ve been trying to do his documentary for four years. You want to do that?’”He shook his head. “Three hours later.”
He’s now signed to direct the Sly Stone movie for MRC Non-Fiction — which means that just as Stone’s performances in the summer of 1969 helped change his life, putting one of those performances on screen has helped change Questlove’s career.
“Oh, this changed my life,”He spoke quickly. “For one thing, I didn’t believe that this thing was real. In the beginning, I thought it would be something brilliant that would ride under the radar, and that when I’m dead one day, people would be like, ‘Did you know he directed a movie?’
“Also, I felt like, ‘OK, you guys want me to do what I did with ‘Hamilton’ (where he produced the soundtrack album)? Like, I’ll be there to give some advice, I’ll do interviews and promote the film, but you’ll find somebody else to do the work.’ And they were like, ‘No, you specifically tell the story.’”
He smiled. “Every artist is neurotic and every artist overthinks, but this helped me to accept the fact that I had to stop my reluctant-leader shtick and really own that I have a deep desire to teach people about musical history and do it in a way that seems entertaining and engaging.”
You can read more about the Documentary Issue by clicking here.
