While documentaries with Elton John, Bono, Dua Lipa and Céline Dion had to settle for occasional Emmy nominations, and Bruce Springsteen’s doc was completely closed, musicians and filmmakers Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson became one of the small group of this year’s Triple Emmy Nominees. And while most of his colleagues Trippel nominated, all their noms gathered on the same show – Stephen Graham to write, produce and act in “Adolescence”, Quinta Brunson for doing the same three things on “Abbott Elementary – Thompson got his Trifecta to do three different jobs on three different programs.
He received a nomination to produce “sly lives! (Aka the burden of black genius),” an alternately exciting and varying look at the protean funk -musician sly Stone, who took his music to the heights and then destroyed by the surplus that came successfully; Another to serve as co-music manager of “SNL50: The HomeComing Concert”, The Peacock Special Draw from the 50th anniversary of “Saturday Night Live”; And the third for outstanding direction for a documentary/nonfiction program for another “SNL” special, “Ladies and Gentlemen … 50 Years of Snl Music”, a two hour tribute to the musical artists who have performed on the long-term comedy show.
A drummer, DJ, Writer, Producer, Professor, Bandleader and Filmmaker Who Has Spent More than 30 years Leading the Roots – 16 of Those as the House Band on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” – Thompson Got Into Directing with the 2022 Document Televised), “Which Won Him The Academy Award For Best Documentary. In the aftermath he received lots of offers for various projects and ended at the same time at “Sly Lives!” and “ladies and gentlemen.”
The last project opens up with what may be the most refreshing seven and a half minutes on television in the last Emmy season. Beginning with an array of “SNL” Hosts Introducing Their Episode’s Musical Guests, It Turns Into a Wildly Eclectic Mashup That Merges Taylor Swift and Billy Preston, Run-Dmc and Hall and Oates, Rick James and Duran Duran Duran… Lots of PE PEPE PEPE Bowie’s “Under Pressure” with Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Baby,” Which Samples the Earlier Song’s Bassline; Maybe just questlove would think about throwing Dave Matthews, fine young cannibals and Michael Bolton (!) There too.
The Mashup, which probably uses close to 100 different performances (I lost the bill for a few minutes in), is a crazy history lesson with a killer backbeat, so we asked Thompson how he did it. At one point he pulled out his phone and showed his database with points for each “SNL” performance.
We let him tell him with his own words from here.
Beginning
“There is this site completely dedicated to just the introductions.” Ladies and gentlemen, “and then the artist. So it’s like Patrick Stewart who says:” Ladies and gentlemen, Salt-N-Pepa! “So I was like,” Wow, I wonder if I can start this thing with just a super mix of a bunch of “ladies and gentlemen.”
“After being at ‘The Tonight Show’ for 16 years, I know the game in terms of music distance, because of Walk-On songs and all that. As the first time I had problems with 30 rock (NBC) was because I didn’t clean one -line Sting from ‘Law & Order: SVU.’ It is literally a registered song. “
“I already knew that I had my dream version of what I would like to do, but there is no way in hell that will happen. So I did the safest version, almost the flatest version of it. It was just like, let me just go through the time. Let me take Gil Scott-Heron, and I will take something from ’79 and maybe only.
“But John MacDonald, my editor, we are like twins. We grew up on that bomb group, the Public Enemy’s location. And there is a duo from Australia called The Avalanches. They made a record called” Since I left you “with 4,000 samples from TV, movie music …
“I was like,“ How did you get away with it? How did you explain it? How did you get past the bureaucrat of “You used my song, I want $ 19,000?” They said they explained to people that it was like an art project – and when people saw it as an art project, and not just as someone steals my music to make their No. 1 rap song, so suddenly it was like, “yes, it’s a bit cool.
“After that, John convinced me to do this for real. He is like,” man, let’s just do it first and do it so well that they are obliged to clear it. “And I was like,” Okay, let’s do this. “
The process
“The way we structured it, I joke that this is my” CSI “the crime board, with pictures and pieces of yarn connecting them and all that. I went through every song ever played on the show, whether it was in a sketch or a musical show. And for every song, I took a note on my phone and gave it a perfect point.
“I went through about three to seven episodes a day for a whole year. And then, because I think like a DJ, I would think: ‘This song is 112 BPMS and it is a flat smaller, but the bridge is on G and that way we can connect to the next song.”
“That’s how I construct a DJ play. And when we had good five minutes I was like,” wait. Before we do more, I don’t want them to be like, “This is impossible to clear.” Let me show them first. ‘So I played it for NBC and their jaws dropped. And they were like, ‘it absolutely will be a clearance nightmare. But do it just as you look appropriate. “”
“But I talked about doing a 14-minute cause, and they said: ’14 minutes is a lot, so try to witness down to seven minutes.’ I was like, ‘Seven?!’ In my mind it should be 16 minutes.
Clearance Nightmare
“So we did good seven minutes, and they were like,” Well, good news and bad news. “” Gimma just the bad news. “” Well, 24 songs didn’t clean up. “
“And I was like,” show myself the songs. “They showed me the list, and I said, ‘Oh, I have this guy number, i have this Number … guy, gimme a month. “”
“For a few people I had to physically fly out and show them. They were like: ‘Wait, you flew all the way out for this?”
“I physically showed them and put it in context. I was like,” guy, this is history. This thing will be here forever long after we are gone, and I don’t think anyone does it again. “They were like,” Yes, you’re right. “
The one who got away
“That’s how we could clear everything, with the exception of Pavarotti. There is a brilliant moment where Pavarotti does something with Mary J. Blige. The only thing I couldn’t get. And if I had access to the farm to just say,” Look, it’s only two seconds … “”
The happy place
“I did this on the weekends while I made the slue stone movie, so all week I brought in that pain and the darkness. After three months of it I couldn’t wait for Thursday and Saturday so I could work with ‘SNL’ and just do something fun. For me it was my lucky place. I needed it to get away from the pain.”
