Ahmir ‘Questlove“Thompson won a famous Oscar for his documentary” Summer of Soul “2022 … just a few moments after” The Slap “. Now Questlove has wired in Will Smith in a major discussion in his new film “Sly lives!“About” The Burden of Black Genius “(which is also the subtitle of the new film).
This documentary, as the title suggests, traces life, times and art for Sly Stone, the legendary band leader for Sly & The Family Stone. Questlove interviewed him for “Summer of Soul”, although his health problems were such that he knew he would start doing “Sly Lives!” That Stone would not be interviewed this time. He uses the arch of Stone’s career to make greater points about the representative burdens that black artists often have to bear: that they represent the entire black community and in their artistic production and personal behavior must follow a much higher standard than white artists. The point is pointed out several times in the documentary that success can be more dangerous for black artists than failure.
Questlove and his producer Joseph Patel stopped in IndieWire Studio at SundancePresented by Dropbox, to discuss these themes in depth.
“I think there is a large amount of debt that happens,” Questlove said about what can happen when a black artist does the big time. “‘Why does this happen to me? Why me? There is certainly someone who is even more talented out there than I am. Think about what mega -black artist you know: It can come to a point where something takes them off the track and you think” why Did they? “And that’s the burden.”
In a montage at the end of the film, Questlove shows other black artists who have endured an extraordinary level of press and review throughout their careers – the type of press and review that has really made several of them “taken by the track”, which He expressed it. “Self Sabotage” is another term used in the documentary.
Will Smith, who keeps his Oscar on stage at the Dolby Theater in the aftermath of “The Slap”, is among them.
“It was an important discussion,” Questlove said about how or if you should include Smith. “How do we handle this? What frame we show? It was probably a rare moment of several sabotage that happened in a moment, it was the lightning in a bottle. But we had to give examples (on what we tried to express), and I Think it was tastefully done. It was definitely a moment in the story where you see the idea of ’you get what you came for, but what happens when you get what you thought you wanted? What happens to your life then?’
See the entire video above.
“Slug life!” Released at Hulu on February 13th.
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