In four documentaries—the Oscar- and Grammy-winning "Summer of Soul," "The Life of Sly," "Ladies and Gentlemen: 50 Years of Saturday Night Live Music," and the new "Earth, Wind & Fire (to Be Celestial vs. That's the Weight of the World)," which airs on HBO Sunday night—Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, drummer and frontman of The Roots and musical director of "The Tonight Show," has established himself as one of the greatest music documentarians of our era.
When artists who are themselves art lovers take on such projects, the results can be overly enthusiastic, overly fanatical, overly hagiographic. But Thompson's films are sober portraits of artists or situations—both, of course, created by humans in all their glory and imperfections—and while they are positive, they also realistically depict their darker sides, which is what makes them beautiful stories.
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The story centers on Maurice White, the creator of one of the most influential R&B groups of all time, his difficult childhood in the segregated South, and, crucially, how his mother abandoned him at the age of five to seek opportunity in Chicago. She always said she'd come back for him, and 13 years later she did, but the pain never left him—even as he overcame one obstacle after another, starting as a drummer for the iconic blues label Chess (where he played drums on songs by Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Howlin' Wolf, and many others), then moving on to work with jazz legend Ramsey Lewis, and finally risking everything to form Earth, Wind & Fire. The first lineup didn't work out, so he disbanded it and started again, integrating magic, mysticism, Egyptology, and positive thinking into the band's innovative, deceptively complex sound. And as they became one of the biggest bands in the world, he gradually lost control. By the early 1980s, the band had broken up, just when their career was about to reach even greater heights.
As Thompson writes below: "All the bands they influenced in the '70s suddenly became gods in the '80s—Kool & the Gang, the Pointer Sisters, the Commodores, Lionel Richie, the Jacksons—and Earth, Wind and Fire were left behind.".
Variety spoke with Thompson over Zoom on Friday to discuss the film, uncovering hidden moments in the artist's story, his next projects, and his appearance with EWF at the film's premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on Tuesday night.
How was your performance with Earth, Wind, and Fire two nights ago?
You know, it was quite a poetic moment. The last time I played on that stage was when I was 12 years old, with my dad playing at the Beacon—he performed at the Beacon for about a year, during his old doo-wop revival, somewhere between 1981 and maybe 1988-89. So, yeah, to be back there—and with Robert De Niro, by the way—I couldn't have come up with a better fairytale ending. It was everything I ever hoped for.
Have you played with them before?
Yes. I first met Maurice White in 2000, when Maurice's son, KB, was introducing him to contemporary bands he otherwise wouldn't have heard of. He said to his dad, "There's a band called The Roots, they're kind of like a modern version of you." So we even worked on one of their albums, I think in 2001. And then there was a concert on July 4th, 2006 or 2007, where The Roots and Earth, Wind and Fire did a short 20-minute joint set.
It seems one of your goals in making these documentaries is to give credit to overlooked or misunderstood artists or events.
What I love about the process of making any film is the deep dive into the subject matter. And this is one of the rare times when I'd really like to do something like an "internal" project, where I'd break down song by song: What do these lyrics mean? What does this upside-down symbol mean? Why did you choose 5/4 time? But really, I think the greatest thing about Earth, Wind, and Fire is, and I say this jokingly, how they tricked you into eating your vegetables.
Years ago, I had a hunch that in 2026, we might need a film that helps people understand who Maurice White was. It's the story of a man who, against all odds, confidently walked into a situation where he had no safety net. He could have simply treaded carefully—he was making good money and enjoying popularity playing with Ramsey Lewis—and he could have simply stayed where he was and become rich and successful. But he had a different mission, and that's the kind of person I want to see—people who feel they want to lead.
People are too afraid right now: "Oh, my God, this is the worst time in history." No, this is the moment that will determine our future. And if this film can play any role in how people dream or silently make hasty decisions, then that's the role I want to play, by planting a seed.
"Summer of Soul" had themes of loss over time, and "Sly Lives" had themes of grandeur, self-destruction, and tragedy, but neither of those themes are present on this album. Was leadership the motivation for this song?
I didn't mean to be "Captain Obvious" here—as I've said before, no one cares what's healthy. If you're a kid and I give you Captain Crunch or Shredded Wet, which would you choose?
This is the story of a five-year-old orphan who somehow magically discovers the laws of metaphysics. Usually in stories like this, when your mother gives you away to be raised, you become bitter, angry, and prone to self-destruction. But for some reason, Maurice was always focused on "I'm going to become a better person," and he did. However, the lesson I really want people to understand is that even with the best intentions for humanity, the one thing Maurice couldn't let go of was his anger at his mother for giving him away, even though she always intended to come back for him. And when he turned 18, she returned, but he was never able to let go of that pain. So, no matter how hard he tried to make humanity a better place, he never used his own methods. Men are usually taught to keep their emotions in check, to be men and just endure, and the result is that if we don't let our emotions out...
I'll put it this way. Over the last year or so, starting with D'Angelo, we've probably had the most serious case of suspected cancer. And I believe the roots of all of this are rooted in the fact that you keep it bottled up. In Maurice's case, the anger from not being able to forgive his mother for this is starting to affect his body. No matter how healthy he is, it's backfiring in some ways. So I want people to understand that yes, you can do metaphysics, use affirmations, and all that for your mental space, but you also need to clear your inner world and truly make peace with yourself and the people in your life, otherwise you could suffer the same fate.
So I think there's a deeper story behind it, but I want people to discover it for themselves without me having to explain it in detail.
And that's the tragedy, really—he was afraid people would abandon him, so he wouldn't let anyone near him. On a more positive note, your films always have some simple, defining musical moment that most people don't know about. In this film, it was the incident in 1973 when Earth, Wind & Fire opened for Parliament-Funkadelic and were blown off the stage and booed. Has that been told before? I've never heard of it.
Here's the thing. We think Earth, Wind & Fire came to us ready-made, in spacesuits, with a big orchestra and these upbeat songs—they're legends, they've always been there. But the truth is, there's a lot we don't know, and that's why I was pretty shocked to learn that they were mercilessly booed in my hometown of Philadelphia! And in response, they sat in the lotus position for eight minutes.
Bill Burr went through the same thing. He was a little-known comedian, and he came to Philadelphia one night, and the same thing happened to him: people started booing him, and you know what? He just went, "Okay, I'll wait." And of course, within four minutes, we respected him—like, "Hey, he handled it like a champ! We love that guy!" And Earth, Wind, and Fire literally went through the same thing, so I didn't know they got hit hard a couple of times.
I also didn't know how radical they were. From Sly and the Family Stone songs, I learned that dressing casual was taboo back then—you had to wear a suit: "We're safe! We're in tuxedos. We're singing Sinatra covers!" And showing up in dashikis and casual clothes? No one did that. So I didn't understand what they had to go through to become the norm.
I have cousins who were at the [EWF] concert in '77, and none of them were the same when they came home. They transformed people back then. And the fact that they didn't achieve their cherished goal, like all their followers—Kool & the Gang, the Pointer Sisters, the Commodores, Lionel Richie, the Jacksons, all the bands they influenced in the '70s, suddenly became gods in the '80s, and Earth, Wind and Fire were left behind. A lot of what they went through, I didn't know.
I don't want to be a bore, but in his autobiography, Maurice White said that he and Booker T. Jones of Booker T & the MGs, as well as David Porter, who co-wrote many classics with Isaac Hayes, were best friends in high school. Why isn't that in the film?
Booker is in there! He's the one who tells the story of [White's] childhood and how his parents essentially abandoned him; he was practically there to witness it. But you know what, there are a lot of [details] that I wanted to leave out [but ended up being cut]. For example, there's a brilliant story about how [White] lured [future R&B star] Deniece Williams away from Stevie Wonder's group Wonderlove to sign her.
The first thing I asked Booker T. Jones was: You [and Porter] are going to be the architects of Stax Records, and [White] will be with you. But the story Booker told about [White] getting beat up on his newspaper route made him practically a recluse and a homebody, and he vowed never to cross the railroad tracks to the other side of town again. But if he had, he probably would have become a drummer in the Stax organization. But his story happened the way it was supposed to.
You're essentially the biggest Prince fan in the world; you knew him, performed with him, and know his music inside and out. How come you haven't made a documentary about Prince yet?
You know, sometimes you just want to jump right into the fire. Prince's story—I'm too close to it, his story is too close to my life, and I'm almost afraid I'll turn it into a love letter anyway. And I know his story is very complicated. I will also say that I think Ezra Alderman made the best documentary about Prince, although the estate disagrees. [Prince's estate has publicly disowned the film and blocked its release.]
So you've seen it before!
Yes, I'm in it, and I'm one of the lucky few, maybe 30 people, who's seen it. Maybe now is just not the time. But it changed my life—that film influenced my storytelling. Without that documentary, I don't know if the documentaries about Sly or Earth, Wind, and Fire would have turned out the way they did.
Okay, that's my last question - except for one: on your T-shirt photo Michael Jackson and Goofy?
(Laughing and unbuttoning his jacket) Yes, that is true.
What happens next?
I'll be honest with you, it all started with the principle of, "Whatever you want to do, there's a window of opportunity right now." It all started with the Summer of Soul, and this documentary marks the end of a very strange period. I'm not necessarily advising other creative people or filmmakers to do what I was trying to do, because at one point I was simultaneously working on Sly, Earth, Wood and Fire and the Saturday Night Live music documentary. There were times and mornings where I'd come into work thinking I was ready, but, "Wait, What do we work with?! ». So I don't recommend doing this.
However, despite this, I'm currently starting three projects that are somewhat related to this topic. I can't reveal their names, but I can hint that 1988 was a very classic year for hip-hop music. That's all I can say about it. But yes, the work won't stop.
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