Questlove

The Ten Best Concerts in NYC This Week, 4/29/13

Kim Gordon, ?uestlove, Andrew Bird and Andrew W.K. walk into a Masonic Temple ... these are the 10 best shows in NYC this week.

LET'S DUET

A night of musical collisions

D'Angelo Finally Returns to NYC, Plays Two-Man Show With Questlove

Better Than: Waiting two hours for Justin Bieber. Fans were told 9. Press was told 9:30. By 9:45 the room was packed to the rafters, and as 10 o'clock, and then 10:30 passed, the tension in the room was palpable, and the whispers began spreading through the crowd... Where is D'Angelo? A fair quest ... More >>

Questlove Instagrams Jiro Sushi

Some chefs have placed an informal ban on capturing food porn at their restaurants, said the New York Times earlier this week. Heads from Momofuku Ko, Le Bernadin, and Fat Duck spoke out against diners disrupting dinner service with an incessant need to use flash, tripods, or even stand on their ch ... More >>

STUDY HALL

Class is in Session with professor Questlove

Rolling Stone's Top 50 Rap Songs of All Time: Six Alternative Number One Picks

Rolling Stone recently published a run-down of the top 50 hip-hop songs of all time. After consulting with a panel of 33 journalists, industry figures and artists (including professional rap encyclopedia ?uestlove and the remaining members of the Beastie Boys), the numbers were crunched and Grandmas ... More >>

Nine Poppy Picks From ?uestlove's Non-Rap Productions

?uestlove's stock is at an all-time high. His stint as house band-leader on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon was recently complimented by a profile in The New Yorker; you might even peep his face on subway billboards around the city as he clocks up his Sonos endorsement money. Tonight he'll be spinning ... More >>

Questlove: Your Favorite Twitterer's Favorite Music Snob... And NYU Professor?

Questlove, Questo, ?uestlove, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon bandmember and, most importantly, the fiery drums behind the genre-defining group, The Roots. Questlove has made a name for himself with all the attributes listed and much, much more (if his 2 million plus followers on Twitter are ... More >>

Live: Boiler Room NYC with Flying Lotus, Just Blaze, Questlove, Flatbush Zombies

Better Than: Watching the Internet.Boilerroom.tv has become a sort of voyeuristic dream party for DJ nerds over the last year or so. Proudly self-branded as "the world's leading underground music show," the website is sponsored by a handful of lifestyle-branded music partnerships - Red Bull Music Ac ... More >>

Fishbone

Live: Questlove Puts The World On Shuffle At BAM

Shuffle Culture Howard Gilman Opera House Friday, April 20 Better than: Celebrating "4/20." Questlove's "Shuffle Culture" event—at which ten or so musical acts performed a handful of songs each, but never more than one at a time, as if the set list itself were on shuffle—was at once st ... More >>

Questlove's Quest

The always-working bandleader puts the world on shuffle at BAM

This Week In The Voice: The '90s Will Never Die; Questlove's Constant Questioning

In this week's Voice, out now: I look at the slow stranglehold of '90s retro and wonder about postmodern pop shows that don't require their stars to be present, a la Tupac's holographic appearance at Coachella over the weekend; and Brad Farberman talks to Questlove about Shuffle Culture, his musical ... More >>

Q&A: Questlove On Artistic Freedom, "Shuffle Culture," And Spreading The Springsteen Gospel

In a recent tweet responding to a follower's assertion that he was a celebrity, the drummer and head Root Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson demurred, claiming he was merely "a personality." The follower had a point, though; according to a website devoted to Quest's blogs about meeting famous people, for in ... More >>

This Week in The Voice: Mitt Romney, American Parasite

This week in the Voice, out today: Pete Kotz examines Mitt Romney's brand of capitalism, and finds that it represents everything you hate about America's economic system: "His specialty was flipping companies -- or what he often calls 'creative destruction.' It's the age-old theory that the new must ... More >>

N.E.R.D. ALERT

Wonk out at the EMP conference

Stephen Colbert Is A Bit Miffed That His Pop Conference Paper Got Rejected

Next weekend, various stripes of music nerds (critics, academics, people who just like to think a lot) will descend on New York for the EMP Pop Conference, an annual mind-meld of pro and amateur musicologists that's taking place in our fair city for the first time. The conference, sponsored by the S ... More >>

'Robert Johnson at 100'

D'Angelo Offers Two (Awesome) Peeks At His Long-In-The-Works Third Album

It is hard to not root for D'Angelo, the long-dormant R&B genius who, in the 12-year (!) period between his classic album Voodoo and now, has had run-ins with the law and mean-spirited internet giggles directed his way. But in December, Roots drummer and longtime collaborator ?uestlove told Pitchfor ... More >>

?uestlove

Amy Winehouse's Top Ten Hip-Hop Collaborations

​Rappers loved Amy Winehouse. The British warbler might not have collaborated with rap chaps to the extent that Mary J Blige has, but when she passed away earlier this year she did so leaving behind a discernible trail of hip-hop goodies. And the songs suggest there was a genuine bond and shar ... More >>

'Blue Note Jazz Festival: Paid in Full 25th Anniversary with the Roots+Rakim'

'Marcus Miller's Concert for Japanese Tsunami Relief'

Q&A: Neko Case On The Charity Drawing For Her 1967 Mercury Cougar, Her Poor Twitter Etiquette, And The Beastmaster

"My hugest goal was to get a Retweet from Questlove, because he has all these followers and he's so great. And he totally gave me one! I was like, 'This is a Twitter victory!'" Act now and all this (well, the car at least) could be yours​The cover of Neko Case's 2009 album, Middle Cyclone, fe ... More >>

Live: The Roots, The Flaming Lips, Michael Stipe, And Patti Smith Dominate Carnegie Hall's Tibet House Benefit

Patti Smith, leading the charge as always. Pic by Tracy Ketcher.​21st-Annual Tibet House U.S. Benefit Concert Starring The Flaming Lips, the Roots, Taj Mahal, Michael Stipe, etc. Carnegie Hall Thursday, March 3 Better Than: "Auld Lang Syne" "Beauty is power -- violence is weak," we are told ... More >>

Live: Questlove Rings In Martin Luther King Day At Cielo

No reason to be nervous. Pics by Puja, more below.​Questlove Cielo Sunday, January 16 Better Than: That time Justin Bieber played the drums with Questlove on Jimmy Fallon. Around 8 p.m. on Sunday night, Questlove Tweeted that he was off to spin the "hardest DJ set of m'life." The gig was Gia ... More >>

Al Green

Please Welcome the Best Website Ever, "Questlove's Celebrity Stories," Starring a Hilarious Canibus Dis and the Time He Met Will Smith

​Well, this was entirely unexpected. Behold: a massive compendium of every celebrity ubiquitous Roots drummer and all around hero Questlove has ever met, complete with the story of how it happened and what they were like. Highlights include his summary dismissal of the '90s mixtape rap star Ca ... More >>

Michael Jackson Died A Year Ago Today

​Yep. June 25, 2009. A genuinely shocking and oddly unifying moment, when a couple decades of profound decline and ugliness were washed away instantly, leaving everyone with the powerful urge to hear "Billie Jean" again as soon as possible. (Or "Beat It." For me it was "Beat It.") Around here ... More >>

DANCE IT ON DOWN

Happy birthday, Soul!

A VIBE CULLED ?UEST

?uestlove dedicates this warehouse party to MLK

Ha, Clipse's "Grindin'", the Roots Remix

Almost definitely not the song the Clipse are going to perform on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon tonight, but here's a web-only type rehearsal take of Pusha and Mal jumping on the song anyway, as assisted by the Roots. Worth it for Questlove and Captain Kirk's falsetto chorus punctuation alone. Love ... More >>

Japandroids Played Fallon

People who have been fans of this band for years may never have heard either of these two guys sing into the microphone as much (or, uh, as tunefully) as they do here--it's pretty much the exact opposite of whatever bad PA yelling they do out at Brooklyn or the Mercury Lounge, etc. Fallon looks im ... More >>

Japandroids Are at Late Night With Jimmy Fallon Right Now; Viewing Party at HiFi Tonight

Illegal and indecipherable soundcheck video above via Questlove. Word is the song will be "Wet Hair"--fine, although if you had a shot at late night TV, wouldn't you take that shot and play "Young Hearts Spark Fire" with it? The duo will be over at HiFi tonight watching themselves on TV, should yo ... More >>

Hey, So the Roots Played With the Dirty Projectors Last Night

"Stillness Is the Move" and and a solo-drenched "No Intention," to be exact, featuring Questlove and couple other members of the Roots crew. It was pandemonium--pretty much as rowdy as the Bowery Ballroom gets. Plus as the man says, David Byrne on "Knotty Pine" for the final encore, which is not a ... More >>

Oh, Hi Jay-Z, How's That Phillies Hex Going?

​Badly! Photo courtesy of Questlove, who took it upon himself to watch the game with Mr. Carter at Citizen's Bank Park last night, and even captured the sullen, impotent moment above--Jay throwing up three trembling fingers in the direction of his woeful team, who couldn't quite make it to fou ... More >>

DJ AM and James Chance, Together at Last: Downtown Calling

​We are against hagiography as a rule, but let's take a moment to list just a few members of the cast of Shan Nicolson's late '70s New York doc Downtown Calling, narrated by Debbie Harry and opening at the Austin Film Festival, next weekend: DJ AM, Wild Style's Charlie Ahearn, TV on the Radio' ... More >>

A Modest Proposal: Let's Help Roxanne Shante Get An Actual Degree

​ ​ That's Questlove for you, lighting a candle rather than cursing the darkness now descended upon the feel-good story of the summer. If everyone who blogged/Tweeted that story in the first place chipped in $10, she'd be Dr. Shante in no time.

?uestlove Will Not Be Joining the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Conga Line

So yeah, the upshot here is that 3 minutes or so into this 7th Floor West clip you get to see ?uestlove of the Roots execute maybe the most reluctant limbo of all time, with a humiliating assist from a big inflatable beach ball. Also, Black Thought in Swimmies. [Late Night with Jimmy Fallon]

The Wall Street Journal Gets a Kick Out of Jimmy Fallon Getting a Kick Out of ?uestlove's WSJ Portrait

Ha. The Wall Street Journal, a paper not always known for its sense of humor, apparently enjoyed Jimmy Fallon making fun of ?uestlove's dot drawing in the paper (internally known as a "hedcut," they tell us) on his show the other night so much they made a video out of the clip. And the drawing is ... More >>

The Roots Take Manhattan

Meet the new kings of late-night, God (and Jimmy Fallon) willing

AND STILL THEY RISE

The Roots’ next regeneration awaits

The Roots Bury the Leader

Rising Down's nuanced dystopia threatens to overwhelm the guy at its center

The Roots' Rising Down: Bangers, With a Price

Blood at the Roots

A new label and newfound rage bear strange fruit for hip-hop's everymen

Live: The Roots Forget to Call Jay-Z

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