Key Change: Questlove on Prince

0:00You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Hrishikesh Hirway. This episode is brought to you by Booking.com. I've been to a few national parks over the years, and it's always been a pretty magical experience. I've been to Yosemite and Joshua Tree here in California. Those are some of the closest ones to me. But I've been wondering about taking a trip to one that's maybe not so close. And last year, I started looking at some lists ranking some of the most beautiful national parks. And one that's come up on a few of the lists is Glacier National Park in Montana.

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1:50And my guest today is Amir Thompson, a.k.a. Questlove, the drummer and founding member of The Roots, as well as an author, a DJ, and an Oscar-winning film director. You know, a song that changed my life is Double Trouble by The Roots, and the liner notes that Questlove wrote to go with the song. There's a change in the drum sound in that song that blew my mind, and Questlove wrote a little bit about the effort that went into getting that drum sound. And as a drummer myself, I wanted to know everything about that. And that moment, 26 years ago, was maybe when the first seed for Song Exploder got planted in my brain.

2:24So getting to talk to him for this was really special for me. Questlove has an encyclopedic knowledge of music. It's really astounding. He knows so much about so many artists. He's just directed a new documentary about Earth, Wind & Fire, which is out now. But one of the artists he knows best is Prince. He was recently asked by Rolling Stone to rank the top 100 Prince songs. And for this episode, we talked about the song that he put at number one on that list. My name is Amir Questlove Thompson, and I want to talk about a very special version of Prince's breakthrough 1983 song, Little Red Corvette, specifically the 12-inch remix version.

3:14How old were you when you first heard Prince's music? I was seven years old. Prince entered my life in the most unusual way, which was my grandfather, my mother's father, had just passed away. My mother, my father lived in the East Coast in Philadelphia, and my mother's side of the family lived in Los Angeles. And the family called my father first to deliver the news. And my father had to deliver this news to my mother, who obviously and understandably was very distraught. So this is the first time I'm witnessing my mother having something close to a panic attack. Mind you, I'm seven years old.

4:00so kind of on a reflex nothing to see here type of reaction my sister who's older than I was and was kind of like a parental permanent fixture of my life just rushes me to my parents bedroom and instantly grabs you know my father's like studio headphones and puts the jack inside the radio and hands me drumsticks. Here, just practice. And what's mommy doing? No, no, no. And she turns up the volume. And she puts on WDAS, our station in Philadelphia. And just as the song Street Wave by the Brothers Johnson is fading out, I remember Doug Henderson saying, and we got a new one from Prince. This is called Soft and Wet.

4:49And I remember that my mother would remind me weekly when I begged her to please cut my hair that, no, your afro is your crown and I named you Amir because that means Prince. That was the connection. So I heard Prince's debut record as my mother is going through the most painful reaction to my grandfather's death. So that's how I remember Prince entering my life in the summer of 1978. Wow. But to tell you the truth, he really did make an impression on me. I saw him in my sister's Ride On magazine. Ride On was basically the black version of like Teen Beat magazine. Like that's where you found out about like, you know, what kind of lasagna Michael Jackson likes or, you know, the cast of Different Strokes.

5:41It was a teen fanzine, not like critical writing like Rolling Stone, but that's how I visually knew of Prince. But then there's a moment in 1980 in which my father happens to catch Prince's debut performance on the Midnight Special. Bert Sugarman presents the Midnight Special. Which was a show that came on after The Tonight Show on Friday nights. The song he's going to sing is called I Want to Be Your Lover. And if he's as hot as he is funky, look out. Right. Please welcome Prince. Now, the thing is, is that Prince, you know, in trying to establish himself as an artist, figured out the quickest way to get attention is sort of sexual controversy.

6:32And he would perform in his bikini briefs and leg warmers on stage. And so Prince makes his debut. And out of nowhere, I think a week later, my dad says to me, hey, that boy that sings in his diapers, I don't like that boy. Don't listen to him. Little did my dad know was all you had to do was say nothing. And Prince would just been like, oh, whatever. But he said, that boy that sings in his diapers. which is basically like okay let me see what the diaper guy's talking about thanks dad okay so prince is so prolific that by the time 1999 comes out the album that has little red corvette on it yes it's his fifth album in five years had you been listening to all of them along the way or when 1999 came out did you suddenly have a different relationship to that album specifically?

7:35Okay, yeah. So the thing is, is all of the hedonistic teenagers of the 60s were now mid-30s, early 40s, in the 80s. And there was just a wave of guilt in America. Like it starts with Donna Summer, who, you know, was sort of the poster child of everything that we know about Studio 54, like the drugs and the salaciousness and all that stuff. and in 79 she became a born-again christian and this was like so viral and so as a result especially for black america to see someone saying like i gotta get right with god and all the stuff so there was an immediate domino effect as a result my once very hip very with it revolutionary hippie parents were now just listening to Christian radio, Christian television 24-7.

8:33And the first thing that came under fire was just the music that I was consuming. I grew up in a 3 ,000 record household, but they cut it off in 1981. We stopped buying records. There's a part in your memoir that I love when you write about how much difficulty you had in purchasing and keeping a copy of 1999? Yeah, I had to starve for it. I was in a Christian school, and when we had lunch hour, you got like a time card. Every month you had to buy like either a weekly card for lunch, which was like, you know,$15, or you could do a monthly card, which is bring in$35, and then you eat the entire month.

9:17And November 1st of 1982, I had a decision to make, which was invest in the most life-changing music I have ever heard, which was three albums from Prince's arsenal, his 1999 album, the second album by the time, what time is it? And the debut album from his girl group, vanity six. And I decided to starve for the entire month of November and take my$35 lunch cart money and I purchased these three records and the thing is is that Prince is using technology I'd never heard I never knew what a drum machine was or an Oberheim synthesizer so the music sounded spacey and just a whole different world so as a result the way that my mind exploded with everything I heard during that period was there was nothing like the thrill the orgasmic discovery of something that's going to change your life.

10:20And then one day we're in church and the preacher has like all these records in the pulpit with them. And it's like saying, you know, the demons of America are after our children. And, you know, first he did a first, like a 20 minute tirade on Michael Jackson's thriller and devils dancing in the graveyard and dah, And everyone's like clutching their pearls and, oh, my God. And then he pulls out the 1999 record and instantly my mom looks at me like, wait a minute. You own that Purple album cover, don't you? And I'm like, no. And, you know, he's like up there like, and this demonic. And he turns it upside down.

11:00This is look straight from the devil's beast. This 1999 is nothing but a 666 and a penis. this and my mom looked at me like you do own that record don't you and I was like no no I don't and instantly I went home and it was contraband like I had to hide this stuff under my bed in the basement and sure enough when it was discovered I was punished for two weeks and I would just plot and scheme and buy it over again so between 1982 to like 1987 I purchased the 1999 album probably six times. Do you remember the very first time you heard Little Red Corvette? Yeah. So the week after this album comes out, I buy it just as drum work alone is setting off like dopamine rushes inside my 11-year-old head.

11:54So my mind, I'm trying to figure out how to make my own drums sound like what I'm hearing Prince do. And I don't know about programming and engineering and making new sounds and all those things so yeah i purchased this album took it home my parents happened to be doing a residency they were nightclub singers they were in puerto rico so for two weeks at my grandmother's house who is absolutely knowledgeless about like all these things like you know i just felt comfortable to play it and And absolutely no repercussions. So I heard Little Ray Corvette as the second song on 1999, like when I purchased this record.

12:35And what did you think when you first heard it? What was your first reaction to it? I've never been allergic to a catchy song. But Little Ray Corvette didn't make an impression on me because 1999 is a triple record. and the highlights of 1999 to me happened on like side three and side four in which all the experimental filler stuff was because like Stevie Wonder, like Earth, Wind & Fire, like a sign of a true artist is where your filler is. Like I never listened or looked for the hits. Like that's for mere mortals and laymen, you know? Even at 11, I knew that. So I wasn't focused on like the Captain Obvious single, you know.

13:22So when did your relationship to the song change? One night in April of 83. The only time I was freely allowed to listen to Prince without alerting my parents that I'm listening to the devil's music is when I'm in the basement. On weekdays, I'm required to rehearse three hours a day. On weekends, I have to put in five hours in that musty basement. roaches of rats and everything, practicing my heart out. And so I would listen to Prince records in my headphones and play to them because, of course, my parents don't know the beats or anything like that. And, you know, some nights I'll just play to the radio when I'm bored of playing to the same records over again.

14:08Usually the neighbors start complaining if I play past 10 p.m. Yeah. But, you know, this is also like year number five of me having a drum set. And I think the mentality of the neighborhood was like, we'll put up with the noise because this means that he might be a success one day and escape this place. So, you know, there's always the one kid in which, like, none of the gang members bother him. None of the—I was that kid. It was like, Amir's going to make it. And one night during the last hour of rehearsal, Little Red Corvette comes on. It was on the radio. and of course it's like I know this song I'm gonna turn it off but I was like wait a minute I don't remember the kick drum being that loud and so something's instantly different I'm like I think the album version there's less kick drum or it's lower but here it's like louder and more like oh I'm bopping my head a little bit so I'm playing along with it and then somewhere in like the two minute mark there's a part of the song I don't know there's a breakdown and black folk and breakdown, there's something primitive and beautiful about the breakdown, meaning when James Brown gives the drummer's thumb or when there's that part of the song in which it just goes to its most basic element, that's when the party yells like, like that brings something out of us in that expression.

15:36And so there's a breakdown in the song in which he's individually playing each part that you would otherwise miss in the regular version of the song. Then at the five minute, 18 second part of the song, Prince transforms the song. And at the time I didn't realize what he was doing. I don't know what a remix is, right? Yeah. But I dropped my drumsticks and was like, what the hell is happening? this is not the Little Rick Rivette that I know. He's singing Little Rick Rivette, but the music is different. And I couldn't quite fathom it. Now, you know, in 70s, because of disco culture, you would have people that did edits.

16:26You know, you had these guys that would try to turn a three-minute song into a 15-minute song. So edits are one thing, but to take your song and reimagine it is another. And this is what I discovered. Prince made Little Red Corvette as his Hail Mary throw to finally get rock and pop radio to embrace him. He wanted to reach white people, middle America. Yeah. And he needed AM radio and FM radio to embrace him. So thus, he uses as his Trojan horse the car song. Everything about the song is tailor-made to attract that audience. Even the lyrics are like, you know, it was Saturday night and I hope that makes it all right.

17:10Like that's damn near cliche 101. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. And so all the elements, the metaphors, the double entendre, the innuendos, him talking about basically, I mean, it's a slut shaming song. You know, let's get down to brass tacks. The history of unsolicited sexual vice for men to women is, you know, legendary. And this is basically, girl, you're sleeping around with way too many guys. You should be only sleeping with me while I sleep with all the girls I want to. And he used it as the car song. She's the car, and she's going way too fast, and you need to slow down. That's what it's about.

17:52and this song gets to number six on the pop charts. So, you know, for the most part, he kind of got his wish. But this is something about Prince. Prince feels as though as long as you're ambiguous and keep people guessing, that builds interest in you. And the second that you're defined, people will get bored with you. So as a result, throughout his career, anytime he gets notable success, Plus, he already has a defensive plan. And this is the first time he does that, which is he creates a 12-inch that comes back to his black fan base to say, hey, guys, don't get any ideas about me. I didn't sell out.

18:37This is for you guys. And what he does is he turns a song which is otherwise in a rock-friendly key of C-sharp major. Most rock songs are in major keys because that's happy. But at that five minute and 18 second part of Little Rick Corvette, when he yells, the ride's so smooth, you must be a limousine, he changes the bass line. And he goes to the relative minor, which is B flat. And then it becomes the funkiest thing ever. I never knew that for every song that exists, you can facelift it and give it a new key like plastic surgery you're allowed to shapeshift the song to appease and please a demographic so as a result he already had his pop success with white people but not to be outdone he wants to remind black people i'm still black and here's the proof I'm going to take my white success and dress this thing up so that you accept it too and when I heard that my mind exploded because I thought I knew how music worked and wow now I'm listening to every song to see what's the counterbalance to that song what's the relative major or the relative minor of that song now it's just endless possibilities My conversation with Questlove continues after this.

20:35available on ios and android go to the app or play store to download it now and for 10 off your first year's membership go to distrokid.com vip song exploder i'm curious about this idea of like the remix and the transformation of the song and how profound that was when you heard it in terms of how it might have affected how you approached music in your own career then yeah Did you have moments where you're like, I'm going to do that thing. I'm going to do my version of the extended dance remix and transform this song? Or that's just going to be in the song from the beginning? Well, that became my gold standard, period.

21:19At least in terms of investigating a song. I can remember many a time where The Roots were crafting their first album. And during the first album, producer Scott Storch was a member of The Roots. so when we would have jam sessions, I would always yell to Scott, Scott, play the relative minor of that, and he'd have to figure it out, and remove this corner, and then he'd do it, and then it'd be like, oh, oh my God, like, that's the song, you know what I mean? And so Prince is using major keys and relative minor keys to lure white audiences and black audiences to serve whatever purposes at the time.

22:03I'm using major and relative minor investigations just to start songwriting. And it turns out that I'm really a fan of a lot of dark minor chords. So everything started as happy-go-lucky. You know, like the one song that we couldn't do that to on our album was a song Mellow My Man from Do You Want More. Yeah. Which, if you listen to it, it's very sunny, very happy sounding. and I was nervous. I was like, no, this is too happy, too pop. Like, let's blackenize this. And he did it and suddenly, like, you know, the rest of the roots and, you know, our manager and the engineer started frowning. Like, you can't blackenize everything, Amir.

22:50Like, you have to serve the song. So that's the one song I left alone. But for anything else, it was just investigating, like, is this half full or half empty? So that's how it affected me. I saw the list that you made of your definitive ranking of the top 100 songs of Prince's career. And you put this remix version of Little Red Corvette at number one. Yeah. And that was earlier this year. So I was just wondering, what is your relationship with the song these days? So after Prince passes, kind of when anyone passes away, I hear their contributions just that much clearer. I had to lay off of Prince maybe for a good six to eight months after he died because I knew when I started going through his canon, I was going to listen differently.

23:47Albums that I criticized as not liking, I was going to hear differently. And sure enough, the cathartic exercise of now hearing Prince as an ancestor as opposed to a present living person that I know was jarring. And so I didn't want to sort of overdose on it. I wanted to kind of spread it out. So I probably gave anything from that era, 1999, I probably gave it a break for a good eight months before I returned to it to see if indeed his music hit me differently. And sure enough, it did. To this day, though, when I'm creating music, I will channel myself by just listening to the song, closing my eyes and really trying to imagine the pressure that Prince was under to make this happen.

24:43Because again, his title track, 1999, which should have been the breakout single, stalled at like number 41. So it didn't even reach the top 40 or the top 10. And so it's like, okay, just give me a week and I'll think of something. And, you know, I'm speaking from the perspective of someone that's been, you know, kind of in his own nightmare of working on an album for 12 years. so I've been listening to a lot of 82 era prints I don't know to vicariously just maybe see if I can channel or the feel of what it is to be under the gun and you better deliver this or else it's all over like that type of pressure yeah so that's my relationship to it now like I realized that when this song comes out this is the song that's going to change his life However, like this remix didn't change his life.

25:40Like he had already changed his life. If anything, this remix was created to stop the success that he's been dying to get, which is very artist-like. Yeah. You know, to sabotage the thing that you've been dying to have. Like, I want this. Okay, I don't want this, but I want it. You've got this Earth, Wind & Fire documentary. Yes. And I apologize if this is a question that you've been asked a million times. but ask it are you gonna ever do a prince documentary i have dreams of what i would like to see what i really want to see is work that will properly explain what prince truly means i'm way too close to prince just as a north star to really want to immerse myself into that world in that particular way because i'm too close to it and i feel like i'm too biased.

26:36It would just be a love letter. Thank you so much. Thank you. You've played a big part in my musical life and it's always an honor to get to talk to you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate that.

27:05Song Exploder, check out The Roots episode from January 2018 and watch Questlove's new documentary, Earth, Wind and Fire, to be celestial versus that's the way to the world, which is out now. For more Key Change episodes, go to songexploder.net slash keychange. This episode was produced by me, Craig Ely, and Mary Dolan with production assistance from Tiger Biscop. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at radiotopia.fm. And if you'd like to hear more from me, you can also subscribe to my newsletter.

27:45You can find a link to it on the Song Exploder website. You can also get a Song Exploder shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi Keish Hiraway. Thanks for listening.

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