property house leeds

>>[unknown female/interviewer]; he is an acclaimeddrummer, deejay, producer, and culinary entrepreneur, and co-founder of the roots, please join mein welcoming to google new york, ahmir "?uestlove" thompson. [applause][cheering] >>[ahmir]: i, i never know if i'm allowedto clap for myself or not. >>[interviewer]: you can totally "woo hoo". >>[ahmir]:yay me. yay me. >>[interviewer]: we do it all the time. [audiencechuckles] um,so i googled you... >>[ahmir] i love a room where everyone hastheir computers.

>>[interviewer]: yeah, [audience chuckles]they're all tweeting and >>[ahmir]: i would love to work here. >>[interviewer]: we're hiring... >>[ahmir]:okay, i'll fill out an application. >>[interviewer]: i feel like we could makethat happen. uh, what would you do here? >>[ahmir]:just...search. [crowd and speakers laugh] >>[interviewer]: just [chuckle] answer searchqueries.. >>[ahmir]: well i don't know..after the legoroom. how does anyone keep a job where

where there's a lego room? >>[interviewer]: i don't know. that’s agood question...it's fun right? >>[ahmir]: i would stay there forever. i don'tthink i'd make it long here. >>[interviewer]: you probably would actuallybecause that's part of what we do. >>[ahmir]: oh, okay. >>[interviewer]: it would work. um, so, igoogled you, obviously. >>[ahmir]: thank you. >>[interviewer]: yeah. and, uh, there areover 1.6 million results that come up. >>[ahmir]: that's scary.

>>[interviewer]: yeah. there's, it’s notas many as kim kardashian though, just so you know.if that makes you feel better or worse, i don't know. but.... >>[ahmir]:thank goodness, thank goodness. >>[interviewer]:i thought we'd just go throughall of them one by one. >>[ahmir]:okay. [someone in audience giggles in a high pitch] >>[interviewer]:you've got nowhere to be.the show doesn't start for hours, i think you'reokay.

>>[ahmir]:i'm safe. >>[interviewer]:so first thing that came upis music, obviously. and you're seen as one of themost inspiring, influential people in music, having worked with everyone from d'angeloto eminem to jayz; and so i was wondering who was the most unlikely musical inspirationwe’d find in your library. >>[ahmir]:um, most unlikely? >>[interviewer]:yeah, something that mightsurprise me. >>[ahmir]:urh.... >>[interviewer]: if you were to invite meover to look at your music collection..

>>[ahmir]: i don't know. 'cause the thingis, i think that, in the past twenty years, i've made a career out ofdoing the exact opposite of what was expected of me, so i would almost think thatfor me to do something normal or expected would be like the new shock. like, would justbe like madonna just wore you know, did a non-controversialproject or something. i don't know. um, who would peoplebe shocked that i'm working with? >>[interviewer]: well, what's an unconventionalplace that you find music inspiration from? or just inspiration in general? you have yourfingers in so many pots, and what sort of drives you?

>>[ahmir]: see, it's really hard for me, becausei don't treat music as like a separate entity. like, oh, there's oxygen, and there's work,and there's food, and oh here's music. like, music is just ..it's so...it's so ubiquitousto me, like blood flow, i can't do anything without sound. um, you know, peoplethat follow me on google have been having the field day watching me curse outtime warner. [audience laughs, ahmir laughs] and trying to court court fios at the sametime because, uh, there's been dead silence in my house for like the last four days andit's, like killing me that, you know, my cable's off but, um, i don't know. uh,let's see, uh, right now i'm, i'm just discovering tom t. hall, uh, a countrysingers, a country singer from 50's, 60's,

well i meant, once you do something it's forever,but his era was between uh, between the 50's and the 70's. i'll say that bluegrass is likethe one area, which i'm not well versed in, so because i'm known to do unorthodox thingsin my deejay set, you know. my niche in deejaying is the whole"oh my god, he actually played that!?!" so um i'm, i'm trying to search for a lot ofbluegrass and country music that's like between 106beats per minute and 120, so that way >>[interviewer]: is there a lot in there? >>[ahmir]: i can mix and match them and shockpeople. so, probably in the next month or so.like i absorb it first before i do it. i don't

play a song blind like okay well i think thisworks. like i gotta plan it, and test it and makesure it works first. >>[interviewer]: so where do you buy yourrecords? or your cd's? >>[ahmir]:um...no...i still buy records. uh[takes sharp breath] uh, um..it's it’s it's kind ofdifferent for me now. um, you know, in the beginning, there there were a lot of mom andpop stores that i went to in philadelphia and then whenyou start touring. mike d's the one, mike d. from the beastie boys, um, like myfirst adult, four figure record shopping spree purchasewas due to like a record store that he recommended

to me in portland. at first i was likeportland, oregon? but then he taught, he told me like the most unlikely cities are the bestplaces to get you know, because, you know, they might nottreasure it as, you know, you go to new york city,you're going to pay uh, three thousand dollars for like uh, the original beatles "yesterday,today, forever" where they had like the uh blood on theirsmocks. there was a controversial beatles cover like with them inbutchers’ outfits and headless dolls. that's very expensive. [interviewer chuckles] um,whereas you can go to you know kalamazoo, michigan and the person might notknow the value of it so you can get away with

it, so i mean. >>[interviewer]: so just the flight cost ofgetting there...but >>[ahmir]:well yeah, i meant >>[interviewer]: so the thrill of the hunt?it's alright. >>[ahmir]:well you get my point.[chuckles]um, but now i mostly, i have a broker who will let me know when estates, have thingsfor sale. so, in other words, if a disgruntled wife wants to, [audience laughs]no like i hate to say this, i hate to really generalize it like this but,seriouslylike uh jazz collections come from divorced women who like inherit everythingand just want to get rid of the stuff.

[soft laughter from audience and other speaker] um, a lot of my, again this is like [stammersslightly] it's generalizing but it's it's how it is like, mothers' whose sonshave passed away untimely or whatever, like i'll inherit "here are these 800 hiphop records..what do you do with it?" or i've had to purchase records from uh, clubdeejays, from the 80's who might have to pay their hospital bills, and that sortof stuff. >>[interviewer]: a lot of depressing storieshere, divorce, death. >>[ahmir]:that's like right now i'm, i'm,i'm trying to, i guess the biggest record collection story now is, um, a hero of mine,uh, j dilla, um, when he made his

move to los angeles, he just put all his stuffin storage, he was from detroit, michigan, so he put his stuff in storage but of course,now that he's gone, and his bills are sort of neglected,uh, the owner of the uh, the warehouse, or where his stuff was stored, discovered, thathe had j dilla's record collection so, i'm tryingto... i don't, i don't want it sourced out and separated,i think that it should be put together, so i'm, i'm trying to bid the entire10,000 record collection so. so again, i just, i buy people's collections that have had somesort of misfortune with it. [audience chuckles]

i'll tell you a very interesting one i got.um, levi stubbs, the late lead singer of the four tops,his daughter just sold me his entire record collection...shh,man, like he has like >>[interviewer]: everything? >>[ahmir]:his is more like historical a lotof his stuff are acetates from like old motown sessions,and things like that. like it was like eighteen boxes. i only opened up three of them, buti'm sure like the rest of them have historical artifacts inthem, so right now i'm just sitting on like 70,000 records.

>>[interviewer]: where do you store all this? >>[ahmir]: before i bought my first house,i, well i'll just say that my business manager's probably oneof the smartest people on earth, you know if, when my record collection was like kissing20,000, it was in my house, and then a friend of mine,q-tip, lost his entire 40,000 records and and a lotof tribe called quest artifacts in uh, uh, a fire in 1999. so that freakedme out, because at this point, when you were cominginto my house, there was nothing but records, so you could just hear the theme from indianajones [hums theme from indiana jones] like,

and you were like, trying to jump over liketrying to figure out ways to not crush records 'cause they were just everywhere.um, so i built my my fantasy, my version of the library of congress room.it's like, you know, i told them like, you know, cherry wood floors and sliding ladders.and it's cataloged and it's beautiful. but now it's in philadelphia,and i'm here so i gotta figure out what my next move is gonna to be.like how to transfer that up to up to new york. >>[interviewer]: right. well. >>[ahmir]: sorry for that long answer.

>>[interviewer]:yeah it's pretty. >>[ahmir]:we gotta go, good-bye. [laughter] >>[interviewer]: thank you. enjoy the chicken. >>[ahmir]: thank you >>[interviewer]: it's, speaking of the chicken,so people have been wondering why is ?uestlove coming in under the guiseof the chefs at google... >>[ahmir, chuckling]: i know, like people... >>[interviewer]: like what?

>>[ahmir]: who's head scratching like? [peoplelaughing] rawr? >> [interviewer]: that was the sound thatthey made actually. explaining that road, from the grammy's to the kitchen. >>[ahmir]: um, i guess the short story isthat uh, um, doing two hundred shows at night, um, with the roots, means doing an additionaltwo hundred deejay gigs. two hundred shows a night? [interviewer chuckles] >>[interviewer]: that's a lot of shows... >> [ahmir]: yeah, we all...

>> [interviewer]: we weren't going to correctyou... >> [ahmir]: thank you, but that dismays methat you guys weren't going to correct me. [interviewer chuckles]um, doing two hundred shows a year also means that i have to do two hundred deejay gigsa year. and i've noticed in the northwestern partof the united states: seattle, portland, utah, thoseplaces have very interesting presentation set ups. sort of like how you guys have atruck inside your cafeteria. i'll say that foodtruck culture, which is a very big thing in philadelphia really hit its creative, atleast in my eyes, its stride in like 2002

whereyou know, two in the morning, these guys were selling any and every thing.like the first time i ever saw an all grilled cheese truck was outside of a deejay gig inportland. and then one guy had a real specialty truck,it was like, was nothing but corn, and i thought, but no,people would lined up like it was... >>[interviewer]: they were all drunk. that’swhy...[chuckles] we want corn... >> [ahmir]: but no, it was like he was fromthe 50's "hear ye, hear ye, get your corn! get your corn! get your corn!"and i was like, what the hell is he selling? but he sold like a vast array of corn.so cut to like me, no, uh one was like dipped

in honey, one was mexican corn. >>[interviewer]: honey corn? >>[ahmir]: yo, it was honey, it was dippedin honey and then coconut, like... >>[interviewer]: that sounds awfully disgusting. >>[ahmir]: like chocolate covered.. >>[interviewer]: chocolate covered corn? >>[ahmir]: wait, where's darryl at? >>[man yells] over here. >>[ahmir]: shut up man, that's a trick.

>> [interviewer]: that's his trainer who'shere. he's not happy about the chocolate covered corn. >> [ahmir]: anyway, no, it was like reallycreative how they did it. and i always wanted to havelike my soul food version of a like mr. softees truck. back then, i thought, okay, i'm gonnahave this thing called "soul on a roll".[laughter] and you know, but i couldn'texecute half of these ideas because we had to commit to you know two hundred nights.when you're only in your hometown for three months out of the year, there's really nostability, not domestically or anything so once, oncethe jimmy fallon show came along, and offered

usnormalcy, for the, like we started the roots as nineteen and twenty year olds. now, we'reforty. so imagine, just going from high school and then now is the second year that i knowwhat normal life is like. or at least a semblance of what like an everyday routine is like. so this very new to me, so i feel like i'm thattwenty year older that's dreaming about, let me try this and let me, i'm just wanting totry new ideas out, so i guess with the drumstick, that was the mostobvious choice to develop it. we developed it for like, i guess a year.having a lot of taste tests. i put it out on twitter that i was lookingfor a chef,

and i guess people assumed i just wanted apersonal >>[interviewer]: right >> [ahmir]: like i have some sort of kingdomand [ahmir chuckles] so a lot of people submitted, over nine hundred people submittedvideos, and i , uh, and then we somehow managed to do a lot of focus groupsand taste test and contests, not contests but you know trying out a bunchof dishes and then we were finally satisfied, i guess, a year later enoughto start our venture. and this is a very slow, i don't believe inthat whole skipping the bank line, and just going instantly to boardwalk andpark place, without having

to go through oriental avenue, virginia states,and marvin's gardens. like i want to slowly travel it, so you know you start,you start with the blogosphere first, and then you cook for other chefs, and thenyou come to places like google and other conglomerates and then you slowlybuild your way up. and so this is. >> [interviewer]: i was telling you, the jamesbeard awards were just announced last night, and i have to say, we've done a pretty goodjob of curating chefs at google, if i do say so myself, because half the peoplethat we've had in the last year were winners last night, so no pressure. [audience chuckles]

>> [ahmir]: who won last night? >> [interviewer]: hugh atchison, um >> [ahmir]: okay, okay... >> [interviewer]: daniel hung was outstandingchef, so no pressure but >> [ahmir]: ah, it's no pressure. >> [interviewer]: it's within your reach. >> [ahmir]: i mean the, the fact that renownseven times winner james beard award winning chef triesto challenge me, like he's an mc. >> [interviewer]: yeah so let's talk aboutthat. how did, what, how did happen?

>> [ahmir]: that's as big an honor. >> [interviewer]: david chang challenged himto a fried chicken battle... >> [ahmir]: yeah, david chang. yeah, at firsti thought "ha ha that chang, he's, he's cute" you know, but then, it was like everyone keptasking:yo, why has chang been pickin' on you? like, i mean, we just, we created such a buzzand i guess that people were just, i don't know, maybe the best way to go throughlife is to be, i love being underestimated, you know?and i guess that his thoughts were like, really, i'm tired of hearing people rave about aboutyour food or whatever, and so then, you know, i was forced to just say bring it on.so, my show got involved by "staging" "a battle."

i'm being very "diplomatic" now. >>[interviewer]: do you feel like it was rigged,just a little bit? >> [ahmir]: no comment. uh, he was nervousthough. yeah, and so he, uh, he really put a lot of preparationinto it so i mean the fact, i mean in a way i'm glad i, i'm glad i kinda lost becausei think that if the news got out that you know, a drummer from westphilly beats a seven time james beard award winning chef, then, you know >>[interviewer]: let's kill an industry. >> [ahmir]: the world would have been, everychef nobody would have touched me so.

uh, no, i consider it an honor, and you know,he's a friend and i believe that[speaking to someone off stage] alexis when does it go into uh, >>[someone off stage]: may 20th >>[ahmir]: yeah, he's agreed to serve thedrumsticks at momofuku on may 20th. >> [interviewer]: on may 20th, in case youdidn't get one here. >> [ahmir]: yeah. >> [interviewer]: um, so we're at a tech companyobviously, and i would love to know what's the most profound waytechnology has changed your life? if you were

starting out, if the roots were starting today.. >> [ahmir]: you you know something .. >> [interviewer]: would things be differentfor you? >> [ahmir]: i'll honestly say that we werethe last, i believe, honestly believe, that we were the last group to reallyget on the caboose of what the old standard was. 'cause i think that, back then therewas there was visions of technology and, remember,there was talk of the super information highway and that type of stuff. like we came rightin on the caboose, which was, you know, i guess the worldknew of us in '94, i mean we started in '92,

but the world became aware of us in '94.but, i, too, wonder what would happen, because i think the thing that made us work hard andmade us so resilient was the fact that there was absolutelyno outlets. we, what's the term english people use,when you...busking. we were busking, the term busking is when you put the shoe box on thestreet, and you play on buckets and people throw moneyin there. that's the route that we went to. now, if we started twenty years later, wewould just have made a whole bunch of youtube videos.i don't think we would have worked as hard if we had the technology that's availableto us today.

so, i'm almost glad that we came right beforethe technology age really started to, to grow. because a lot of people always ask,well, howare you able to work at fallon, produce this record,score this film, do these shoes, and now fried chicken, da da da duh. like all these things,there's just a work ethic that we've had, like a sink or swim thing that i don't thinkwe'd have had had we grown up in the technology era. >> [interviewer]: so now... >> [ahmir]: but it's helped us. >> [interviewer]: yeah [chuckles] so you areone of the most prolific tweeters as many

of us know who do follow you. >> [ahmir]: thank you. >> [interviewer]: um, why is connecting toyour audience through social media in that way so important to you? [ahmir chuckles softly] i don't know why that's a funny question. >> [ahmir]: no, well, 'cause you know, thisis the point of the day where i, you know, take the pin and i take the balloon,and ssss...and deflate it. 'cause people ask, how do you tweet so much, how do you da dada duh.

first of all, i mean tweeting is just a, it'sjust a running dialog, and it takes me literally ten seconds to get athought out. i think people think it's like some rocket science thing where i have tosit and take, take an hour out to think of something,but you know, i can easily, you know, drum on.all the time at fallon, yesterday, when the beach boys were on, i mean i was playing musicand >> [interviewer]: tweeting... >> [ahmir]: and tweeting at the same time.i don't know. i just see it as ongoing communication, i mean it startedwith my, when, when i developed our website

okayplayer.com i wanted, i noticed that noone hip hop was really, with the exception of, the exception of thebeastie boys, sometimes with with with, on hole's website, courtney love'sgroup hole, and maybe with rem's website, in the mid, in the late 90's, those were theonly artists i saw kind of above the radar that were actively communicating with theirfan base. then the artists that i really loved, like a tribe called quest,the only personal thing you knew about them was q-tips favorite spaghetti recipe or laurynhill loves jamaican food mon. like that was on her website. and yes, theword "mon" was in there like "mon". you know so, back in 98, i wanted torevolutionize, or think i was revolutionizing,

that velvet rope, in cutting it. so maybelike the first year, of that website, you know, you had to getover the whole novelty of "oh my god, it's really you ?uestlove" and that typeof thing. so after doing okayplayer for twelve years in which i've absolutely spilled everything,like there's no need to write a book, you justneed to go to the history of all my postings on that website.something like twitter comes along, it just forces you to give concise answers, as opposedto long, drawn out answers like i'm doing right now to you, so >> [interviewer]: can you compose a tweetfor me? about the last meal you had?

>> [ahmir]: shut up darryl. ha ha. i had salad,end tweet. >> [interviewer]: okay, so can we do a wordassociation? >> [ahmir]: sure. >> [interviewer]: alright, i want you to justtell me whatever comes to mind when i say the following words. ready? [laughter from audience]i haven't even started yet. okay, food trucks? >> [ahmir]: the future. >> [interviewer]: prince?

>> [ahmir]: god. >> [interviewer]: cupcakes. >> [ahmir]: darryl.[audience laughs] >> [interviewer]: jimmy fallon? >> [ahmir]: genuine. >> [interviewer]: little nervous too right?a little sweaty? >> [ahmir]: no. he, he... >> [interviewer]: i'm just kidding...i'm totallymessing with you. chicken? >> [ahmir]: that was first year jimmy. nowhe's he's cool as a cucumber.

>> [interviewer]: chicken? >> [ahmir]: hmm...uh, profit. [audience laughs. applause] >> [interviewer]: david chang? >> [ahmir]: revenge. [ahmir chuckles][audience laugh loudly] >> [interviewer]: alright, just a couple morequestions for you, then we'll open it up to q and a. >> [interviewer]: if you could request anygoogle doodle, what would it be? >> [ahmir]: my, i've, i've been stalking googleto do a commemorative soul train doodle for

the longest, well, i i don't know that peoplewho follow me on twitter know that i'm religious with google doodles'cause i don't know, it's just fun and you know, it's like looking at a puzzle and i'mtrying to figure out, okay, how's it amalgamatedand inside the "o" and the "o" and where's the "l", i enjoy it. a lot.like, when i wake up, that's the first thing i look to see, if anything has happened. >> [interviewer]: there's a new one everyday. >> [ahmir]: i'm a geek, i'm sorry. yeah, sothat would, would be that's my favorite, and now that it's interactive,more than ever, i've been tweeting profusely

about a soul train doodle. >> [interviewer]: okay, well. i don't havea soul train doodle for you. however, when the team in california found out, look atthat smile, when they found out you were coming, one ofour doodlers is a huge fan, ryan germick, and it happens to be his birthday today,by coincidence. and.. >> [ahmir]: happy birthday >> [interviewer]: he's on vc somewhere, hopefully.hi, ryan. he sent a little present over for you. >> [ahmir]: that's so awesome man.

[clapping and laughter from audience] thank you! ha haa..this is like everything that i lovein this one thing, like i'm wearing a prince t-shirt, i'm playing drums,i have a drumstick in one hand and lego heart, and i'm holding the letter "l". that is awesome. >> [interviewer]: you like it? it's prettygood right? >> [ahmir]: wait, can i tweet that? >> [interviewer]: you can tweet that. >> [ahmir]: i'm allowed to?

>> [interviewer]: but we're going to moveonto the next question, because i know you have to move on. >> [ahmir]: i can tweet and talk to you atthe same time. >> [interviewer]: alright, so you can tweetand talk. so you told me earlier that the last thing you searched forbruce almighty. there's a story there, and we'll explain it at some point, but i waswondering if you could slow down the search results for me? no pressure, i'm going to look it up rightnow. >> [ahmir]: okay, you're going to look upbruce almighty?

>> [interviewer]: bruce almighty. >> [ahmir]: mm hmm. >> [interviewer]: bear with me, we're goingto this while you tweet, if i have a cell signal. alright, you ready? >> [ahmir]: yes. >> [interviewer]: are you still tweeting or.. >> [ahmir]: do we get...uh, no. i sent twelveout already. >> [interviewer]: during the, during the talk? >> [interviewer]: you were just doing it inyour pocket? are you ready?

>> [ahmir]: is the mike here? okay. >> [interviewer]: alright, okay. bruce almighty,2003, imdb. >>[ahmir whispers]: okay[normal voice] wait. can we get more ambiance? can we turn the lights down? >> [interviewer]: do we need a beat? we needmood lighting? >> [ahmir]: do we have any music? any slowmusic? shut up darryl. >> [interviewer]: are we throwing down a beat? >> [ahmir]: wait, they're turning down allthe lights over ...[laughs loudly] >> [interviewer]: they turned the lights overthere.

>> [ahmir]: okay, this is already a fail.okay. >> [interviewer]: we're going to start again.we're going to do it again. >>[ahmir whispers]okay. >> [interviewer]: you ready? >>[ahmir whispers]: i'm ready >> [interviewer]: bruce almighty, 2003, imdb >>[ahmir,low voice] oh, yeah. she loves jimmycary. this is gonna be a fail. >> [interviewer]: bruce almighty, wikipedia,the free encyclopedia. >> [ahmir]: [breathes heavily] she's trustingenough to go to an unreliable source of encyclopedia...

wait, can i just say that i don't agree thatwikipedia is all that revisionist. anyway. >> [interviewer]: images for bruce almighty. >> [ahmir]: i forgot why i searched brucealmighty. >> [interviewer]: we were talking about um,bill gates being the moses of the silicon valley and uh.. >> [ahmir]: we just got super non-sequiterednow. >> [interviewer]: and then he went into brucealmighty. i don't know why. i just went with it. bruce almighty, rotten tomatoes.

>> [ahmir]: can we talk about bruce almightytwo? >> [interviewer]: sure. >> [ahmir]: such a shame baby that you onlygot a 27 rating. >> [interviewer]: awesome, thank you [claps]you're a good sport. >> [ahmir]: steve carrell has no future. nah,i'm playing. [laughs] i'm bad at slow jamming. i'm sorry. >> [interviewer]: nah, that's pretty good. >> [interviewer]: that wasn't bad. we're goingto open it up to q and a. and if you guys have any questions, if you cango to one of the two standing mikes, because

we're recording this for youtube. >>[male audience member]: hi [clears throat] >>[ahmir]: howdy >>[male audience member]: hi, my name is jesus.i'm an engineer, uh, you started around '92 with the roots,a time where like, mostly, uh, you should go through a, a record company to get youralbum out there. nowadays, any kiddo can buy like a three thousand dollarcomputer, have a studio at home, and then like release an album. what isyour point of view from an era, from a time era where you had to like get put out there,to a time era where

there's so much out there, that it's verydifficult to find things? >>[ahmir]: it's, it's funny you say that,because um, a friend of mine, a fellow philadelphian, a rapper, meek mills, whosedown with rick ross, just released his mix tape yesterday. 2.5 million downloads in oneday, which, you know, in layman’s terms, he just went almost tripleplatinum in a 24 hour period. so it's kinda hard to determine,i know like riaa sales determine what success is, well like 500,000 people will purchasethis then you get a gold plaque, but what does that say about the three millionpeople that now have his music as well? which, you know,i know that riaa, and a few artists are arguing

that well, you know, that's doing a disserviceto the industry, because the artists aren't getting paid, but,you know, i'm almost certain that if he's able to go triple platinumin a twenty four hour period, then that means, if he were to do a show or a concert in thenext week or so, it would instantly sell out, or could do a bigger venue and somehow, likethat to me is like the monetary reward that he would get, probablymore than, like, i've never depended on record sales for any typeof money, like a lot of my money is based on everything but making records. like, iconsider making records sorta like the person outsidethe club that hands you fliers at the end

of the night to let you knowwhen another club is open, or who's there next week. like that's what i use recordsfor. so, i mean yeah, the industry has changed, whether or not theriaa continues its mission, especially with, you know, the sopa controversy,like it remains to be seen, but you know, i think that there's going to have to be achanging of the guards. and you know, the recording industry in americais holding on to dear life, you know, and it's so obvious that a new systemhas to start. >>[jesus]: if you tweet the link to the albumand he has a paypal, i'm sure that, i mean if i like the music, i'd put some money theretoo, so.

>>he's rich enough.[laughter] who's up? >>[female audience member]: hi, um... >>[ahmir]: oh, wow, >>[female audience member]: my turn? >> [ahmir]: you guys are good...it's likemagic . wee ooo... >>[female audience member]: hi, um, i usedto live in philly, and i was hoping you could talk about some of your favoritephilly restaurants. >>[ahmir]: yeah

>>[female audience member]: and just favoriterestaurants in general. and also i work in sigad, >>[ahmir]: oh nice. >>[female audience member]..up on the ninthfloor and you could stop by later and you know, visit there.. >>[female audience member]: we could justsorta hang out. >> [ahmir]: what part of philly? >>[female audience member]: i lived in northernliberties... >>[ahmir]: oh, that's where i live, well,that's where my home is, my current home is.

>>[female audience member]: yeah, i saw youat honey's once actually, at brunch. >>[ahmir uses sing song voice]: stalking me....[laughter bursts from the crowd] [ahmir in normal voice]: uh, i'll be honestwith you, close your ears darryl, i chose my house becauseit was in walking distance to honey's, [crowd laughs] >>[female audience member]: i love honey's,that's a good reason to choose to live there. >>[ahmir]: um, no actually, um, philadelphiais probably the last easily affordable cosmopolitan city,in the united states. in the terms of, you know, property, and and resources, and youknow,

i still miss it a lot, i mean, i'm not sayingthat i'm a 100% new yorker, but i'll just saythat, you know, last time i was in philadelphia was like a long time ago. but, um,you know, i, i , i like that area of northern liberties, because it's it's like our versionof maybe williamsburg. >>[female audience member]: yeah >> [ahmir]: you know, a lot of like mom andpop, well, what would you call a mom and pop storethat's not a mom and pop store? mom and pop makes it sound so country like. it's it'sjust a lot

of non-corporate businesses. >>[interviewer]: local >> [ahmir]: local, there you go. that's, that'swhat i was searching for. there's a lot of localrestaurants so, that whole area. yeah, i love it, and i'll keep that house forever. >>[female audience member]: come to sigad. >>[ahmir]: okay. >>[male audience member]: what's up ?uest?my name is jilani, and i'm a tech consultant here,and also a long time okayplayer.

>>[ahmir] oh, alright. >>[jilani]: and, i was thinking back to whatyou said earlier about when the roots came out,uh, i remember back to "do you want more," and just thinking about how things have changednow, and you said you felt like it might be a littleeasier for people with internet to get their message out.but i wonder if it's, if you think it's also more challenging just because there's so muchmaterial and the number of videos? >>[ahmir]: my manager told me that he hada precise number, that there are...in existence i think right now,there's there's a site in which you actually

know the amount of unique mp3's that are on,as far as songs on the internet, and the, the number was close to, i think he said,like seventeen million unique songs created on the internet, of which only 29%, a verysmall percent, even get heard. like a lot of kids create it,put in on the internet, and no downloads whatsoever. um yeah, i think that the the floodgates,and sort of the overabundance of information, that sort of makes it harder to, like there'sso much information out there as far as music is concerned,and you know, it becomes overwhelming. like there's a record storethat i shop at in pittsburgh called jerry's, you literally, you have to plan a four daytrek out there, because,

i'll start at ten, when i go there i'll gothere at like ten in the morning, by the time he closes at eight, i mightget to the letter "c". that's how large, it's like the largest warehouse of records ever.so, i mean it's problematic, which is why you sorta have to supplementwhat you do with other forms to promote, you know, what you do. so. >>[jilani]: just one quick follow up also, >>[jilani]: can you talk a little about howyour own website has helped launch a few careers? like i remember littlebrother, and tonya morgan, and etc. >> [ahmir]: yeah, um, you know, i mean thewhole idea of okayplayer was to just, i guess,

provide a playground, for like mind, i wanted,i wanted to just talk music with a bunch of people that i felt spoke my language. andso, you know of course, under the guise of the roots albums then you know, i figuredthat's where our fan base was, and then, after about a year or so of of gettingthrough that whole awkwardness "is this really you, ?uest?"now, you know, two years into it, they felt like they knew me and then we could,like, some of those guys i really consider, like, you know, i'm. i'm the student and they'rethe teachers. you know there's at least five or six guyson there to whom, they're like my cabinet members, even with mywalk on songs for fallon, they're the ones,

you know, "why don't ya try this one?" or"why don't ya try this one?" you know, like, that site's very necessary.it's like a music geek's, uh, haven. i mean some of them are shock posters of course,you know, it's like, well, you know, "prince has seen his heyday back in 1992, after" youknow, they'll do shock posting, but, for the most part, um, it's still to mea very credible source of ..it's like a, it's like a nice pitchfork.[laughter] sorry pitchfork. >>[male audience member]: alright, ?uest,again i'm like a huge fan of yours, going way back. i'm old enough tobe like organic style, but i followed you

through uh, you know betty wright, and philadelphiaexperiment, and >> [ahmir]: oh, thanks. >>[male audience member]: soul power mix tape,and all that good stuff. uh, i can remember when the roots firstwere really getting a buzz, i was happy because i thought ya know, hip hop was gonna all ofa sudden, go in this more instrumental, musical direction and, you know, y’all are,obviously, ubiquitous and have, you know, changed the industry as much as it wouldbe possible to do. but i wondered whether you thought towards the future, you know,not now, you got a lot of stuff going on, but towards like education, cause i've beenexposed to a lot of music from being a fan

of yours and following you, and, and i thinkthat you've got a lot of, uh, steam behind you to, to encourage people to broaden theirmusical horizons and take a more historical view. >> [ahmir]: yeah, i thought that we wouldspawn, and i think that speculation was like, okay, we'll, we'll, we'll spawn a lot of bands.not the case, i think mostly because, again, with us being the last band that was allowed,not even allowed. i mean i'll, i guess i could be, be honest. because of the bidding warsituation that we were in with our record label, we negotiate, instead of like, youknow, a lot of people like, when they're in a bidding war, when like, labels are fightingover each other, um, mostly people go for

the money. and my managers and lawyers decidedto go for the longevity. so, because, because music was so disposable at the time, whereas,like, okay, you're only good for your one hit, and then later for you, they organizedit so that we could never get dropped for a long period of time. like, cause really,there's really no reason, like if you look at it, i mean we've had two, well, i meantand we had two very, we had like four slow gold records, but, i mean most people seeit as, okay, things fall apart and phrenology, our fourth and fifth album, as like our successstory. but there's really no reason why a group with like not one dance hit, like wenever had like a hip hop jam, has lasted for twenty years, this long with fifteen albumsunder its belt, you know, surpassing the time,

time line of people i consider, like, youknow, like major hip hop contributors, um, like there's just no logical reason for usto have been here. a big part of it was that, the way our contract was built, artist developmentwas a very important thing, and that's, that's the problem with the industry now, like, theydon't believe in the long run of, okay, we'll place you here now and then maybe by albumnumber five, you know, you'll have a following, they don't believe in that, it's still, just,it's very disposable. we need it now, we need it quick-fast, in a hurry, just add water,poof, uh, no, see you later, goodbye. and then they dispose of you. so, i'm, i'm, i'mvery thankful that my management and my lawyers, orchestrated it so that, you know, if we madealbum number one, we had to have made two,

three, and four, and then if we got to albumnumber five, we were forced to do six, seven, and eight, and if we made it to album numbernine, ten, eleven, twelve. i mean, now we're golden, but back then they would've easilydropped us at, before things fall apart, you know, before we became realized. >>[interviewer] so what's the lesson here?uestlove? everybody needs a good lawyer is the lesson? [crowd laughs important wordsfor all of us. >>[male audience member] i did, i said i wasa lawyer, right? >>[interviewer] yeah, he is a lawyer. >>[ahmir laughs]: everyone's a lawyer here!

>>[interviewer] everybody's a lawyer, everybody'sa lawyer, everybody, yeah. >>[ahmir]: even the custodian goes, "yeah,we're lawyers." >>[interviewer] um, i think we have time forone more quick question. >> [ahmir]: i don't care if i miss rehearsal.go ahead. >>[someone offstage] oooh... >>[interviewer] alright, then we have timefor two. >>[ahmir] i'm only playing nbc. go ahead. >> hey ?uest, my name is brian, i do musicresearch for youtube, i just have a question. >>[ahmir] and you're a lawyer?

>>[brian] no. >>[brian] god, no. >> [ahmir]: so i just had a question, justabout, you know, the artists that you've worked with over the years, like, in particular,like the soulquarians, like just working with j.d. >>[ahmir] mm-hm. >> in particular. i'm a huge fan of his, and... >>[ahmir] thanks. >> so um, and i really hope you get that entirelot, that'd be amazing. uh, so uh, yeah, just

about the creative process, and, just, youknow, interacting with the guys, really, you know, getting into the nuts and bolts, andreally >>[ahmir] um... >> hashing things out. >> [ahmir]: well, uh, see, i don't want tobe like the, everyone has theirs, their side of the story of how it happened, >>[brian] mm. >>[ahmir] um, i'll just say that i'm probablythe, the, the member of my group, along with my manager, richard nichols, like we, we tendedto see the scientific method of how things

work, and you know in the beginning we werehead scratching because we thought like okay we're, we're something new and it wasn't justenough to be like, you know, we would get a lot of "oh i like you guys, but i don'tlike rap but i like you guys" or "i hate dr. dre and snoop dog and that's why i like youguys." i mean i don't want to be the person that, that's like just liking a girl becauseshe's beautiful, but then like okay, once age catches on, when she's 50 and then you'redone with her because you had nothing else in common, you don't want to start your relationshipwith someone just because they hate the status quo. um, so we were kind of head scratchingon why we really weren't catching on in that particular market place. i mean a big partof it had to do with the fact

that with dr. dre's the chronic, you know,that was the first time that a credible hip hop artist actually created a productthat sold in the millions, as opposed to you know, like the platinum, multi-platinum successof hip hop had to do with artists that you were like, eh, wellthey're not as good as rock em, or you know, this was this, the chronic was like the firstcredible album that had massive appeal. and thus, unfortunately, as with most things inhip hop, when something has mass appeal, then everything else has to clone it, and thenit gets over saturated. um, so we were kind of odd, we were the oddman out. even though we made that caboose, we kind of missed the front of the train,which would have been de la sol, the jungle

brothers, tribe called quest, arrested developments,like a kind of closed with diggable planets. we kind of narrowly made it to that caboosethat left the station. and after our third album, illadelph half life, we were kind offearing, cause album number four was coming up, and you already know our contract structure.if we didn't make it happen by number four, then we might not get number five. so we hadto make something happen and because we were on a label, swimming in money, from the legacyof nirvana and guns and roses and aerosmith, we're on geffen records. we did a presentation.we told them that nobody has success in music unless it's contextualized with another product.so in other words, if you look at motown, there's stevie wonder, diana ross and thesupremes, the temptations, marvin gaye, like

that's a movement. even the stuff you feelindifferent about like let's say the disco movement, you associate. let's take casablancarecords, like the village people, the ritchie family. i like the bee gees, so i don't wantto say like i consider the bee gees like throw away disco, but you get the point. that postsaturday night fever thing. like today, like everyone's grouped you think of diggy music,you think of oh puffy, little kim, foxy brown, jayz, so, everything is contextualized andsort of in a movement and the one thing we notice that we didn't have was a movement.we didn't have anybody, so we told them, in order for you guys, you guys are spendinga lot of money on us. in order for you guys to really see the monetary results you wantto see, you're going to have to invest in

a movement. now you've already invested sixyears into us. what do you want to do? and they, they decided to, in a rare move, bitethe bullet and that was like a major ten million dollar investment. they had to buy commonout of his contract, of relativity. then we just pointed the way. alright, get blackstar,so they bought, they bought [unintelligible] out of his thing, they gave dilla his own record label withmca. we were trying to get slum village, but that time slum village signed interscope.and then the rest of the people we we either just kidnapped. so, d'angelo and i were liketwo peas in a pod. by that point i had been on my second year of working on voodoo whichwas a five year process. so being with d'angelo

pulled in his, his kind of label, made ericabadu and working with her, and then pulling in palau. next thing you know, like we'reall just working with each other. so, i'll say that at d'angelo's studio on,on 8th avenue, 6th street, electric lady. that was our epicenter from like 1996 to like2002. we had that entire building on lock down so it was kind of crazy because you know,we go in in the morning. usually, like d'angelo is the type of person who is like you knowi'll show up at 1 o’clock but you know that means like 8pm. so in the third week of thatyou know common is like you know i'm doing my record, so can we work together, so commonwho's extremely responsible and so, like he would come in from 9 in the morning and leavearound 6pm or 7pm. so we'd work in the same

studio with common in the morning. and thend'angelo from 7pm till mmm, usually [groan] i'll say 6 in the morning. yeah. and thishappened over and over. and then you know, once it just became likea big, giant sleepover, it's like college. because it wasn't just us working and "okay,what songs are we going to work on." you come there, and this is before the age of youtube,so a lot of people were sending me video performances of like, al greene in concert and we'd sitand watch that forever and over analyze it. then this prince concert from 82 and thenyou know i started acquiring my soul train collection. and you know, cut to a year later,we have an entire, like, i was like, i was, i was, i was a walking youtube. like anythingthat you can search on now for youtube from

old soul clips, i had that stuff. and we wouldjust watch it and watch it and watch it and study and watch it and watch it and watchand watch it. and then go and create music. eat. and then watch it and watch it and watchit and watch it and watch it. and then eventually, you know, after fiveyears of working, then all of our albums come out and then next thing you know, what theroots are going platinum? ergo by blues comes out, d'angelo's album comes out, common'salbum comes out, it just became a family vibe and, and you know, that's probably one ofthe best creative moments of, of, of, of my career. just like working in that environment.and you know, it's sometimes, and you know every day it wasn't a parade. like some dayswe'd have you know, the, the day that dilla

discovered madlib was one of the funniestmoments. cause i'll say out of all of us, j dilla, was like, like he was like our guru.he'll play like he's the underling, i don't play drums like you, or i don't play keyboardslike him, but he was, he was like our guru. like we patterned our whole movement afterhim. and one day he came in and he's like "yo, dog, like i don't know man." i'm likewhat? "this album came out last week called lootpack." yeah? he's like, "this producernamed madlib, i don't know, i got to go back to detroit." and like he left for, like hewas really depressed. like there's some other guy out there that makes crazy beats, crazierthan me. and like that's how he works. like he just works 8 hours a day doing beats, doingbeats and so, i mean eventually they pair

it up and became friends. but before it wasa problem, he just felt like o my god like, threatened, i met my match. so, sorry forthis long drawn out story. he's enjoying it, but, yeah >>[brian]: thank you, thank you so much. >>[ahmir]: yeah, you're welcome. >>[female audience member]: i feel like he'sbeen waiting a long time. yeah you're sure? i don't want to get you in trouble at nbc. >>[male audience member]: my name's isaiahi'm an engineer here, big time fan. same thing. and that also sounds like the life. kindajust chillin', watching soul videos and making

music so that's awesome. but my question isabout, basically, you talked about the mix tape culture we've got and also kind of likethe retail culture how those are kind of like two separate things, and it's a pretty oldconversation to talk about you know, underground versus mainstream. but why, what is it froman artists' perspective, like recently you have buster signing to mmg, you've got q-tipsigning to good music. why do artists feel now that they still have to be part of thesemovements when someone like meat can sell 2.5 in a day. why do artists feel drawn to. >> [ahmir]: independence is probably the scariestthing. cause even you know, as far as monetary terms are concerned, like again, like havinga record deal might be still in my top 10,

only because i am a record collector, do icherish having a record deal. and i enjoy the fact that i've been on the same labelfor the whole time so you know, i, i do have those moments where i look at my catalog andi see the same font for every roots logo and it's like wow that's really incredible, imade 15 records, like these are my 15 kids. i can't speak for those other artists, buti think for some artists in particular, the idea of having a plan b is a very frighteningoption. like it's almost like getting a needle atthe doctor. like i used to hate, i used to, i still hate getting needles. quick story.the last time i was at the dentist was like maybe 20 years ago. [laughter] seriously.and so because i had a really bad novocaine

experience with like a student dentist inlike 1979 or something. so i stayed away. and of course you know you can't last in life20 years not going to the dentist. and of course, people are like ahmir you don't understand,technology has changed, they have these things called butterfly needles, you'll never feelit. and of course you know my fear of like "no no" but of course like now i can't eatfood because my teeth are about to fall out. of course i go to the dentist and you know,i'm like closing my eyes and bracing myself. alright let me know when it happens. he'slike "i already put it in." no, seriously! [ahmir snores] and then you know it's likei never felt it. so it's like the fear of the unknown sometimescripples you. and again, because of the time

that we came out, we had to do five timesthe work of the average artist. like when we came out, people weren't rolling out thered carpet, they weren't welcoming us with open arms. they were like you guys are corny.you aren't a real rap group. you don't even have a real deejay, literally, you know, you'redoing all this jazz stuff and like whatever, it took, we, it took us so long to get theirrespect. and once an audience did embrace us who wasn't the prime hip hop audience,we had to learn how to entertain them. that said, i'll say that having a plan b, likei've done everything under the, i know this is negative to say, but sort of under theassumption that this is not going to work, so let me do something else. you know, eventhis fallon gig. people are like "oh man,

you guys finally got the exposure you want."you know what i am thinking about? conan o'brien. no, because conan, conan, conan was stillshooting his show across the hall the first year and you know, i saw everything, the wholestaff and yeah "so you guys excited for california?" oh my god, oh, i can't wait, i just sold myhouse, it's a little risky, but conan all talked to us, took us all out to dinner. ijust sold my house and i can't wait to go to california it's going to be exciting. youknow, cut to nine months later and that's like my worst nightmare. now, personally me,i"m always having a plan e, plan f, plan g. like i never plan on anything being final.so that said, and again i'm sorry for the long drawn out explanation. i just think that,you know, that some artists are just set in

their ways and don't have another option.you know. if this falls i could teach, i got a few college offers, i can teach somewhere.if this falls, maybe i can become you know, the new face of food trucks. it will be alittle sad and ironic [laughter]. you know the irony is not fallen on me that, wow, icould actually be, you know, a mega millionaire off of something that i never. >>[interviewer]: like the george foreman grill? like, o my god, this is going to be my legacy?but i'm not afraid and i think that people that aren't not afraid to explore and seewhat's out there those are the people that are going to swim. but i wish those guys luckwith their endeavors, but you know, as an

artist they always ask "what advice do youhave for me?" my new advice is always have a plan b. >>[interviewer]: well it seems like a goodnote to end on. ?uestlove, thank you. >>[interviewer]: so much, it was a pleasure. >>