Interview: Questlove Talks Triple Emmy Triumph And ‘SNL50: The Homecoming Concert’

Musician Questlove is coming off of a huge year, resulting in a whopping 3 Emmy nominations for this year’s ceremony. Those three projects, which he jokingly referred to as his wife, his girlfriend, and his side chick, were tremendous feats because each demanded a different skillset of the musician. This trio of projects, Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music documentary, Sly Lives! documentary, and lastly SNL50: The Homecoming Concert Peacock special, spoke to the musician’s insane knowledge of music and his ability to balance the impossible.

The Homecoming Concert, which dominated our conversation, was a sprawling 3-hour show that kicked off a weekend of celebrations for SNL’s 50th, featuring some of the most insane mashups and stars. You had Post Malone singing Nirvana, Lauryn Hill, Robyn and David Byrne doing a mashup, and the list goes on. That would certainly be enough, but the most impressive aspect is that Quest, whose real name is Ahmir Thompson, had to convincingly play in the style of every artist featured on stage that night.

Even after 30 years in the industry, The Roots’ frontman said he did have some anxiety after realizing all of these projects would coalesce at the same time. For 50 Years of SNL Music, he co-directed, took on solo directing for Sly Lives!, and as Music Director for the outstanding Homecoming Concert, he learned dozens of songs.

That said, taking on the SNL work was a no-brainer. These iconic SNL performances that span decades are ingrained in him. “As a five-year-old, my parents did wake me up at 12:30 am, so I’d watch the second half of SNL, and then I watched Soul Train. I’m back in bed at 2 am, and then I’m up to church at 7 am, and that was my life. It wasn’t a thing where I had to learn to fit into the system, like I grew up with SNL. We’re the same age, so I felt like it was a sibling or something.”

As far as the breakneck speed in how the sets came together, Questlove highlighted Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer’s 10 minute set of contemporary songs performed as their throwback music teacher characters Marty and Bobbi-Mohan Culp. “Will Ferrell heard Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” maybe twice in his life and I was worried. I’m thinking, dude this is going to take more than five minutes for him to learn. And he took his phone and sat in the closet for seven minutes and literally came back and took the lyrics and notated it perfectly.”

You can have a listen to the rest of our conversation below: