{"id":696346,"date":"2026-07-17T09:00:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T09:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/696346\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T09:00:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T09:00:25","slug":"i-dropped-my-drumsticks-and-was-like-what-the-hell-is-happening-this-is-not-the-little-red-corvette-that-i-know-questlove-on-the-moment-he-discovered-what-ended-up-becom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/696346\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI dropped my drumsticks and was like, \u2018What the hell is happening? This is not the Little Red Corvette that I know’\u201d: Questlove on the moment he discovered what ended up becoming his favourite Prince song, and the profound impact it had on him"},"content":{"rendered":"

When, earlier this year, Questlove was asked by Rolling Stone<\/a> to rank his 100 top Prince songs, his number one was a track that a lot of people have probably never even heard.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re talking about the Special Dance Mix of Little Red Corvette, a song that originally appeared on Prince\u2019s 1999 album, from 1992, but was released as a single the following year. It gave Prince his first Billboard US Top 10 hit, but for Questlove, it was the extended, eight and a half minute version that really hit the spot.<\/p>\n

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The Roots\u2019 drummer has now expanded on just why he loves the song so much in the Song Exploder<\/a> podcast, revealing that, when he first heard the 1999 album \u2013 a record that he had to keep hidden from his mother because she disapproved of Prince and his music (Questlove says that he ended up buying it \u201cabout six times\u201d over multiple years because it kept being discovered and confiscated) \u2013 Little Red Corvette didn\u2019t really make much of an impression on him.<\/p>\n

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\u201c1999 is a triple record, and the highlights of 1999 to me happen on like side three and side four, in which all the experimental filler stuff was,\u201d says Questlove. \u201cBecause, like Stevie Wonder, like Earth Wind and Fire, a sign of a true artist is where your filler is. I never listened or looked for the hits. That’s for mere mortals and laymen. Even at 11, I knew that. So I wasn’t focused on like the Captain Obvious single, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

All that changed when, in April 1983, Questlove was in his basement practising drums.<\/p>\n

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\u201cLittle Red Corvette comes on. It was on the radio, and of course, I know the song, I’m gonna turn it off. But I was like, \u2018Wait a minute, I don’t remember the kick drum being that loud,\u2019 and so something’s instantly different. I’m like, \u2018I 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.\u2019 So I’m playing along with it, and then somewhere at, like the two minute mark, there’s a part of the song I don’t know, there’s a breakdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the young Questlove (or Ahmir Khalib Thompson, as he was known then) had noticed, there is indeed \u201ca breakdown in the song in which [Prince is] individually playing each part that you would otherwise miss in the regular version of the song.\u201d But, in terms of impact, that was nothing compared to what happens later on.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAt the five minute 18 second part of the song, Prince transforms this song, and at the time, I didn’t realise what he was doing,\u201d says Questlove. \u201cI dropped my drumsticks and was like, \u2018What the hell is happening? This is not the Little Red Corvette that I know. He’s singing Little Red Corvette, but the music is different,\u2019 and I couldn’t quite fathom it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Little Red Corvette (Special Dance Mix) (2019 Remaster) – YouTube
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Now, of course, he can: \u201cAt that five minute and 18 second part of Little Red Corvette when he yells, \u2018The ride is so smooth, you must be a limousine,\u2019 he changes the bassline, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Questlove argues that this was Prince telling his black audience that, even though he\u2019d scored his first big crossover hit \u2013 with a song in a major key \u2013 he hadn\u2019t sold out.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe already had his pop success with white people, but not to be outdone, he wants to remind black people, \u2018I’m still black, and here’s the proof.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, Questlove says that, on top of blowing his mind, it also opened it: \u201cWhen I heard that, my mind exploded because I thought I knew how music worked. And wow \u2013 now I’m listening to every song to see \u2018What’s the counterbalance to that song? Like, what’s the the relative major or the relative minor of that song?\u2019 Now it’s just endless possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a trick that Prince would use on other 12-inch remixes \u2013 check out the Raspberry Beret extended version<\/a> \u2013 and is one that\u2019s informed Questlove\u2019s own songwriting and musical choices, including when The Roots were working on their debut album with producer Scott Storch.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we would have jam sessions, I would always yell to Scott, \u2018Scott, play the relative minor of that,\u2019 and he had to figure it out and move this chord, and then he’d do it, and then be like, “Whoa, oh my God! That’s the song!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When, earlier this year, Questlove was asked by Rolling Stone to rank his 100 top Prince songs, his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-696346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}