{"id":686974,"date":"2026-06-06T00:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T00:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/686974\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T00:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T00:26:11","slug":"questlove-on-earth-wind-fire-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/686974\/","title":{"rendered":"Questlove on Earth, Wind & Fire Documentary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAcross four documentaries \u2014 the Oscar- and Grammy-winning \u201cSummer of Soul,\u201d \u201cSly Lives,<\/a>\u201d \u201cLadies and Gentlemen, 50 Years of Saturday Night Live Music\u201d and the new \u201cEarth, Wind & Fire (to Be Celestial vs. That\u2019s the Weight of the World),\u201d <\/a>which arrives on HBO Sunday night \u2014\u00a0Ahmir \u201cQuestlove\u201d Thompson, drummer and leader of the Roots and musical director for \u201cThe Tonight Show,\u201d has established himself as one of the greatest music documentarians of this era.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen artists who are also fans embark on such projects, the results can be too admiring, too fanboy, too hagiographic. But Thompson\u2019s films are clear-eyed portraits of artists or situations \u2014 both of which are, of course, created by human beings in all their greatness and imperfection \u2014 and while they come out positive, they\u2019re also very realistic about the dark sides as well, which is what also makes them great stories.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEarth, Wind & Fire\u201d centers around Maurice White, the creator of one of the most influential R&B groups of all time, his troubled upbringing in the segregated South, and crucially, how his mother left him when he was just five years old to seek opportunity in Chicago. She always said she would come back for him, and 13 years later she did, but the hurt never left him \u2014\u00a0even as he overcame one obstacle after another, beginning as a drummer for the iconic blues label Chess (where he drummed on songs for Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Howlin Wolf and countless others), moving to his work with jazz legend Ramsey Lewis, and finally risking it all to form Earth, Wind & Fire. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe group\u2019s first incarnation didn\u2019t gell, so he split it up and started over, integrating magic, mysticism, Egyptology and positive thinking into the group\u2019s pioneering, deceptively complex sound. And as they became one of the biggest groups in the world, he gradually lost hold of it. By the early \u201880s, the group\u2019s golden era was over, just when their career should have been reaching even greater heights.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Thompson says below, \u201call the groups that they influenced in the \u201870s suddenly became gods in the \u201880s \u2014 Kool & the Gang, the Pointer Sisters, the Commodores, Lionel Richie, the Jacksons \u2014 and Earth, Wind and Fire were the ones left out in the cold.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tVariety caught up with Thompson over Zoom on Friday to talk about the film, finding the hidden moments in an artist\u2019s history, his next projects \u2014\u00a0and performing with EWF at the Tribeca Film Festival premiere in New York on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow was playing with Earth, Wind, and Fire two nights ago?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tYou know, that was a rather poetic moment. The last time I drummed on that specific stage, I was 12 years old drumming for my father \u2014 he would play the Beacon Theatre maybe once a year, during his oldies doo-wop revival era between like \u201981 and I guess like \u201988, \u201989. So yeah, to return there \u2014 with Robert De Niro, of all people \u2014\u00a0I couldn\u2019t think of a better storybook ending. It was everything I ever hoped for.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHad you played with them before?<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah. I first met Maurice White in 2000 when his son, K.B., would put him onto contemporary acts that he otherwise wouldn\u2019t know about. He told his dad, \u201cThere\u2019s a band called the Roots that\u2019s kind of the modern version of you guys.\u201d So we actually worked on one of their albums in, I think, in 2001. And there was a 4th of July concert in 2006 or 2007 in which the Roots and Earth, Wind and Fire did a mini 20-minute combo show together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt seems like part of your aim with these documentaries is to give overlooked or misunderstood artists or events their flowers.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat I enjoy about the process of any of the films I make is digging deeper. And this is one of the rare cases in which the itch I really wanted to scratch would have been to make this an inside-baseball kind of project, where I would have gone through song after song: \u201cWhat did these lyrics mean? What did that backward symbol mean? Why did you guys go to a 5\/4 meter here?\u201d But really, I think the gift of Earth, Wind, and Fire is, and I say this jokingly, how they tricked you into eating your vegetables.<\/p>\n

\n\tI had a feeling, many years ago, that in 2026 we might need a movie that will help people see who Maurice White was. This is the story of someone who, against all odds, confidently walked into situations in which he didn\u2019t have a safety net. He could have just played it safe \u2014\u00a0he was making good money and had popularity playing with Ramsey Lewis, and he could have just stayed there and become rich and successful. But he had another mission, and those are the people I want \u2014 the people that feel they want to be a leader.<\/p>\n

\n\tNow, people are too afraid \u2014 \u201cOh, man, it\u2019s the worst time in history.\u201d No \u2014\u00a0this is the moment when our future is going to be defined. And if this film can play any role in how people dream or sit silently before you make a rash decision, that\u2019s the role I want to play in terms of planting a seed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSummer of Soul\u201d had a theme of being lost to time, and \u201cSly Lives\u201d was about greatness and self-destruction and tragedy, but neither of those themes are in this one. Was that leadership the thing that drove your motivation for this one?<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is one case where I didn\u2019t want to be Captain Obvious \u2014\u00a0like I said, no one is interested in anything that\u2019s going to be good for you. If you\u2019re a kid and I give you Captain Crunch or Shredded Wheat, which one are you gonna pick?<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is the story of a five-year-old orphan who somehow magically discovers the laws of metaphysics. Usually in that story, when your mother gives you away, you become bitter and angry and self-destructive. But for some reason, Maurice always had the focus that \u201cI am going to better myself,\u201d and he did. <\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, the lesson that I really want people to get is that even with the best intentions for mankind in the world, the one thing Maurice was unable to get out of his system was the anger that he had for his mother for giving him away, even though it was always her intention to always come back for him. And when he was 18, she did, but that level of hurt \u2014 he never let it go. So no matter how much he worked on trying to better mankind, he never drank his own medicine. Men are routinely taught to not get our emotions out and be a man and just suck it up, and as a result, if we don\u2019t get our emotions out \u2026<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019ll put it this way. In the last year or so, from D\u2019Angelo on down, there\u2019s been probably the biggest cancer scare that we\u2019ve had. And I believe that the roots of all those things come from when you hold that inside yourself. In Maurice\u2019s case, the anger of not really forgiving his mother starts to affect his system. No matter how healthy he is, it kind of backfires. So I want people to learn that, yes, you can be metaphysical and do affirmations and all those things for your mental space, but you\u2019ve also got to clean your insides out and really get right with yourself and with the people in your life, or else you might meet that same fate.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo I believe there\u2019s a deeper story in there, but I want people to discover it on their own without me having to spell it out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd actually, that is the tragedy \u2014\u00a0he was afraid people were going to leave him, so he wouldn\u2019t let anyone get close. On a lighter note, your films always have a sort of simple, defining musical moment that most people haven\u2019t uncovered. In this one, it was the time in 1972 when Earth, Wind & Fire opened for Parliament-Funkadelic and got blown off the stage and booed. Was that story out there? I had never heard that before.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, this is the thing. We feel like Earth, Wind & Fire came ready-made, with the space suits and the large band and these positive songs \u2014 they\u2019re legends, they\u2019ve always been here. But there\u2019s actually a lot we don\u2019t know, and as a result, I was rather shocked to find out that they got booed mercilessly in my hometown of Philadelphia! And their answer to it was to sit in a lotus position for eight minutes straight [before finishing their set].<\/p>\n

\n\tBill Burr went through the same thing. He was an obscure comedian, and he went to Philly one night and they started booing him. And you know what? He just took it: \u201cAll right, I\u2019ll wait.\u201d And sure enough, four minutes into it, we started to respect him \u2014 like, \u201cYo, he took that beating like a champ! We love this guy!\u201d And literally, that\u2019s what Earth, Wind, and Fire had to go through, so I didn\u2019t know they got their asses handed to them a couple of times.<\/p>\n

\n\tI also didn\u2019t know how radical they were. I learned from Sly and the Family Stone that dressing in your street clothes was a no-no back then \u2014 you had to have a suit on, \u201cWe\u2019re safe! We\u2019re wearing tuxedos. We\u2019re singing Sinatra covers!\u201d And to show up in your dashikis and your street clothes? No one did that. So I didn\u2019t realize how much they had to go through in order to normalize.<\/p>\n

\n\tI have cousins who went to [see EWF] concert in \u201977, and none of them were the same when they got home. They transformed people back then. And for them to not get to the promised land like all their disciples did \u2014\u00a0Kool & the Gang, the Pointer Sisters, the Commodores, Lionel Richie, the Jacksons, all the groups that they influenced in the \u201870s suddenly became gods in the \u201880s, and then Earth, Wind and Fire were the one left out in the cold. There\u2019s a lot that I didn\u2019t know about what they had to go through.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNot to be that guy, but in Maurice White\u2019s autobiography he said that he and Booker T. Jones of Booker T & the MGs and David Porter, who wrote so many classics with Isaac Hayes, were best friends in school. Why isn\u2019t that in the film?<\/p>\n

\n\tBooker\u2019s in there! He\u2019s the one telling the story of [White\u2019s] childhood and how his parents kind of abandoned him, he pretty much was there. But you know what, there\u2019s a lot of [details] that I did want to pack in [that ended up on the cutting room floor]. Like, there\u2019s a brilliant story of [White] poaching [future R&B star] Deniece Williams away from Stevie Wonder\u2019s Wonderlove group to sign with him.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first thing I asked Booker T. Jones was, you [and Porter] will be the architects of Stax Records, and [White] is there with you. But the story that Booker told about [White] getting beaten up on his paper route \u2014 that pretty much made him a recluse and a homebody, and he vowed never again to go across the tracks to the other side of town. But if he had, he would have been a drummer in the Stax organization, more than likely. But his story happened as it should.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019re basically the world\u2019s biggest Prince fan, you knew him and performed with him and know his music inside and out. How have you not done a Prince documentary?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tYou know what, sometimes you wanna get right into the fire. Prince\u2019s story \u2014 I\u2019m way too close, his story is way too close to my existence, and I\u2019m almost afraid that I would make it a love letter, no matter what. And I know his story is very complex. I will also say that I believe that Ezra Elderman has made the definitive Prince documentary<\/a>, although the estate doesn\u2019t agree. [The Prince estate has very publicly disavowed the film and blocked its release.]\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSo you\u2019ve seen it!<\/p>\n

\n\tYes, I\u2019m in it and I\u2019m one of the lucky maybe 30 people that have seen it. Maybe it\u2019s just not time now. But it changed my life \u2014\u00a0that film affected my storytelling. Without that documentary, I don\u2019t know if the Sly doc or the Earth, Wind and Fire doc would have turned out the way they did.<\/p>\n

\n\tOK, this is my last question \u2014 apart from, that is a photo of Michael Jackson and Goofy on your shirt?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t(Laughing and opening his jacket.) Yes, it is.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat\u2019s coming up next?<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019ll tell you, it\u2019s been an overflow of \u201cWhatever it is you want to do, now\u2019s your open window.\u201d That really started with \u201cSummer of Soul,\u201d and this particular doc marks the end of a very weird period. I don\u2019t necessarily suggest any other creatives or filmmakers do what I tried to do, because at one point I was working on Sly, Earth, Wood and Fire, and the \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d music doc at the same time. And there were moments and mornings in which I\u2019d come to work and I think I\u2019m prepared, but \u201cWait, we\u2019re working on what?!\u201d So I don\u2019t recommend it.<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, that said, there are three projects that I\u2019m starting right now that are sort of in the same vein. I\u2019m not at liberty to say who they are, but I can hint that 1988 was a very classic year for hip-hop music. So that\u2019s the most I can get into it. But yeah, it\u2019s not stopping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Across four documentaries \u2014 the Oscar- and Grammy-winning \u201cSummer of Soul,\u201d \u201cSly Lives,\u201d \u201cLadies and Gentlemen, 50 Years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[298491,266415,88,206],"class_list":["post-686974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ahmir-questlove-thompson","tag-earth-wind-fire","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}