Questlove Answers the Web's Most Searched Questions

Greetings Earthlings, My name is Questlove

and this is my Wired Autocomplete Interview.

[drum music]

I am definitely afraid to Google myself.

Even if I have to look for something,

I will type quest Questlove

'cause I don't wanna see what the. [laughs]

So me doing this, this face of my biggest fear. [laughs]

[upbeat music]

What Questlove?

That's a good one.

What is in Questlove's hair?

This is a good question.

I'm known for my humongous afro.

I come from a family at Chia Pets.

The more you try to cut my hair,

the more that it grows.

I think that people wanna know

is the object that normally is in my hair,

which is the afro pick.

I keep it there because my scalp often itches.

One time my Afro got me in trouble

is I went to the strip club in Atlanta.

The first time they made it rain,

$80 fell right in the hair

between the crest of my afro pick [laughs]

and my afro.

And the second I went to take it

to give to like the nearest person,

like security was on me in like three seconds.

Like, Ahh we got that, we got that.

Even on my body, I couldn't touch it.

What does Questlove's real name?

My real name is Ahmir Khalib

Thompson.

If I know a person of Arabic descent

is asking me what my full name is,

I will say Ahmir Khalib Thompson.

I got my grr!

My hero, Prince

He cold called me at a studio once.

So I pick up the phone.

He's like, Hello Prince.

I was like, wait, is this you?

And this is back when we didn't know

if we were allowed to still call him his name or not.

Inside secret.

He still at black people call him Prince.

'Cause we weren't going to try and pronounce that symbol.

He's like, Well I'm calling you Prince

because you know, that's what your name means, right?

And then I'll say four years later, when I was at a concert,

he was singing the song Sign of the Times.

And there's a really famous line.

Fall in love, get married, have a baby.

We'll call him Nate if it's a boy.

He knew I was on a blind date.

He changed the lyrics to fall in love, get married,

have a baby.

We'll name him Ahmir if he's funky.

And he kind of looked at me.

And like I knew my date was real impressed

like, yeah.

That's right.

Prince thinks I'm funky.

What drums does Questlove play?

Ludwig.

I started off on a Ludwig set.

My very first real drum set at the age of eight.

For the beginning part of my career,

I went with Yamaha because that was like the biggest name.

But I learned early in life that sometimes

like the biggest name and the most popular name

doesn't suit you well.

I like a really trashy, dirty sound to my drums.

So oftentimes like drum makers will goof

these long drawn out stories of like,

they went to a particular forest in Japan

to chop down this particular type of tree

that's like real expensive.

Like this drum is worth $90,000.

We use this particular type of wood

and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

I'll go along like, oh, that's really interesting,

But I'd never played that stuff.

So like I have about 70 drum sets right now

and which I never touch.

Because I want the cheap high school version.

Like I want their lowest,

most accessible drum.

Like that to me is the sound of America's garage.

And I like that.

But what type of headphones does Questlove use?

Okay so really it depends.

When I'm DJing,

depending on what my hair situation is,

you need a sort of adorable set of headphones

'cause I'm known to break 'em

of they like stretch out too much or whatever.

So Audio Technica's M50x.

That's the specific brand that I use.

They're high quality.

However, when I'm on stage,

I use a custom in-ear mics

by the one and only Jerry Harvey Audio.

They are the best in-ear monitors ever.

My favorite part of getting in-ear microphone customs

is you have to get the foam

put in your ear.

So it's like a weird feeling.

It's like taking pancake batter

and someone just like [blows]

squeezing it in your ear.

I'm weird. I'm sorry.

We're does Questlove live?

I'm a rolling stone.

I was born in Philadelphia.

I still have property in Philadelphia.

Ever since The Tonight Show I've relocated to Manhattan.

In the dawning of COVID-19 and quarantining

I've done something I never thought I'd do before.

I used to make fun of everyone.

Every professional, every author and actor and director

I knew that got that place in upstate New York.

And now I've become that person.

It's not a farm.

It's not a ranch.

I think my girlfriend likes to call it a chateau.

It's an artist community.

When I drive up there I feel like

I'm in the beginning of Pee-wee's Playhouse.

Like it's like a fantasy land thing.

It's kind of cool.

Where to buy the Questlove cheese steak?

Good question.

At most Live Nation venues.

And my hometown of Philadelphia,

Philadelphia Phillies.

My cheese steak is made of impossible meat.

I'm not a vegan.

I'm not a vegetarian.

But I do want to eat a way better.

so this would have came out way earlier,

but I had to strike a deal with Amoroso to make the rolls.

Because if it's not on a Amoroso bread,

it's not a cheese steak from Philly.

I don't care what anyone says.

You can't put it on a baguette.

Okay, the Questlove Supreme podcast.

I taught at NYU for about six years.

It was just 25 students.

A lot of my students are actually notable people right now

in the industry.

You guys know Maggie Rogers.

He was one of my students.

One day,

my manager told me like,

Well, instead of spewing this knowledge that you have

on just 25 kids a year,

why don't you make it national?

So Questlove Supreme is my podcast with my friends.

And we just talk music and pop culture.

It's not just music, it's acting, it's film.

It's just everything pop culture.

Politics and everything.

So you can hear it practically anywhere

where you get podcasts.

Okay what hi-hats does Questlove use?

Full disclosure, again, I like.

There's a very specific trashy, dirty,

unprofessional sound I like.

Kind of like taking brand new jeans

and really destroying them so that they used and worn.

That's what I do with my drums.

And with my cymbals,

I will just get very, very old Zildjian cymbals.

There's a guy in Chicago named Sonny Burman.

And he does these custom.

He'll take the cymbals,

he'll destroy them.

He'll cut holes in them.

They'll just make them sound like trash cans.

And oftentimes I will use that.

But the company I adore Zildjian.

They have a brand called FX Stack.

Which is the same thing.

They poke holes in the cymbals to give it more bite,

more edge to it.

So those are the cymbals that I use.

What is Questlove's vinyl collection?

When I was five years old,

a complete stranger asked me what type of music I like.

And she brought me my first three records

and a record player.

I found the note that she wrote to my parents.

Like I love Ahmir.

He's so cute.

I wanna buy him records.

And she wrote it on a cocktail napkin.

And I found that note like two weeks ago

and I put it on my Instagram.

And I wanted to find this woman,

her name was Ellie.

She lived in Portland, Maine.

They just found her.

So I guess I get a chance to thank her.

Because now I own 200,000 records.

She planted a seed that sort of grew out of control.

And now I need to buy houses

just to stack my records. [laughs]

What Questlove lost.

I can't believe this is actually on Google.

Like I don't know what I lost.

I don't recall any bet I've ever lost

or if I ever lost like my.

Oh, I've lost my luggage.

Oh I lost weight. [laughs]

Wait, as I'm thinking in realtime,

every one on the side is like.

[hand pats]

Duh.

I was like, oh yeah, I did.

Early 2018.

I was a very dangerous,

morbid 400 and like

15, 16 pounds.

A lot of people in my genre and whatnot,

they were sort of succumbing to strokes and heart attacks.

And I didn't want to be that cliche.

I want to live to the age of 90

and see my full life through.

I'm at the happiest I've ever been in my life.

I will say that quarantining.

I know that people got into the habit

of panic eating.

And my girlfriend is not having that.

Nothing will ever beat the moment when my band saw me.

They all put on like five pounds and I took off like 60.

So. [laughs]

Questlove yacht rock.

All right here's the thing,

my friendship with Anthony Bourdain sparked

because of his hatred for yacht rock music.

When I met Anthony Bourdain,

I asked him, I was like,

is it true that you fired three chefs in your kitchen

because they were listening to Billy Joel?

And he says, No.

I hung a sign up saying, I will fire you

if you listen to Billy Joel in my kitchen.

And they defiantly put Billy Joel on,

so I fired them.

To me that was like, oh challenge accepted.

So whenever Bourdain would come on the Tonight Show.

He would ask like, what walk out music

are you gonna play for me?

And I'd tell him some like, whatever.

Like yeah do some Led Zeppelin song.

And he's like, yeah, yeah, something real cool.

And then whenever he walks out,

I just played Billy Joel.

Just to get them angry.

When he passed away,

I figured the best way to pay tribute to him

and the way that really described our friendship.

Like me getting the last word. [blows raspberry]

Was I made him like a 700 song

yacht rock playlist

on my Spotify.

It's one of my favorite playlist.

Like Jimmy Fallon's obsessed with this playlist.

Like it's cool. I dig it.

All yacht rock fans,

just know that I'm the ding of yacht rock.

What are the Questlove's favorite albums?

During quarantining I did this challenge

and on my Spotify I put in order

my 100 favorite records.

Now I'll just tell you my top 10,

but all 100 are in there.

So my number 10 is Stevie Wonder's Music of my Mind.

My number nine is A Tribe Called Quest

Midnight Marauders.

My number eight is 1999 by Prince.

Number seven is Voodoo by D'Angelo.

Number six is De La Soul Is Dead.

Number five is Rufus and Chaka Khan's Ask Rufus.

My number four is Michael Jackson's Off The Wall.

My number three is Fan-Tas-Tic Volume one

by Slum Village.

Number two is It Takes a Nation

of Millions to Hold Us Back

by Public Enemy.

And my number one record of all time is Person to Person

live 1976, by the Average White Band.

Google went kind of light on me

because I think when any of my other friends do this,

like it's the meanest things ever.

So. [laughs]

It shows to me that people might actually like me.

So yeah it's cool.