121 Quotes by Questlove

I don’t bask in the awards I’ve won, read my bank statements, I refuse. To me, that’s how you start losing the hunger.

I feel like the downfall of any person is the second an artist starts celebrating their work themselves, that becomes problematic.

After 2001, everyone in the Soulquarians blew up, which wasn’t expected. We all got the success, and then everybody froze.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the average person can do about four things a day, like four real things a day.

Highlight reels are about that one person. After a barrage of highlight reels, you get the sense that you can do it without a team. But music thrived the most when groups were involved. People lose sight of that – that community makes the world run.

I think all of this – The Roots and DJing included – was meant to prepare me for The Tonight Show.

For anyone that’s ever had a musical breakthrough in their career, it’s always followed by the departure period right after.

I’m a 24-hour tweet machine, I’m a 24-hour blogger. When there’s no pressure on me, I can talk and write and lecture with the best of them. But put a deadline on me and I start getting writer’s block.

Reagan’s neglect of the inner city is responsible for hiphop. Hiphop is created thanks to the conditions that crack set: easy money but a lot of work, the violence involved, the stories it produced. Crack helped birth hiphop.