Soul Boom - Questlove's Secret to a Spiritual Awakening

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

Questlove (The Roots, Summer of Soul) joins Soul Boom for a deep and vulnerable conversation about creativity, trauma, spirituality, and self-reinvention. He opens up about his struggles with imposter syndrome, the weight of generational trauma, and how the pandemic forced him to rebuild his internal life through breathwork, affirmations, and metaphysical practice. Rainn and Questlove explore the power of boredom, the necessity of soul, and how success without healing can be hollow. THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS! Airbnb 👉 ⁠⁠⁠https://airbnb.com/host⁠⁠⁠ BRAGG (20% OFF! CODE: SOULBOOM) 👉 ⁠⁠⁠https://www.bragg.com⁠ Masterclass (at least 15% OFF!) 👉 ⁠https://www.masterclass.com/soulboom⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⏯️ SUBSCRIBE!⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠👕 MERCH OUT NOW! ⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠📩 SUBSTACK!⁠⁠⁠⁠  FOLLOW US! 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram: http://instagram.com/soulboom⁠⁠⁠⁠ 👉 TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tiktok.com/@soulboom⁠⁠⁠⁠  CONTACT US! Sponsor Soul Boom: ⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠ Work with Soul Boom: ⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠ Send Fan Creations, Questions, Comments: [e-mail]  Executive Produced by: Kartik Chainani Executive Produced by: Ford Bowers, Samah Tokmachi Companion Arts Production Supervisor: Mike O'Brien Theme Music by: Marcos Moscat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to soul. Bortem is your best friend. Silence is your best for it. You said, like, we're the last generation. To have known boredom. Yeah, dog, because that means we have to feel. We're talking about, like, where does creativity come from? How do you go from, like, being a little kid prodigy drummer

to saying, I want to be, like, this fountain of creativity? Having an education and a pedigree and working hard and getting up at five of the morning and work, work, work. none of those things matter. None of those things matter. I literally had to re-figure out creativity, and I'm 100% right about this.

Okay. The true lesson is... It's me, Rain Wilson, and I want to dig into the human experience. I want to have conversations about a spiritual revolution. Let's get deep with our favorite thinkers, friends, and entertainers

about life, meaning, and idiocy. Welcome to the Soul Boom, podcast. I'm so excited to talk to you. I got the roots. Do you want more? 95. Jewel case CD, living in New York, unemployed theater actor. My wife and I had that on constant rotation. And I can't believe I'm sit down with you. Thank you. It's funny you mentioned that because just maybe a month ago, because right now as we speak is the 30th anniversary, we decided to do six shows at a very small, at the Blue Note Jazz Nightclub,

which only holds like 200 people. And to only concentrate on that record, which I think going into it, it was a little triggering because, you know, it's definitely newness was like, I believe that we were the last band, the last act. of the old model of the music business,

where it's like something new you never heard of, and I'll give them a chance, and they made an impression on me. I feel like after us, then, you know, the rise of social media was more like, you better do what I know or else I'm not engaging in you. And there was a whole set of rules.

So to do those songs again, which, I mean, we barely touch anything off that record, in our current show. Even though it's a seminal favorite and like our first record to the world, technically our second, but, you know, our first major thing, it was just really weird

doing it to an audience that are actually singing along with the lyrics and enjoying it. So now I'm like thinking, wait, can we do those songs again and people like it? Because for me, it's just so traumatic. Is it hard?

It's kind of like... Like where people like... It's kind of like you two going and performing Joshua Tree or like bands performing like the one album. Does it feel a little bit like... Well, somebody you mentioned them. All right. I hope I don't get in trouble for saying the story. I'll word it correctly.

So, you know, they were the inaugural act for the Vegas dome sphere. Right, right, right. And, you know, we've seen stuff. on social media and how it looks and all that stuff. I witnessed the one show that had a technical glitch. So as a result,

those guys had to think quick on their feet. They're like, get the roots. Get the roots in here right now. No, well, it was the opposite. It was like three spotlights, maybe four working microphones. One of them had to go to the edges guitar. Like, they had to think quick.

and they wound up doing kind of like a 40-minute unplugged version. They had to reboot the entire system. So it was either like, we could either kick you guys out, make you wait an hour outside. Or do an acoustic show. Or just, you know, think on our feet. And they did just that.

And it was like the most amazing. Like, I'm glad I saw it. It was way better than that. For me, it was way better. And, you know, once the system got rebooted, they did like five or six songs. and we got to witness that. I love that Questlove was in the sphere

watching you too do Joshua Tree. Yeah, dog. That's, you know, I don't want to miss that for anything, man. So, you know, on Soul Boom, we want to get into some deep, meaningful conversations about what it is to be a human being, spirituality, mental health, tools for the modern world,

but also big part of that is creativity. I love this book, Creative Quest, for those of you haven't read it. It's an amazing, template, shall we say. Thank you. Beautiful personal stories and great ideas. I really want to dig into like, to me,

creativity and spirituality are wedded. There is, if you go to the, not the 20,000 foot view, the 20,000 mile view, like the 20,000 light year view, there is emptiness and there is a spark and there is a speck. And boom, 14 billion years ago, the universe is born. And out of that explosion, there's, trillions of suns and galaxies. Everything that exists in the world right now

came into being in that explosion. It's color and sound and energy and patterns and math and physics and chemistry. It's all created in one kind of beautiful chaos. And it starts to not dissemble into little specs, but it starts to, for some reason, form into galaxies and then form into solar systems and form into planets,

and those planets start to have life, and they start to have water, and its creativity and it's creating, and creating is creating, and creating. Like, whether you believe in God or not, there is some cosmic source or force that is propelling this incredible explosion of systems and stuff and beauty beyond the imagination.

And guess what? We get to do that. human beings and no one better than the great quest love in terms of like a a big bang of creativity you're talking my language and this is what excites me about your work so much i mean besides obviously the roots and obviously being like one of the you know top 10 great drummers author of like five or six books now oscar winner documentarian kind of music cataloger like um collect record of 100,000 records. Culture collector, yes.

But always at the center of your stuff is like, hey, I'm on a creative quest and you can be too. And we're going to, sorry to say, we're going to reinvent hip hop and we're going to, like, we're going to explode things. I'm going to go watch you too. Right. Like, and I know your parents were so seminal to your, your dad was a doo-wop singer. Your mom was an artist. how do you go from like being a little kid prodigy drummer to kind of like, hey, I'm not just

going to be, I could just be a drummer. I could just go, you know, join a band and make a good gig. I could be on a cruise ship and I can make thousands a week just being a drummer or touring or whatever it is and to saying, I want to do so much more than that. I want to be like this fountain of creativity. Live music and hip hop is there's nothing new. There was a band. called Stetsasonic, who was like the first hip hop band, half the Sugar Hill stuff because of technology, they had to use a house band to recreate it. We were just the first, like, marketed band in hip hop.

And we kind of thought, like, all right, we're just going to do all this innovative stuff. And, you know, it's going to go over like gangbusters. And it didn't happen. And you're talking about the first album. Yeah. Like, do you want more came out? And again, we're on, we're on Geffen Records.

So at the time... But do you want more was on every like best of list of the year? Well, we were critically acclaimed. And so that's what we learned. As long as we were critically acclaimed, we'll never get dropped from the label. And, but it was going to be a very slow tortoise

in the hair kind of thing where you're going 20 miles an hour. But like, oh, great, here come the Fuji. Hey, guys. Here comes Alcass. Oh, great. Here comes Lauren Hill. Here comes, like literally.

Now, if you tell me then if I knew what I know now back then I'm like thank God because I always ask myself all the time like I take the Fugees for example would you rather your second album sell 14 million units and then you just implode after that

or would you rather have the slow and steady 20 30 year yeah like still be here and I now know that this was the right choice. But to bring my point back, I'll say that a lot of times where I created those records

with each album. And yes, we've had success, like some went platinum, some went gold, we won Grammys, but I never felt whatever the feeling is supposed to be of a ticker tape parade.

My manager used to joke that you and Tarika just upset because you never had your champagne moment. your, you know, slow motion, make it rain. Right. We never had, because we were working so hard that it just, once you reach the finish line or whatever you think success is, it's like, oh, okay, well, that was, that was fun.

And so the thing is, is that I'll say that maybe 10 years into my career, I just started thinking, like, you know, I make records, but it'd be like, all right, well, here's another great critically claimed record that no one's going to buy. Yeah, maybe we'll get lucky and we'll be like the hip hop will co or that sort of thing. Even with Summer of Soul, my plan was like, all right, well, I'll do this thing and I'm sure somebody will write about it and say how cool it was. And then three weeks later, nobody will know that I did it.

And I was this, but I was just in the mind state of kind of creating and not having me intention of, hey, I'm sending something good in the world. And it wasn't until the pandemic in which for the entire world, I assume, that's the first time we stopped what we were doing. Like in 2020, was the first time that I've not been on a stage. Since the age of five, I've least been on a stage like once every two weeks, be a school, church, my dad, the roots. And to let like seven months go, and not, besides like small things to do on the Tonight Show, not even haven't played drums or whatever. And so I did a lot of the, what they call, air quote,

the work as far as like therapy and getting into meditation. Like things I used to laugh at other people. So it was an opportunity kind of, in a way, through a wrench in the works, slowed things down and kind of challenged you to rethink things, reinvent things, go deeper. Literally rethink my entire life and the whole modus operandi of it. And I realized, you know, started reading, well, there's, there's Dr. Joe to spend to, I would read his books.

We have him on the show. Oh, man. Yeah, brilliant. Joe saved my life. Him, there's someone named Gay Hendricks. He wrote a book called The Big Leap. Gay Hendricks was very instrumental in getting Bonnie Raid out of her. her rut. You know, she came in the industry as like, oh, she's going to be the next best thing.

And she kept being the next best thing. She was basically the roots. And then she was at our lowest point. And he met her like in like 87, 88. You know, it's hard. Like now we speak the language where we believe it. But back then he's like, well, you realize if you say it, it'll happen. And if you believe it internally, it will happen. Kind of a wizard or viz. Click your heels three times. you've had all these gifts all along. You just, you know, and you tend to dismiss those willy-nilly things because you think that, oh, no, having an education and a pedigree and working hard and getting up at five of the morning or work, work, work.

And I realized that none of those things matter. None of those things matter. And he taught, he literally had to train her like a 20-point program. And literally the last thing was like, okay, so. So was his book The Great Leap about this, what he did with Bonnie Rae? He mentions it briefly, but for her, it's like her saving grace. Like literally, they're like, okay, what's the name of your ear, your comeback album? She's like, well, let's call it Nick of Time because it's going to be the Nick of Time before, you know.

Yeah. And the last thing was like, okay, so when you walk on stage to accept your album of the year, what kind of dress are you wearing? He's like, oh, I'm going to wear my Holston boots. And so literally everything that was on those. Vision board. Yeah, he had to program her. And, you know, like even a Michael Jackson documentary, he's world famous for writing on his bathroom mirror 100 million,

like that sort of thing. So I'll say that in 2020, I realized like the, well, one, I'm just baffled that I got to 2020, especially my profession where easily bullets, bad health, are easily like, you're not. door neighbor that can easily take you out at 23 or 33 or 43 or 43, but just reprogramming myself to not go to the dark space where I feel like what I do doesn't matter and that sort of thing. So once I got to 2020, I literally had to re-figure out creativity.

So now when I create things like I keep journals, disclosure, I'm working on the Earthwind and Fire doc right now. Okay. And it's about Earth, when and Fire, but it's really about their leader, Maurice White, and how I'm amazed that he tricked people in the metaphysics. Black people especially, like, hold on to religion, you know, organized religion, where, like, God is some figure that's 14 trillion miles away from,

you and you have to beg for this like mystery figure you don't know whereas metaphysics sort of teaches you like you're one of god's cells like a like the sims like a yeah you might be god's elbow i might be god's eyebrow or something but you're you're a part of them and if you say something then it happens and so i will say that everything that's happened in my life since 2020 and this is kind of the weird part because there's some people that just believe that, well, no, and you know, you're a smart guy and you've been in the music business for 40 years and your parents gave you the best education and you know so much about music, you study everything, study. Nah, I'm not imposter syndrome, but definitely every morning I'm waking up like, is the jig up yet?

Like, did I get found out? But I feel like every day is a day where I'm learning how to ride a bike. and it's like, hey, I'm doing it. I'm doing it. So, well, I think for our audience, I'm just hearing what you're saying. Like you've been in, you know, you're 25 years into this incredible rap and music career. And you, and COVID hits, things slow down. You're kind of relooking at yourself, reinventing yourself, realizing you've made a lot of choices out of fight or flight, out of fear. And that you used to have this. imposter syndrome.

I mean, you know, you're not only one of the great drummers, like you're one of the great music producers and, you know, seminal rap artists. And, you know, how is it that Questlove is thinking that in 2020? I mean, for I know for our listeners, they'll be like, that's going to be like, that's going to be a total mind explosion. Well, I mean, you know, like, okay, so when I speak of fight or flight, I'll give you the sort of the genesis of it. My father was a child of the Emmett Till era.

If you don't know, Emmett Till, Emmett Till was like an 11-year-old black boy from Chicago, Illinois, who was visiting relatives down south. He got falsely accused of wolf was whistling to a white woman who then told her husband, who gathered the town's men, and they mutilated. and killed this boy. His mother wanted an open casket to let the world see what they did to my son. And this is kind of how Ebony and Jet Magazine became a thing because they took a photo of his mutilated face. And that's kind of how the civil rights, along with Rosen Park's bus story, that's kind Now the civil rights story really begins.

And for a lot of America's kids in that era, this whole idea of like hide in plain sight. Like, don't speak unless spoken to. If you don't, like, it's a lot of it's fear-based. So once I come to earth, like, I'm being raised by adults who knew of, knew of and lived in that sort of imitil, I too might get killed if, you know, keep my head down, don't bring attention to yourself. And sort of epigenetically, you pass that on generation after generation. There's a book on that called a post-traumatic slave syndrome by Joy DeGrew

about that epigenetic kind of generational trauma being passed on. My fear was always not surviving or not making it. You know, not to mention I'm going, I'm in Performing Arts High School in Philadelphia at the time. And like, boys to men are an actual thing. And they're a success. And now it's like. And they came out of that school. Yes, they came out a lot.

Like anyone who's now a thing in jazz, chances are they came like that particular period between 86. and like 92. I mean, I can even stretch it now because like the amount of people passed long after I graduated that went to Performing Arts. It was like our LaGuardia Fame School. But just the fear of not making it,

the fear of if this doesn't work, I got to go back to my house in West Philadelphia as a failure. Your parents put a lot of pressure on your shoulders too. You got to... My mom was encouraging, but my dad was definitely like, you know, Joe Jackson, whatever backstage father, you know, dance mom sort of, you know,

do it again. Rehears five times. You can't go out unless you, you know, practice your scales and that sort of thing. To your paradiddles. I know that's from fight or flight. And even though music is my will house and it's my joy space, it was always approached with fear. Like I'll say now that this very roots album that I did was the first time where it's like,

I have good intentions. Like, I want to send something out to the world that's beautiful. That's art. What's the name of the new album? We're going to call it end game. All right. And... Hope that doesn't mean it's last.

No, it's not. But, I mean, it's sort of a reference. In game was the last... So one of my last conversations with my, my manager, Richard Nichols, who passed away in 2014. He was like... okay, if I say he's our, Peter, what's his name to Led Zeppelin or, better yet, are George Martin? Yeah, the Beatles.

Beatles, yeah. Just his genius of how he thought things. Like our last conversation was three album titles for Future Roots albums. Endgame was one of them. He sort of predicted the political environment. where now, so he's like, you should call one banana republican. I forget what the last tight. I ever written down somewhere at our house, at my house.

But those are technical instructions, like technical exercises. And, you know, I still adhere to it, like the idea of picking random words out in a book to build a story or, you know, playing songs backwards or different ways to be creative. But now what the pandemic taught me was that silence is golden.

So I spent a lot of time doing like Wimhoff breathing, a lot of breathing technique, sitting silent, sort of writing goals as if they happened already. Yeah. And I believe that that

is the key because that's literally how I've been kind of, you know, not to be dismissive to anyone that helps the Quest Love Machine role. And there's, I won't say hundreds, but, you know, like, I'm a fully sort of functioning. Yeah, you get an industry going. Yeah. There's an ecosystem to who's shoulders I have to sit on just so that I can be a thing. But for me, yeah, just the channeling ideas,

thinking of things. Like, this is all new to me. So it's almost like I have to rewrite this book to show the proper way. What's your new version of Creative Quest coming out now in 2025? So I do an exercise now. How do you bring that back to metaphysics?

And how do you bring that back to Maurice White and Earthwind and Fire. So in order to do his story, there are about 14 books that he read that inspired him to make Earthwind and Fire. Because they had kind of a mystic kind of thing going, right? I remember their album covers that they had...

Egyptology and Egyptology and like prisms and rainbows. So one book that I'm reading, I don't know if you're familiar with Jose Silva. It's called The Silver Method. Jose Silva teaches you how to properly channel affirmations. Because oftentimes we'll say, all right, so where are my plans for 2026? All right. So I definitely want to do, I'm giving you hypothetical examples.

So I want to do, I want to do the like the definitive Obama documentary. I want to do one last tour with the roots around the world. I want to da-da-da-da-da. And you teaches you how to, you have to say it as if it happened already. And one of the hardest things that you have to do. It's like, as if you're looking from 2027 and saying like in 2026, I did this and I did this and I did this.

Well, you have to say it in a gratitude stance. So I would have to say, thank you. I guess the hidden parenthesis is universe. Like, thank you. for safely getting me to Rayne Wilson's podcast. Thank you for all the success that I'm going to have

for the Earthwood and Fire Dock. Thank you for the massive amount of success that the roots end game will be. Wow. I mean, that's kind of what I... Thank you for the Grammy that we're winning. Look, I went from... It took about a year for me to, like,

getting in that mind frame, probably is harder than any diet you ever tried. You know, like when you first, like, okay, after Thanksgiving, all right, well, after Christmas, all right, definitely top of the year, I'm going to eat right, and da-da-da-da-da. Affirmations are top. It's the hardest thing to commit to you.

Because it's like you feel silly. It feels cheesy. But it's also really hard to kind of like allow for just light and success and to honor yourself. I will Matrix, Bullet Dodge, every accolade, every praise. And, oh, man, you're the greatest. Ah, man. That's you, man.

I'll deflect and be like, nah, man. It's about you, Rain, not about me. Like, I, so one, accepting, accepting love, accepting yourself. So I probably had to spend most of 2021, I spent all of 2021, learning to like myself. Wow. Which was very hard when you're self-deprecating all the time and all those things. So what I learned was the way that the brain works.

I'm sure Dr. Joe explained this before. You know that there's alpha, beta, theta. Yeah, but I understand how that all works. So there's five parts of you. So you know that there's a part of your brain that knows that this is a cup. that this is a unicorn, that this is wood, that you're wearing glasses, that we're in California. There's a part of you that knows that.

That's your alpha brain. But you also know that you technically don't know how your heart knows to pump here and give blood. Or, you know, when you drink water and your kidneys are like, yo, we need some help down here. And how is your body? Like, there's part of your brains that do that. Or so your theta, your theta is the part of the brain.

brain. Autonomic, autonomic, nervous system. Yes. So you're subconscious. Okay. And the thing is,

is that when there are two times where we actively do it without aid. Now, of course, you know, the cheating is those that kind of overdue psychedelics or if we drink,

you know, like when someone gets liquid courage, like what they really want to say and they got to get drunk a little bit and then they might tell the truth. And if they regret it the next day, they're like, well, you know, man, I was so drunk last night. I don't even know what I said.

You do. So the deal, so with Theta is, you're in your Theta mind state. All right, so we're both in the industry. I'm sure that you're familiar with the infamous 4 a.m. lobby call or, you know, you got to get on a plane early in the morning and you got to get it before.

And sometimes I'm a guy that might set his alarm an hour earlier, just so I can snooze myself awake. Like if I got to get up at five. But then you wake up before your alarm goes off. Yeah, so I might, if I got to wake up at five, I'm... I always find that weird. Like, I set my alarm for 5 a.m. No, it's really early.

And like, I wake up and it's 4.59. It's like, how does my body, how does my brain clock? I'm a 23 person. I think of a 723. 5, 25, like, I'm a 23 person, so I don't know why I always wake up instinctually there. Anything in me. So the deal is that when you first wake up in the morning and you're like dead tired and dead asleep and right before you press snooze, that mind state, that 20 minutes of

that 20 minutes of, of, whatever, that is probably the most powerful. powerful. A lot of ideas can come out of half in dream state, half in waking. That's when the rest of your body accepts information. So, I mean, I'll be fully, I'll disclose and fully without shame. I'll sleep to Neville Goddard, um, audio books just subliminally. Who's Neville Goddard? Neville Goddard is probably, you know all these amazing obscure authors. Oh, all it don't. The amount of books I've read in, in the last five years is baffling. Because, like I have to

relearn and reprogram and undo a lot of the things that worked against me for the first 50 years of my life. Neville Goddard is probably

the godfather of like explaining how the brain works and how to reprogram yourself so that you don't go against your own interest. There's an audio book that has all of his, all 10 of his books in there.

Oh, wow. So you're like, I play it during night, so it's playing while you're sleeping? All the time. That's insane. That's awesome. What a great idea. So the other time is when you're sleepy. You know, 10.30.

Uh, okay. Yeah. That's the moment where your theta, your alpha is like, okay, guys, I'm checking out. I'm going to bed. And your theta is running on fumes. Yeah. So right before you fall asleep, that's also when this works. So what I do is when I first wake up, now I do it.

My process is more nuanced and not as crazy. Like when I first discovered this, I would say that I would spend four hours doing this process waking up. So I wake up like all excited. It was like a new toy on Christmas. Like wake up three in the morning. Okay, I'm going to meditate and da-da-da-da, do my affirmations. and then start my day at 8 a.m. But now just do five.

You don't have to overdo it. So five minutes, I will do gratitude. And gratitude is just like, thanks for waking me up in the morning. I'll give gratitude to things that didn't happen yet. Like, thank you for, you know, my limbs working. I mean, I'll try to think of stuff like my limbs working. Sometimes I run out of ideas and I'll just be like,

thank you for the color of blue. thank you for glass, thank you for metal, thank you for the safety of my management, thank you for the safety of my team, thank you for this bed, thank you for this comforter, thank you for this technology that works. But sometimes I'll just say like, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

I'll do that for five to ten minutes. Then I will do the breathing exercises next. For beginners, I say, you know, hold your breath, breathe in your nose, do seven seconds, hold your breath for five, and then exhale out your mouth for five. So seven, five, five. Winhoff breathing or like breath of fire, that's like advanced breathing where almost like you're dizzy.

And that's like super advanced breathing. I do that now, but I sort of recommend the beginning. Yeah. If you Google, Jodis spends a morning meditation, and evening meditation, those are, that's the beginning. I would say that's the Baltic and Mediterranean Avenue of the metaphysical monopoly board, right. Don't go to Park Face and Boardwalk. Then you have to do stretching.

Stretching your limbs is next. Get out of bed. Stretch. Some people do full yoga. I'm not a yoga guru yet, but I do five minutes of stretching. the last part is the hardest part. You have to walk to the mirror and talk to yourself for, I got it now down to 10 minutes.

And you have to go from, we all live in a perpetual state of am I. Am I? Am I? Am I? And you got to go from Am I to I am. And that's a hard transition because, like, I am could be read as arrogant

or, you know, we're taught to be small and humble and quiet. And like, so to own something. Not brag, yeah. Right. I am literally talk to you. Hello, mirror. How you doing? Have to talk to myself in the mirror.

And I do, I've done this every day of my life since. We'll agree that, like, what, March 14th, March 15th of 2020 was sort of the. Yeah. Yeah. Whenever that eyes of March period was in the panes. We all remember that week, yeah. That's what's really helped me do it. Now, the weird thing is, is that if you remember that whole, ha-ha, the wicked

witch is dead, feeling a celebration that we had, you know, November 2020 coming into 2021 and everyone's happy and we're free again and yeah, everything's working out. The pandemic's over and we don't have to know. We don't have to wipe down our groceries anymore. Right. and I started to slack off because it's like, hey, everything's back. Like, you know, we have someone that we sort of trust, like, behind the, behind the wheel, and everything's great and we're good.

And I got to admit, I slacked off. Like, once everything, you know, woke up and saw my Oscar there, like, okay, well, I'm good. So then I started slacking off a little bit. This time around, I will say that I realized, you know, what the true lesson is the one thing I ignored, which is you have to live in the present. So a lot of our trauma that's behind us, all the trauma that's in the rear view mirror,

I don't care if you were bullied, physically attacked, carrying the trauma of your parents, your answer, whatever. And a lot of your past will make you afraid of the future. Like if you got bullied or, or physically attacked when you were 18, then you're always worried about, oh, that can't happen again. So I can't go outside after 6 p.m.

Because, you know, what if I get attacked again? So you're always worried about your future based on what happened in your past. And the thing is, is that one of the hardest things is letting that part go and staying immediately. Right now, like you and I are in. we're here right now in the present and this is the part that matters and unfortunately i have to say that the benefit of where we are right now in this world it was this exact dire quasi-dispopian

where everyone's like scared fight or flight in the world right now that is what forced me to learn that lesson So, like, every day I wake up, and the first thing I say is, okay, today is the best that I will ever live. And this is going to be a really great day. And I'm going to learn things. And every day I have to do that. Wow. In order to keep myself from going on MSNBC to figure out, like, to check the score.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How long this, from waking up through the mirror routine, whatever, is it, we were talking about like half an hour every morning now? I'm a slow person. So I'll say that it's more of a 45-minute process. Because also what I do at nighttime is every night before I go to sleep, I will write the 10 things that I want to achieve. Like right now, I want to successfully turn in this endgame record that I've been sort of holding hostage. That's a major fear of mind, like working on this thing without my manager who's always been there.

Tariq and I have to now communicate with each other. And, you know, we have to be the grownups and drive the car. And we're used to someone driving the car and settle in arguments and all those things. Just general, like, I'll write 10 things that I need to achieve. Just every night. I used to do just Sunday nights. Sunday nights just write the 50 things I want. Right now I'm a habit of...

10 every night. The 10. Because a lot of people think that creativity comes from inspiration. And it comes from like you're going through your day. And then all of a sudden like, oh, I have an idea for an opera or a poem or a song or something. And it comes down and it's almost like divinely inspired. But I always like to hear people talk about creativity as well from a discipline standpoint. And like there's a dailiness to it.

And sometimes it's a grind. and sometimes you don't feel creative, but it's in that constant kind of like working out, the flexing, the motion that allows for the inspiration to come in. I'll tell you where it comes from. And I'm 100% right about this. Okay. Bortem is your best for it.

Silence is your best for it. And I don't do it every day, but I'll say that at least three times a week, I will sit sometimes on a Saturday from like maybe 1 p.m. till like 3 p.m. I'll just sit and do nothing. I guarantee you by...

No phone? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. At the maximum, maybe probably the 36 minute, an idea is going to come. And then I'll write it down and instantly I'll either call my manager's there or Sean, my other manager,

like something like, yo, what do you think about this? What do you do it? So whenever like I have those like spurts of, what do you think about this idea? Isn't this a problem in the modern world? There's no boredom anymore because. And that's why. I remember in the 70s, like,

so I was born in 66, so I spent from four to 14 in the 70s. My memory of the 70s is boredom. 70s equals boredom. And that's why. And that's why you are where you are right now because... I don't know about that. But I just, I do know that for kids these days,

there's no such thing as boredom because you're sitting at the doctor's office. You're doing this. You're in the train. You're doing this here. There's always a distraction. There's a game. There's a TikTok video. There's a podcast.

There's something to fill the time. So here's the deal. Remember those five parts of the brain? Alpha, beta, theta, data, gamma. Yeah. Gamma is the smallest part of your brain. I think they called a panero gland or and it's one job is to

sort of provide you with whatever chemicals that your body normally produces the most popular of course like if you're an accident adrenaline you know if you ever been in a car accident you're like hey I'm not hurt but then the next day you're like I can't walk your body knows ah to clean up one out six It's feed them adrenaline.

Serotonin is, that's the, that's the stimulated thing. So when we are overstimulated, go back to ground zero, just so that you can feel it again. Like if you're, if you're just constantly living highs and highs and highs and highs, you're going to be numb as hell, you know? Like when you do the Wimhoff breathing exercises. I feel like I'm going to pass out. It freaks me out.

Well, you ever know, like, okay, so the first time I did it, Um, yeah, and I started, I started seeing white and I thought, oh, God, I'm about to have a cardiac arrest. Like, and they were like, no, you idiot. Like, you literally got to the place of ecstasy. And because our bodies are, there's a study that basically says that human beings can only take 13 to 14 seconds of pleasure or goodness before they start evidence sorting. why they don't deserve it. If you ever had like a really good feeling and suddenly you're like, wait,

did I turn the oven off or where are my kids at? Yeah. It's kind of a pre-programming. We resist any good feeling because we don't like being tickled. Like if I start tickled, oh, stop, stop. Or any of those like overstimulate. And that's because we're just programmed to not feel good.

And so basically... Is that way orgasms last like 13 seconds? And then... So I read a book... I read a book where it's that feeling... The feeling is actually supposed to be like somewhere closer to nine minutes. But we cut off...

We cut off that pleasure zone like to seven to nine seconds. But literally... So the reason why... Okay, so yeah, I read a book where they're like, well, if you want to know... Is it a tantal? Manric sex. Yeah.

If you want to feel that feeling. Yeah. So I started doing the, the whole thing is that you can feel that feeling without the messy result of it. So your brain feels in that constant state of ecstasy all the time. And when I first did it and started to see white, I was like, oh, hell no. It took myself out of it only to realize that, oh, yeah, you're right. Like, I didn't know what this feeling was.

is feeling off, yeah, instead of going through the doorway. We don't know, like, we want what's familiar. And sometimes pain is familiar. Sometimes feeling bad for yourself is familiar because at least you know what's coming. So if you ever ask, like, well, why did I choose the wrong relationship or why do I keep choosing the wrong person? It's because we know what's coming. Like, what's more scarier?

Like, when you meet the love of your life or that sort of thing and you don't know what's going to happen and now your heart's into it and, oh, what if I get my heart, broken. What if I could? And then, like, that's the scariest feeling in the world. And this is why I believe the, the, the, the, the cheating version of this is, yeah, you feel the same thing when this is why some of our greatest musicians turn to the H word, you know, or whatever the drug of the moment is now. Like, that's, that's running in the, that's cheating the bank line on a Friday. Okay, let me just rush to it. But the natural way to get to that natural. or high that we're speaking of is those breathing exercises. And when you get to that state,

that's where the, that's where the ideas come. That's where the information download happens. And so, yeah. I love that you're providing all these tools like boredom, Vimhoff breathing, kind of twilight waking, personal affirmations. And again, we're, we're talking about like where does create? creativity come from, but as one of the most creative guys on the planet, you're showing a kind of a discipline around it that is pretty staggering. I imagine it's pretty surprising for people listening right now. Like, whoa, there's all of these 10 things Amir is daily engaged with, and that allows a portal for creativity to come through. Well, I have to do it because if you don't,

What I'm doing right now is not normal. How so? I want to get out of it. So another thing before 2020 was I was known for a lot of jobs. A typical day in 2017, yeah, you know, had a hoodie business, taught at NYU, had a podcast radio show, did Fallon. I was scoring commercials, scoring movies. I was DJing a lot.

Oh, in the roots. Oh, movies. There's the Questloves food, culinary thing. So, like, I was close to 17 gigs. And I learned that, oh, the way that I self-soothe and self-medicate is working. Jobs. Constantly working, constantly working. Which is, by the way, a culturally sanctioned addiction, I believe.

Workaholism. But that's fighter. flight. And that's not good. And it's not good. And it's an addiction. And but yet you're lauded and feted. Like, look how much this guy works. He works 18 hours a day. Well, my dad was one of those like, again, respectability politics. Like my son works hard. You know, we grew up idolized in James Brown. What's his tag? The hardest working man is show business. Like hard work. And, but there would be sometimes where I'm just like, wait a minute, I don't think Jay-Z is getting up at four in the morning. Like, I've, my level of success, I feel like my level of success is I'm in the same

building as Jay-Z, but I'm the building super, you know, I'm running to apartment 23C to fix with the plunger. Yeah, yeah, I'm the guy that's like fixing the windows and painting and they're going to, go-to-go-go-go-do-go-do-do. And I looked at all the, air quote, successful people and I'm like, they don't know what work is. Like, they just say it and it happens. And yes, here's the thing also. I believe that there is a metaphysical space for darkness as it is the light. Like, if you kind of look at the supervillains that we have right now,

they're all saying the same thing. You know, I am the greatest. da-da-da-da-da-da-da-there-a-da-da-da-a-there-a-d. But then, I mean, there's the light version of that. But I kind of feel like the light people, you know, we're, fear is real. Yeah. Am I scared in this particular environment? Like, if I'd speak out too much or, you know, will something happen to me? Like, but we, we kind of need the math elites versus the athletes. We kind of need them to grow up here and step the game up. And it's, you got to train yourself to get out of, am I to I am?

And so there's a dark version of affirmations now, which is kind of why we're questioning, like, well, wait a minute. Like, is there such thing as the truth and the lie? Like is the truth, I believe that there are facts. We're kind of learning that the truth and a lie might be subject for debate. You know, am I lying if I tell you my agricultural school is one of the most successful schools on earth? I don't have an agricultural school right now in 2025, but is it? Wait till next year.

Is it my plan to do that? Yes. And so great example. In 2021, like after we won Sundance and after like, you know, the Disney people are sort of like, you know, like there's a possibility that you might. I'm like, get out of here. Like nothing good is ever. Instantly you start what I call manna fucking. Instantly you start manna fucking like, oh man. I love that. Man of fucking versus manifesting. I give that to Lauren Zander. She's like, if you ever use my word, you better credit me for it. I was always like, get out of here. Like, that'll never happen to me. Like, yeah, okay, we got lucky with Sundance. But after four, after three months, then my person sort of was like, okay, you're going to have to train your mind to get out of this.

Gee, all shucks. Like, nothing good ever happens to me. and it's like you have to start owning it. And so maybe in three months, it took me like three to four months to actually say, would you like to win an Oscar mirror? And I'd be like, well, you know, it'd be cool to be nominated, but, you know, and like a lot of artists that you see who are so, like, too cool for school, like I used to think Miles Davis was so cool because he would always turn his back to the audience.

And no, we're all in the self-deprecation place because we don't want, we'd rather quit before we. we get fired. And so it took about six months for me to say with a straight face, I am an Oscar winner. And then to go from that to really talk to myself in the mirror. And, you know, my coach is like, all right, every night, I want you to give your acceptance speech. And you know how still you feel like in the shower like, okay, so I want to thank, you know,

all the girls in the balcony and da-da-da-da-da, like every Michael Jackson speech I ever saw, like accepting an award, like. getting into that habit, like you literally have to train yourself to think on that level. It's kind of how Jay-Z did it. That's kind of how, like, that's literally how Muhammad Ali, his tagline is, I am the greatest. Well, that is a tricky balance you talk about. You know, what is the, I am the greatest, I'm puffed up. There's narcissism.

There's an ego. There's a version, you said, like a dark side. There's like the dark side of the force that comes with those affirmations. same time, if you're always undermining yourself and downplaying yourself, then you can't arise for what you are created. And for me, that's dark too. We just don't know. We think like humbleness is like, oh, no, not me. But to me, that's, that's the even darker place because you're doing it to yourself. Yeah. You're poisoning your own well. You're keeping yourself down. Yeah. And yeah, I view it as like we rise to what we were created for. And I think, you know, for me,

I'll put it just in terms of God, like God gave me certain talents and faculties and abilities. He gave me a lot of weaknesses and fucked up parts and dark parts and character defects. But my job is to cultivate that garden that has been divinely given to me. Not to take up more space. I don't want that, I don't want that garden to become the New York Botanical Garden, but not to limit it either with a bunch of weeds. like how do I rise for that which I was created? You know, there's this great theologian Buchner who says like, you know,

where you live is like where your deep gladness and the world's deep need meet, the world's deep hunger meet. So I just love that. That phrase for me always sticks in my head. What is my deep gladness and what is the world's deep hunger and where, Where is that intersection? And how can I allow myself to rise to that? Not overtake it.

It's not willpower and muscle and bullying and sharp elbows. But it's more Tai Chi, but it's also not limiting myself. I feel like you have to empty yourself. There's a lot of bitterness in my life. a lot of Jack Nicholson Joker where they get a load of me kind of revenge thing

I went to I relate Yeah my great example is I went to my 20th reunion And you know This is This is me like

Kind of going in there With a kind of like Not a pro jam Jeremy sort of not with those intentions. But, you know, like, there are many times where every time a boys to men video would come on at home and my dad would just look at me like, there you are on the couch. Like, you know, like, how come you ain't doing? Like, that sort of thing.

Yeah. I will admit in high school. So if you're asking me, like, how did I wind up, how do I wind up to get safely to 2020? To have that turnaround. And this could probably answer your question, if anyone's ever wondering, like, how do megalomaniac narcissistic people get in the power? I was one of those people at 16, you know,

that couldn't get the girl come home crying and just looking at myself like, never again. You know, like I willed. I'll just grow. Yeah. Yeah. Like, be famous on TV and they're going to know. you know, like, I feel like that level of like revenge, I'm going to get the, like, I'll show them energy, which, you know, a great example.

Michael Jackson created off the wall in 1979 was one of the biggest, like neck and neck with, I think, the long run by the Eagles, their last album before, you know, the endless reunion stuff. and he got dismissed and only handed like two obligatory like R&B things and and he literally was like this is a failure I will not be denied so Thriller was like his revenge like he had two or three top 10 hits off of off the wall he had four but he saw that because he was also raised by a do it again you're not perfect you're not perfect you're not perfect you're not perfect so when you take in that epigenetic people pleasing, then you become it.

And that was, I believe that that was the fuel that kind of set my wills in the motion up until 2020. Now I'm in a place where you know, I literally want to, I want to leave the world

way better than how I found it. Was there some kind of breakdown? Help me understand. You're talking about kind of the classic kind of like self-will ego-fueled path and then a big pivot into surrender and into allowing kind of the wins of the creative universe to take you. And, you know, I give up.

kind of in a 12-step kind of world. Was it just COVID? Was it? So a big part of the therapy I went through in 2020. I was saying in 2020, I had to empty out a lot. 2021, I had to refill and love myself. And then 2022, I had to recognize and acknowledge and validate my dream. So in 2020, probably the biggest obstacle of trauma my past was my kind of loving slash contentious

relationship with my father. Yeah. And it took months and months for me to really, like, cry it out and just. He had passed away at this point, right? Yeah, he passed away in 2016. And the weird thing is that his passing, he actually, he did me a solid. it like on his last week of life. We had that it was almost like something out of Magnolia.

I'm sorry, I'm the king of like making movie references. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, there's the dying father and Phillips Seymour Hoffman is the nurse. And yeah, yeah. So, you know, there's a moment where like I'm just sitting at his bedside. And, you know, we're talking. So that makes you Tom Cruise? Yeah, exactly.

I'm Tom Cruise sitting. Oh, God, I really was Tom Cruise. And so there's, you know, he's lying in his bed. And he gave me the, he gave me the storybook kind of perfect ending, landing thing, where he's just like, look, he's like, I've been doing a lot of thinking. And, you know, you got to understand that, you know, raising, raising a kid, especially a black kid in the Nixon 70s and the crack 80s and all those things, you know, there's like between my grandmother's house

and my house, there's like maybe 33 neighborhood friends that I knew of. There's probably four of us left now. And so, yeah, I mean, death was just so common casually like, oh, you know that I got shot the other day. What? Ah, damn, it's messed up. And then life goes on.

So he basically said, look, I guess he compared to fatherhood as kind of like, you're given instructions to IKEA furniture that you don't know how to put together but you got mere seconds to figure it out. And he's like, I made a lot of mistakes along the way as far as like the harsh way that it treated you, the corporal punishment,

the groundings, the forced rehearsals and all that stuff. And, you know, not until like my fourth album was he like really super encouraging. like it was always like, well, one day you gotta get a real job because, you know, this ain't going last forever. And, yeah, he was just that type of safety. And that was probably programmed into him, never enough.

It's not going to be enough. Yeah, yeah. He tried. He's got his dad's voice and his ear. You're not going to amount to anything. Family was not encouraging of his music career. You know, that's the devil's music. You should be singing about God only.

Like, that's where we were as people. But he was like, look, at the, end of the day, like, it's every parent's dream, you know, like, I had a hand in creating somebody that's like whose names will be mentioned in the record books. Like, you'll, you're, you're here forever. And that makes me so proud. And, you know, I can kind of leave here knowing that I created something in the world that's going to help the world out one day. And it was like always the thing you wanted to hear. Which, of course, to me, like, you know, driving home.

That's such an ancient arctuple thing. Like, I'm proud of you, son. Just those words. And I felt he meant it. So as a result, I had to do like a lot of therapy and just the trauma of the beatings, the trauma of the criticisms, the trauma of the you're not good enough and do it again, do to get that sort of thing. Like, I had to learn to let that go.

So it took about a year to just empty my chamber and kind of rewrite. Like, now I feel like my dad's my best friend. Like, I literally had to reprogram myself to. Do you have a relationship with him, having him passed? Do you commune with him in some ways? Yeah. Because I definitely, my loss my father in 2020. Wasn't from COVID, but I definitely had.

have a kind of a dialogue that continues. Yeah. I feel a presence and I feel a connection. I'm not too much of a woo-woo guy, but it's very, very real for me. I'm very woo-woo. Are you familiar with the person named Laura Lynn Jackson? No. I did not know who she was.

She has a very popular show on Netflix. Somebody was kind enough to gift me. Like a psychic thing? She's a media. A reader? Okay. She's a medium. She has the most, like I did my research after our sex.

Extra large. Well, really? Not a medium. Oh. Come on. Dad joke. That was perfect. I was thinking of if I was a DJ, I would be either DJ Dad joke or DJ Dad Bod.

What do you think? Dad by is, that's everyone's word now. Yeah. That's everyone's word. I got gifted her for my 50th. Oh, nice. First 15 minutes, a lot of cynicism and all right, yeah. Okay, sure.

Anyone would know that. Okay. Yeah, but she killed all that shit in 20 minutes because she started saying stuff that only I knew about. Like literally, I put the phone down, like, run and ask my ex-girlfriend like, yo, is Siri on in this house? Like, how does she know? Or did you tell her about the? Because how does she know that? And literally that four-hour session was one of the greatest things to ever happen to me.

me because it allowed me to really receive him in my heart in a loving place and not in the that's home the house better be clean and you know that my relationship was always from a place of fear yeah like things must be perfect no mistakes yeah and it'll that was very very key and me getting to that place where I was able to forgive them and then once that was done Then the next year, I had to work on things like making list of things that I like about myself. And that was hard as fuck. You know, because I always thought just like, well, yeah, people like me, but I don't think I'm too lovable or no one really likes me. And I guess because I have all these things that, you know, people, I guess, are around to, you know, I just never, I never thought I was a likable person.

So I had to reprogram myself with that. And then by 2022, which is the hardest things like writing your dreams. Because literally the first exercise was, name 100 things that you want to do for yourself. And then when I turned the list in, they were like, yeah, okay. I see what the problem is here. And I was like, what? And he's like, well, for starters, not one of these things says to love yourself better. like you put getting new,

an automatic curtain opener for your mom's house. That's one of your top hundred dreams. Right. Like literally, she was, you know, it was like, well, the first 68 things are for other people. Like, you know, to get your sister, da-da-da-da-da-da-and, buy your mom, da-da-da-da. Get your friends and do-da-da-da.

So. Like, you didn't even think about yourself until, like, number 78, and none of them were loving things. like, you know, lose weight by, it was like number 78. So she had to reprogram me to have real dream. So threw it away. All right, write me a hundred more.

And nope, not good enough. And so she was programming me to really honor myself by it. So you've talked about how you want to make a difference now. You want to give back to the world. You want to make the world a better place. I need to wrap it up. What does that look like for you? how you've done so much for American music,

for American black experience, for movies, for music, for rap. What do you have left to give? What is this next, what does the end game look like? I believe right now what I'm able to do, I definitely knew that from henceforth, whatever I do creatively, has to have some sort of component

that could be a seed planner to make someone think, oh, okay. So, for example, with Summer of Soul, I didn't realize at the time that joy, you know, joy is such a kind of a light and a ass word that I think people take for granted. Because, again, like dealing with emotions and those things, you know, especially with men were taught, you know, that emotions are a sign of weakness or vulnerability. So I didn't realize that joy was just as important to the black experience in the 60s for civil rights as what you know about us. Civil unrest, protesting, pain, suffering. Right. And so sacrifice.

Joy was just as important. And I didn't realize that I unlocked the chamber where people were like, this made me happy. So that was kind of me accidentally fall into that. With the Slime and Family Stone documentary, I was. wanted to make a piece about, I wanted to answer the question, why do we self-sabotage? I come from a community of creatives that get very successful. And the next thing you know, you're asking yourself, why are they doing this? Why do they show up three hours late to a show?

Why do they wait decades before their next product? Why are they burning every bridge possible? Are they trying to get canceled on purpose? Like, what's happening here? And because a lot of us feel when we get chosen, and this is the Sly Stone story, Sly was the first recording artists, black recording artists,

that was kind of given everything but the kitchen sink post-civil rights. So unlike James Brown and Chuck Berry where they couldn't stay in the same hotels as they're entertaining, it's like what happens when I give you everything you ever wanted? Oh, everything every wanted. Like you want all the

women, you want all the success, you want to all the riches, and then-da-da-da-da-da-da. And he gets it. And what happened, but the thing is when you get that success, there's such a feeling of guilt, of being the chosen one, of being and you can't take everyone

with you. And so what happens is he self-sabotages his career. And when he drops that baton, the person that's going to pick up that baton will be 10 years later, and that's Michael Jackson. So everything that we know about what happened with Michael, like after 82, when Thriller comes out, should have happened to Sly Stone. But it was like, oh, too hot, I can't hold that baton. So why do we self-sabotage? Why do we self-soothe? Why do we

feel the need to mess up right when our glory moment happens? Yeah. And then with Earth, Wooden Fire, or even with Saturday Live, which is not necessarily... You just did the documentary on the set, the music of Saturday. Yeah, the music of Saturday. The importance that that musical legacy had, people don't often think about that in terms of the show. So I knew that's what was going to attract people. But if you look at these 16 stories that I tell that lead to that, they all have the same

arc, which is basically, which leads to this book, which is basically someone is presented with a premise or a challenge, there's trepidation, there's hesitancy, there's fear. Eddie Murphy does not want to... Eddie Murphy thinks that James Brown singing about a hot tub is one of the dumbest ideas ever. I'm not doing it.

Jimmy Fallon is not going to do what Lauren said and knock on Mick Jagger's door and say, hey, we should do this bit together. Literally everything that's presented comes in the name of, oh, I can't do that. You talk yourself out of something, and then you just take that brave step forward. And, oh, look at that. You just, you just change the, you paradigm shifted culture with something amazing.

Yeah. You know, so every story is that. I like the Elvis Costello Radio Radio, which is such a pathetic song to get booted off the television for, you know what I mean? Like, oh, it's, I want to bite the hand that feeds me. and, but it created in Saturday Night Live this idea like, oh, if you tune in, you just might see an artist, something rogue. Something rogue and like that you will, that is uncontrolled and spontaneous, that you will not see anywhere else on television. And so it literally defined an era of television.

So I don't, I don't want to spoil or alert it, but now I need you to watch it just so that you could be like, oh, really? Like, I get under everything we ever heard about Saturday Night, Ashley Simpson, the fear of the punk group that allegedly like me, two hundred, a quarter of a million dollars of damage. So you're going to learn that as a creative, not to be afraid and just show up and your life might change. And then, of course, where Earth would and Fire, I want to teach about metaphysics and how self-belief positivity is not a corny thing. thing, how to affirmation. So right now, I believe I'm in the seed planning business. And yeah, I will say that. I love that the seed planning business. I'm in the seed. Yes, I'm in my. You're sewing seeds of joy and possibility. You could say that as a storyteller. Yes. There it is. And so that's my own style. That's beautiful. One thing we ask every guest on the show is here's a,

Here's a really hard word to define, but no one better to define than you. Okay. How do you define the word soul? Soul is a feeling, but you have to allow yourself to feel. Now, I don't know if this is true universally. I do know that with black people, emotions were historically not allowed, like our arrival here. Yeah. you weren't allowed to cry or you got beat.

If you got angry, worse happened. Even if you laughed, I didn't even realize there's a term called, you ever heard like, oh, that was a barrel of laughs. I didn't know that on the plantation, they would get a barrel and put in water inside it. So if you ever felt like you were going to have a panic attack or get angry or cry or even laugh, you run to the barrel,

duck your head in, and the sound suppresses what you feel inside because there was literally penalties if you expressed any emotion. Wow. Like the very first recorded song in history for a black person,

a gentleman named George Johnson's called The Laughing Song. And the laughing song was damn near like the NWA fuck the police of his day. He's torning the fact that he's allowed to laugh. ha ha ha ha ha I can laugh I can and not get penalized because again it was like we'll share with

the rest of the class and if it's not funny or if you're making fun of some then you're getting lashes so literally we invented cool now I know sort of like soul food like cool is like a sexy thing like oh man that are not so cool but cool literally means to be devoid of emotions you know you have no more you can't read them think about like Prince is so cool. Da-da-da-da, so cool. You can't read them. There's no emotions there.

They're not happy. They're not sad. They're not angry. They're just... Birth of the cool. Yeah. But what you're doing is you're hoarding those emotions inside you. And that's how disease starts.

And we have a problem with expressing that. So soul is a result of... It's a way to release things. So when you hear James Brown screaming, when you hear Aretha Franklin letting out that note, that's therapy that they don't know that they're going through. So soul is a feeling. Putting music aside, spirit and soul and the connection to.

Soul is still a feeling. Yeah. I still feel like it's a feeling. And, you know, we just live in a time where you said, like, we're the last generation of boredom. To have known boredom. Because we, that means we have to feel. and now it's like, oh, let's just over-stimulate ourselves and never stop.

And we don't have to feel anything. Right. So soul is a thing. We see how that's working out. Well, the loneliest generation. Hopefully this conversation will see plant. We're going to plant some seeds. There you go, yeah.

Amir. Thank you so much. Questloaf. Long overdue. Long overdue. Thank you so much. Thank you. Your time.

Beautiful stuff. Thank you. The Soul Boom podcast. Subscribe now on YouTube, Spotify. Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get your stupid podcasts.