The New Yorker Radio Hour - Why Play Music: A Conversation with Questlove and Maggie Rogers

Episode Date: September 27, 2022

Earlier this month, two acclaimed musicians—Questlove and Maggie Rogers—joined The New Yorker’s Kelefa Sanneh live onstage for a conversation that probed at an essential question for musicians and music lovers alike: How can music provide a spiritual experience, and how do we sustain that feeling in our lives? Questlove—the co-founder of the Roots and the musical director of the “Tonight Show”—was one of Rogers’s professors while she was an undergraduate at New York University, and the two have stayed in touch. Rogers received a 2019 Grammy nomination for Best New Artist, after the release of her début album, “Heard It in a Past Life.” Onstage, both musicians reflected on the space that the pandemic has given them to turn inward, finding a more sustainable path in their careers. “Music is not a job, it’s a way of being,” Rogers said, to which Questlove laughed. “I’m glad you know that at twenty, because I had to learn that at fifty,” he said. Rogers also performed songs off her new album, “Surrender.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Maggie Rogers came on the music scene in 2016 when she was 22 years old and had a viral hit song called Alaska. I was walking through wasty streams that took my breath away. Westwood water over glist. Rogers' debut album wound up on a lot of best-of-lis, and this summer, she released a much-anticipated follow-up called Surrender. And I don't know if this is considered a hot take in this room,

but I think it's even better. Please, let's remind her how excited we are to have her in this building, and on this stage, Maggie Rogers. Staff writer Kelle Fasane Welcome Rogers to the stage at a New Yorker live event just a couple of weeks ago and the evening was something special

because she was there to talk with a mentor of hers, a musical legend, the renowned hip-hop artist, producer and band leader, Questlove. Now let's turn things over to Kelifasane.

I knew about Questlove way back when he was merely considered the greatest drummer in the history of hip-hop. That was a lot of, long time ago. These days he's everywhere. Co-founder of the Roots, musical director of the Tonight Show,

six-time Grammy winner, recent Oscar winner, and the director of a forthcoming Sly Stone movie. I can't wait. Many of us think of Questlove as a kind of musical professor, but Maggie, he was actually your professor

at NYU. What did you learn? Nothing. It was pretty remarkable. It was my senior year of college, and I was taking a class on Michael Jackson's Thriller.

And in the middle of the class, Prince died. And so it also became a class that was really about 1999 and thriller. And I think it was the week that we were studying the correlation between the two records.

And yeah, it was awesome. You're making me feel really old. day we had nothing like that in college. I mean, I think it was a very specific like NYU, like we're going to do the thing course. And my day, we had nothing like that. I had to create it. Yeah. And thank you for doing that. Yeah. Did you remember Maggie? What, what impression did you have of her back then? You know, it's weird. You know, it's weird about that particular class because there are so many standouts. I mean, take a day trip guys who produce. Yeah. All the logistics. And that was the

first time in which I was like in my head by the second week I was like oh no these students are smarter than I am and like normally I'm kind of a know-it-all in this very specific area but it's like now I have to go home and do three-hour studies on certain synth patches and drum machines

and all those things I was going to say I would think it would be impossible to stump you. You talked about like Michael Jackson and Prince. What's the discussion like when you're talking about musicians like that? There's a general theme that initially I was doing a study on, I'm really obsessed with why people sabotage momentum. And a lot of times artists might be in a position where they get to a particular pinnacle. And then they do something called the departure album, which is kind of a cutesy artistic way of saying, I'm scared to, you know, a tempest Thilman Louise jump over a mountain cliff. And so especially with the thriller situation, I asked a question last year beforehand, which is basically like, how many of you are

familiar with thriller? Like at least I've heard it. Most of the answers of those 28 students were sort of like, yeah, my grandmom has that record. So it's like only like six of them, maybe heard it once or twice or three times. So I thought that was sort of an interesting way to go. I had never really listened to Prince before. Right. Which I grew up in like rural Maryland. There was a lot of bluegrass growing up.

My parents weren't super into music. My little brother has really sensitive hearing. Like there were all these reasons where there was some. a lot of music, if it was just me and my mom, and then I got to music really like self-discovery as I was growing up. And it was so sick to hear Prince for the first time as like a 22-year-old in your class. I can't imagine being a college kid. Questlove is your professor and he assigns you Prince. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty magic. He's like, I think you're going to like this record. I didn't even pull out the bells and whistles. Like the first year, like the Beastie Boys came for like,

finals and I had Wendy and Lisa from the revolutions come in and teach class and then Did DeAngelo come to Not my class? Okay that was the year before Like by the fourth or fifth year I felt confident enough that I didn't have to pull out any bells or whistles so

Sorry about that Mac I mean but I definitely remember your version of Billy Jean Really made an impression No but it made an impression on me and and Harry My co-teacher Harry Wagner

who completely forgot about this who runs like Universal's reissue Yeah The assignment was to remake Billy Jean

And of my But she did a departure version I chose to go yacht rock And that's That's when I realized like Oh damn She I think

I think she She might She might be the ones because I was often wondering, like, of all my students, which ones, you know, like, will I be backstage in 10 years? Like, Questlove. Okay, I'll wait out here. Questlove, talking with his former student Maggie Rogers at a New Yorker live event earlier this month in Manhattan. Staff writer Kelifacei hosted, and just ahead, we'll hear a live performance from Maggie Rogers. More you wait, the more you break.

that it takes to undo all the knots that you've been tying on cherry stems and black... This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. There aren't many things that I enjoy

more than listening to great musicians talk about their craft and the meaning of what they're doing. So it was a real treat for me to be in the audience during this conversation between Amir Thompson, better known as Questlove and Maggie Rogers. Some years back, Questlove was teaching at New York University,

and Rogers was one of his students. In 2016, just after finishing NYU, her career took off. But after building a big reputation in the indie music world, Rogers hit pause, and she went back to school, Harvard Divinity School. So here's Rogers and Questlove, joined by the New Yorkers, Kellefassana, at a New Yorker live event, to talk about music, religion, and much more.

Well, I think in the pandemic, I started really thinking about what I wanted from my life, but also I started asking a lot of questions about what music means to me and what are the things that mean the most to me, how do I define success, what do you do with power when you have it? And the most sacred moments I've ever had in my entire life have either been on stage or in a crowd around music. But I found when I finished touring, heard it in a past life, I was so deeply burnt out.

And I also hadn't been creative in a really long time. There was this mismatch of trying to tour, exhausted my body and brain so that I couldn't and write music, but filled my soul so much because I was feeling so connected. And the sort of third part of this was really wanting to create some sort of sustainable system for myself, where I could really think about how to move within this industry and this craft in a way that could make me as creative as possible. and in that sort of as free as possible.

But also if I really am going to sit here and talk about the spirituality of music, I then really need to go think about what does it look like to decide that's a spiritual discipline and what is the relationship between the artist and the audience, and what are the ethics of holding that. So I don't know if I have a ton of answers, which is also sort of why I love studying religion because there are no answers. But that's why I went to school. Now I have a question.

Yeah, I bet you do. It's like we're meeting for the first time. Yeah, I think so. Well, no, I'm curious. How old were you when you truly felt like the joy and the discovery of music? Like, where just magic was happening every day. And this singer and that singer and, you know, you're making secret tape. Well, I'm dating myself with music.

tapes, whatever. The, like, magic, as I have this memory of laying on my living room floor, listening to classical music. Okay. And my mom told me that there was a story there, but I had to hear it. And I was just, like, picturing what all these instruments could mean and trying to, like, decode this secret language. But then, I don't know, like, middle school is when I, like, was making tapes and was just, like,

so deep in. Okay. So the reason I want to ask that, because I think I had to discover two years ago, I have to figure out where nine-year-old Amir is, you know, and somehow I lost that. You know, the pandemic either meant that you were going to heed the call of the universe and realize what your destiny is and return to. to the essence of where you should be in life or you're just gonna sort of succumb and panic to death.

And you know, I did a little bit of both, but you know, for me, I'd often tell people now, like the goal is just to be eight or nine or 10 or 11. It sounds like for both of you, there is this notion of maybe protecting yourself a little bit or finding a way to protect yourself. And you, you know, you mentioned Michael Jackson, I think you've talked about like Britney Spears and these people that are like consumed by their fans or their so-called fans.

And it makes me wonder, what is that relationship, that, that hunger, that greed that people like me, people who love music but aren't musicians and just want a new album and want more music. What is that relationship between the fan and the musician? Are we the enemy? if you're the enemy I'm the enemy too because I want that in the same way I mean I think so much of my interest in this comes from having this unbelievably deep reverence

for music and for the process as far as the like fan artist relationship the word that I have become way more comfortable with other than fan is community because it to me deeply feels like an ecosystem where when I sit down and write down

my most vulnerable feelings for sport or a profit it's often this moment of when someone hears that or connects to it it's often this moment of feeling like I'm not alone like you know what it is to be me And the best songs communicate human emotion as simple as possible. Like I always think about I want to hold your hand by the Beatles.

And no matter who you are, you know what that feels like. And I think that music, when it's at its best, has the ability to remind us that no matter who you are or who you voted for or what's going on in your life, you know what it's like to feel sad or you know what it's like to feel joy. And those central emotions connect us. But we also know that sometimes our favorite music does not come out of joy, right? Sometimes the music that we love comes out of, like, really hard times. And sometimes as a listener, I realize, like, yeah, my favorite artists, I want them to be happy. Sure. But what I really want is great music.

Not to Mary J. Blige fans. Like, if I ever seen a conversation about, like, fans are depressed when she's happy. Right. But they love her when she's depressed because, you know, they're evidence sorting for their own emotions, which is sad that, you know, we often do that. But, you know, I don't know. For me, it's weird because even as I try to explain this to you now, I'm realizing why I taught those courses at NYU. you because I think

pre-pandemic I came from such a hard self-deprecating place with my art that every Roots album would be a complete 180 from the album that came before. So, you know, it's almost like

artists will try to ruin something, you know, like I'll quit the job before you fire me. And And it really took a lot of working on myself in the pandemic to sort of ease out of that place of comfort where it's like, you know, I have to be depressed to make music or like that. Even the artists I work with, the first thing they say is like, I mean, I got to get back with my ex so I can have some arguments. And, you know, and it's so, like, embracing joy is such.

it's almost like a taboo. But I think now, at least with this generation, like they're turning that narrative around where you have to embrace joy. But that's Questlove the musician. Like, you're also a listener. As a listener, do you embrace joy? Or I imagine as a listener,

you still love some music that is kind of dark. You know what I do now? So I challenge, like, because now that you know me as the director is coming in i think that i there was a fear that i was going to lose my my music jones like i had a routine where every sunday um i would listen i would force myself to listen to any music that would be like a lot of times when we go on our our playlist thing it's always like we have our go-to mix and we listen to the things that we're comfortable with and things that we know and

I'm like, okay, I want to learn new music. Like, surely there's 5,000 songs out there that can change my life. So I used to do this thing where every Sunday I'd listen to music or buy all these records in, you know, two to five hours. Just every Sunday, just listen to music and absorb it. And then once the movie happened, like, I started losing that routine and I got fearful. So now I have a new challenge. where I have about 300 people that every month I have to present them 30 songs. As I say this, I'm like, wait, are you on this list?

I'm on this list. Okay. Sorry. Yeah, but for me, and these are like 300 very notable figures in the world. And to me, it's like, okay, if you can satisfy these hard-to-please artists and find 30 songs that are like amazing, or at least, they'll connect to two or three of them. Right.

Then that will force me to keep my routine up. So it's like no one's asked me to do this. No one's paying me to do this. It's sick. Are there any former presidents on the list? What? Yes, there are. Ah.

Well, it started with him. Like, I used to make his playlist and then I slacked off. This is George W. Bush you're talking about? Vingo. I slacked off and then I guess in the summer it was sort of like hey where's my music you know that's what so so Maggie Rogers

Barack Obama and 298 other people I'm in for that dance party it's an impressive list but it's a good start it keeps it keeps the pressure on for me it's almost to the point I know like half half of my management teams in the audience like oh that's what you're doing at night instead of working on you know your synopsis whatever, but, you know, for me, like now I'm obsessed with, by the 15th, I have to have a fresh set

of 20 songs, and I'm only up to, like, 13. So when I'm done this, I'm going to dive into a thousand more songs. And I'm going to try and make it 301. I'll gladly add you to this. Maggie, how do you think about that? I mean, you take this time off. You go to Harvard Divinity School. You're thinking about what you need to just be okay. and to be functional as an artist, but you make this album that, like a lot of my favorite albums, is a little bit emo, or maybe more than a little bit emo. Well, I think that joy,

what I've learned about joy is that your capacity for joy only expands with your capacity for anger. I think those emotions are really similar. They both take over your body and have this swell in this way that you have to just, or you get to, just give in. And, you know, there was a moment, so much of this record is about joy, but it's also really about anger. And there was a moment where I was saying to a friend, like, how did I become the joy girl? Like, I am in so much trouble.

Like, what happens when I'm having a bad day? And someone wants to talk to me about joy, which I'm having an okay day. But I think that it's really not about are you ecstatic or are you so down. I think it's about your capacity to feel. And that is uncontainable. Maybe it's easier to recognize when we really feel super sad as a songwriter because the light suddenly is more beautiful and you're the main. character of the movie and it's raining.

Is this the notebook? Someone's calling to you. But I think noticing when life's really great is something to write about too. How did you think about which parts of your life you wanted to share with listeners and which parts you didn't want to share. I mean, you have, there's moments on this album, you know, there's, I love lyrics that don't feel like lyrics. Okay. What do I have? I know there's times, I can be a lot to handle, and I'm working with a therapist to take care of it, right? It almost just sounds like a sentence until you sing it. Yeah. How do you think about what you want to put out

there and what you don't? I mean, this is definitely, uh, this is the most vulnerable record I've ever made. I think part of that was because of the pandemic. I mean, I really came back to making music like I made my first records when I was 17. Like I had a little studio in my parents' bedroom and I was writing songs just to move through. I wasn't thinking about an audience. I was just thinking about what the truth of my life was and what I needed to say in order to be able to externalize it and understand it outside of my body. It's sort of been a different experience releasing this record because it's so private. I mean, I name check the person my best friend masturbates to.

Like, it's private. Check, please. And I believe Robert Pattinson is here tonight in the building. There's been a much larger, like, mourning phase in putting out this record and having to really like, I think we all got like a little bit emotionally attached to some things in the pandemic and like I put everything I had into this record. So it's been a different experience to release it. But as far as what I choose to share and what I don't,

when I make a record, I really think about making a record of a period of time. And so when I like play back the highlight reel, there are just moments that stand out in my memory. or I use records to write a letter to someone and the lyric you reference is a song called symphony where I was really speaking to a loved one and saying like, hey, it's going to be okay. I feel like a lot of my songs are me trying to be like,

it's going to be fine. Do you think as a music historian, do you think we're going to look back on this era and see it as an era when there was a bunch of kind of pandemic-related music made. I think that, you know, before 2020, maybe 1969 was probably like the banner year that people remember most in history, but there's literally no way that you can't. It's almost like I feel like this entire decade will be a paradigm shift and sort of a

a redefining of what is expressed. Like, just the fact that she feels free enough to being honest about her emotions. You know, I mean, and I know we've had the term emo or emo or whatever in music or whatnot, but normally it's almost like a way to ridicule. Not for me. Well, at least way back in the day, like, if anyone, like emotions, especially, you know, like black people invented cool, which cool. seems what it's supposed to be, cool, but really cool is a defensive mechanism,

which means, like, I can't show you emotions. Like, you don't, my poker face. Right. Like, oh, man, he's so cool. Like, cool is holding things back. And those things means emotions. And so I'm really glad that there are now people that are willing to take the sledgehammer and just break the walls down because, you know, as she said, like,

a lot of people in my generation are suffering greatly because they don't feel safe for the ability to express who they are or what they feel. And so I think this is an important step. So I got some questions from the audience that are popping up on my iPad. Someone wants to know anonymously, have you found it difficult to do? discuss your sense of spirituality with the people around you? In our everyday lives? Yeah.

Yeah, I can't shut up about it. Like, I don't want to be that guy that like, you know, it's a... I hate to use this cliche. Like, I had uncles that, like, came home from jail, and, like, they'll be, like, super hardcore, like, Muslim and all those things, and then, you know, like, they'll be on fire for maybe seven years, and then they'll slack off and, you know, everyone backslides or whatever. or whatever. But for me, I think I found spirituality more. And spirituality is basically tuning into yourself and finding yourself. You go inward with spirituality. And I think, you know, for me, I've kind of been on fire about it. So I guess those in my circle kind of do a proverbial

eye roll. Oh, here he comes again. Yes, we're meditating here. That sort of thing. But, um, But I think it's also important because, you know, I'm in a genre and I come from a people in which by my age, I mean, well, you know, back when the roots started and we were in our 20s, like not getting shot at the club was like the life goal. We're like, all right, we're not going to get shot in the park. And, you know, and then we turned 35 and it's like, oh, damn, there's a new thing. we got to not get cardiac arrest and we got to take care of ourselves. But, you know, by the time, a lot of my contemporaries, like, the fact that Flavor, Flav is one of the greatest things that I've ever heard in my life. Yes.

Because, you know, like, the fact that anybody that makes it over 60, like, ice tea, Chud D, flavor, flavor, like, I'm so happy because a lot of us are just succumbing at 51. 52, 53, 54. And, you know, I would have been, unfortunately, in that list if it weren't for the world stopping and for me to really take an assessment of what my life was for those five decades before. So, yeah, but people are tired of me, like, wake up, you know, that sort of thing. you know my friends and I all feel fairly existential

so it feels like a really natural conversation and also I've been in deep conversation about systems and of how we find meaning like that's all I've talked about I was actually I was with a close friend of mine in the music world who the other day was like do you ever wonder like why it all happens I was like, it's like, all I've thought about for a year.

It's like, it's my, yes. Why at all your success or why your life is words? I mean, I think to me, this is the interesting part because music is not a job. It's a way of being. Like, it's a part of you. I mean, to me, at least. Yeah, I'm glad you know that at 20 because I had to learn that at 50, you know. Well, I just, I know it because I feel it so inherently.

And that has been something I'm thinking a lot about. Sorry, I got so in it that I don't remember what I was talking about. Music's not a job. Music rocks. Great deflection. All right, good. Yeah. I love this question.

Someone writes, I'm here with my dad. And we've been talking a lot about how upbringings and family. relationships shape our trajectories, our lives, our future relationships. How would you say your parents, family, friends have affected you and your lives and your music? Big question. Yeah, that's a memoir. I'll read it. Do you want me to go first while you think of an answer?

Music rock. Professor Questwell. Those people that know me. Yo, I'm forever going to use that as a way to. Look over there. Music rocks. I tell people all the time I always attribute these two things to why

I am the way I am about music one I grew up in a show business family and you know rule number one in my household especially when you're the youngest person I lived in a don't touch my stereo household so as a result I would love to make people think that, yes, at the age of three, I knew the entire Nat King Cole catalog and, you know, the entire history of weather report in Miles Davis. But the fact of the matter is,

is that I wasn't allowed to touch the record player. And I had, you know, some sort of Stockholm syndrome way, like with my sister and my father, my mother, hogging the stereo, I had to take in all the music that they kept feeding me and feeding me and force feeding me. And, you know, it's like a musical version of Forg Rai or whatever. And so, wait, even I was impressed with that one. That's right. You know, and then by the time I'm 16, when, like, a lot of hip hop is sampling those records, then suddenly he was like, oh, I'm the smartest guy in the world because I

know what this music came from. But, you know, it's that, and it's also the fact that my dad didn't believe in babysitters. Like, babysitters really wasn't the thing until the late 80s, like a stranger watching my kid while I'm on the road. So I had to get on the job training. And as an oldie's doo-wop singer, you know, I was a seven-year-old in these nightclubs

making myself busy. Like all of this, like I would cut light gels. Like what 10-year-old you know is allowed to walk into a bar and like, okay, get a ladder and start marking? That was my job. Like to set the monitors and I would operate.

Like, I was the richest fourth grader ever, you know? I made $300 a week back in 1980. And that's because my dad, I had to work. It's like a farm. Like I had to work. So between not believing in babysitters, between don't touch my cereal and no babysitters,

like that's how this knowledge was sort of fed to me. I would like to think that I would have reached here on my own, but chances are probably not. I don't know. I think I'm really at the beginning of thinking about this question in general. I have, when I think about this question, I really like, I was afforded the time, effort, resources, energy, and love from my parents to be able to really explore what I was passionate about. And that was sort of the greatest privilege or gift. And there weren't people in my family

who were specifically interested in music. So it was really something I took ownership of. And when heard it in a past life came out, my mom called me. And she was like, I hope you know that you did this. And that like you were the one that asked for piano lessons. You were the one that like applied to music summer camps behind our back. Like you were the one that made this happen. Oh.

In a nice way. Yeah. Yeah, in the nice way. Not in a like this was your idea. I'm just like, I hope you take a moment to really appreciate this because this was something you really, like, intuitively pushed for. Before I get off stage, I just wanted to thank you, Maggie, and Questlove for being here. And, of course, thanks to everyone for coming out.

That staff writer Kelifasane talking with Questlove and Maggie Rogers at a New Yorker live event this month. We're going to leave you now with a performance from Rogers. It's the last song on her new album, Surrender. The song is called. called Different Kind of World. Thank you about the state. When we're riding all together, it's a different kind of...

Maggie Rogers playing different kind of world. To learn about many more live conversations, performances, and screenings, please check out the New Yorker Festival, which is taking place October 7th to October 9th. And all the details are at new yorker.com slash festival. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. Thanks so much for listening. See you next time.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. This episode was produced by Emily Boutin, Breda Green, Calalia, David Krasnow, Louis Mitchell, and Gauphin and Putabuele. Along with Jeffrey Masters, Willi, Jenny Lawton, and Michael May. And we had assistance from Harrison Keith Lyne and James.

James Napoli. Thanks also this week to David Ohana. The New Yorker Live event was recorded by Ed Haber and Irene Trudel. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Trurina Endowment Fund.