The Questlove Show - QLS Mini: Revisiting The Open Mike Eagle Episode

Episode Date: December 27, 2025

The Questlove Show is providing mini episodes that offer bonus content, special features, and answers to questions from our podcast audience. On this mini, Questlove revisits the most recent episode with guest Open Mike Eagle. Ahmir speaks about doing the What Had Happened Was pod with Mike years ago, the significance of a glowing album review, and more. Make sure you catch the full episode to appreciate this bonus note.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me. Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media.

Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfills of conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to The Clivert Show on the I-Hard Radio app,

Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok. This week on the Sports Slice podcast, it's all about the NFL draft. And we've got a special guest. The director of the NFL's East West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galco, joins the Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects. From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make to the players flying under the radar.

This is the insight you won't hear anywhere else. If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice Podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slica Life 12 and TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Owens, correct? I doctored the test ones.

It took an army of internet detectives to. to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Gillespie and Michael Mancini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police.

As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, They take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this.

He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wood. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell.

My dad gave me the best. advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right. It wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to thanks dad on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Questlove show is a production of I Heart Radio. What's up, good people?

This is Questlove. In addition to our weekly interviews of the Questlove show, I'm going to be doing some things periodically where I'll tell you a little bit more about a guest or what's going on in my life. I think they call this musings. You know, another thing we want to do is take your feedback, take your questions, and I will answer them to the best of my ability. So I'm giving you the listeners a chance to engage with,

me. You could DM me to either the QLS account. Matter of fact, only DM the QLS account. Don't DM my account because I barely check my own account, okay? Follow QLS on IG or go through questlove supreme.com. And, you know, we'll be recording these a few times a month where I'll basically, you know, answer letters. Today we're talking about this week's Open Mic Eagle episode. All right. So when I did the Open Micke Eagle episode, I think I discovered him by accident. This was a period in which you could not find De La Sol streaming.

So for some reason, I went to the next Bex thing, which I was listening to a bunch of Prince Paul stuff. And the next thing I know, I saw what had happened was with Prince Paul. And I decided, okay, I'm going to listen to it. Mind you, this is also during the pandemic. and it's in the pandemic in which I'm doing things on the daily, like walking three miles in the countryside.

Or sometimes I'll just drive three to four hours upstate for no reason at all. Like you remember how isolated and bare bones it was. So that's kind of where I did a lot of catch up on podcasts I would otherwise not have been privy to. So when I listened to the entire Prince Paul episode of what had happened was, dude, I was just so mind-blown. Of course, shortly after that came the LP episodes and the Dante Ross episodes as well. I don't know. I became instantly obsessed. And I was hesitant to reach out to him because I don't feel like I'm overexposed, but I almost feel as though because of the OK player website.

that everyone knows everything there is to know about me. Like, what more could I tell or share? But Mike actually got some crazy stories for me. To hear Mike say it, after the third or fourth episode, he realized that he's only been asking me maybe two or three questions of the 20 questions he has prepared for me. Because if you talk to me, I'm going to lead you down a rabbit hole. which some say could be beneficial or detrimental to my career,

depending on what my publicist thinks. But pretty much at that point, the reason why I was so open with him, literally about every step of those four albums, organics all the way to things fall apart, was that at the time I happened to be working on the slide doc, the slide in the Family Stone documentary, You know, being as though at that time it was my second film I was working on, I noticed that north of 60, people start to forget things.

And I didn't want that to happen to me. So I never officially went on record about what Mike himself says is the greatest story in the history of that podcast when I told the infamous most deaf. Sean Dedy Combs's showdown story. Yeah, those are the things that, like, I think with time I would have forgotten. So that podcast was probably the perfect destination for all just the small detail things that otherwise probably would not make a documentary or some sort of memoir or whatever. So, I mean, I think he should be Dr. Mike Eagle. Like, he should be hip-hop's official therapist.

I think I've mentioned this on previous QLS tapings, but, you know, I found out sort of, in retrospect, that I would occasionally freak people out because I don't ask casual questions. Like, people say, you know, Q-Tip will call me to ask a casual question like, yo, man, let's go get dinner. And I will be like, hey, what was the two snares that you used on clap your hands back in Midnight Marauders? Like things that he's not thinking about. And because I'm such a technical sponge for information and Park Griott, I guess, storing that information, I figured this was the safest way for me to bond with my peers in a professional setting because. everything that you've heard on QLS, like, I would probably do in real life. Like, basically, as much as I talk about the Jimmy Jam episode, I will say once a week, I've added five additional questions to Jimmy Jam.

And now I'm to the point where Jimmy Jam and I are on, like, 1 a.m. status. Like, I won't hesitate at all to text him at 2 a.m. to ask about how come whenever you write a.m. for Janet Jackson and never rhymes or just like things I should be asking on a podcast. So that's just the nature. I'm a curious cat. I would definitely like to go further into our canon. You know, the roots come alive. Oh, God, there's, I probably have more stories behind the roots come alive the first round

than I do with any roots album whatsoever, only because like I specifically remember certain things happening. Like, for instance, I think I weren't having about this on social media. I used to pack in my suitcase Dr. Bonner's peppermint soap, like the gallon, the big gallon thing. And I'm not thinking about the fact that when it gets in an airplane, the air pressure will cause that thing to explode. And of course, three of those songs on The Roots come alive were actually at Alicia Mont in Paris that Therique rhymes about. and you got me. So the thing is, is that with maybe two hours on the clock

before we hit the stage, I had quick decisions to make and there was no laundry mat. So I was like, okay, let me just take my boxers, which is all drenched with peppermint soap. Let me hang it out on the balcony of my hotel. And of course, I hung up for two hours or whatever. It was dry, right? Wrong.

So we get to hot ass Elisee Moman in the summertime and by song to a sweat connoisseation like has now gotten to my boxers. And when I tell you, you've not, it's basically like putting ghost pepper on your genitals. To this day, the Roots say the best drum solo I ever done in life was at that show. And that wasn't because of skill.

It was because the pain I was in getting stung by peppermint soap. So stories like that. Man, one of the biggest shock of this year, a pleasant shocker, was seeing Mike get an 8.5 in pitchfork. I know, and I'm a man of my word, like when I tell you that after creating Summer of Soul, I've decided to stop my obsession with any critical algorithm. I mean, I've joked, not joked, very truthful, that I used to almost, not absolutely, not

hourly, but at least daily look up our Metacritic score. Metacritics like the rotten tomatoes of music and, you know, like there's a, as far as I'm concerned, as long as the roots are above an 80, that's like straight A's, especially for a group with 17 records. Like, most people have like six really good records and the rest is just like whatever. But I realize that my obsession with looking at our critical analysis from music periodicals and online, really just dealt with the fact that we only had the record deal to depend on. And, you know, our survival really depends on us having a record deal. Well, that is not the case now, you know.

If anything, making more. records is now just a luxury to me. And so while I'm in that state of luxury, I've not read as much reviews as I normally used to, but I got to admit that I had to look. I saw someone congratulate Mike for getting an 8.5 and I was like, what? And I've read it. And I don't know, man. I'm just so, like I was happy the way that De Niro was happy, that, that Joe Pesci was getting made in Goodfellas. One of us made it. It's just important because, especially from that particular digital publication,

you know, true art isn't for the critical gaze. And some of the most critically acclaimed people I know never read their reviews. They, you know, like purely create it. But for me, just, just to see somebody get over the very hard to please hump of that digital publication meant a lot to me. Like, so I think maybe vicariously I read it as, you know, that's how I used to look at reviews. Like read the review first and look at the number and, phew, okay, got another chance, you know.

Well, you know, until then, this is Questlove and I'll catch you next on the Questlove show. All right. A win is a win. A win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Cliford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media.

Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Cliford Show. This is a place for raw, unfilled conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to The Cliford Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Kourner. Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. This week on the Sports Slice podcast, it's all about the NFL draft,

and we've got a special guest. The director of the NFL's East-West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galko, joins the Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects. From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make to the players flying under the radar, this is the insight you won't hear anywhere else. If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice Podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slica Life 12 and TikTok podcast network on TikTok. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Owens, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Gillespie and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young.

This is Love Trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe, on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wood. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there.

Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human