The Questlove Show - Questlove Reaches Into The Mail Bag & Answers - February 6

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

In this mini “musings” episode of the Questlove Show, Questlove answers listener questions and opens up about his love of certain breakfast cereals, his current morning gratitude and breathing rituals, and his ongoing work to become a more succinct communicator. He reflects on waking up to the music of his late friend J Dilla, the work of painter Ernie Barnes, and balancing creative projects including a new song and an Earth, Wind & Fire film. Quest also shares his ideal getaways—from omakase in Japan to luxury train travel—and invites fans to keep sending questions through the QLS channels.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast, guaranteed human. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me, Clivert 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 Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 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 Slical 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 once. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg, a lesbian. 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 Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. 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 can 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 QuestloveSupSupstream.com. And, you know, we'll be recording these a few times a month where I'll basically, you know, answer letters. So people pointed out that I fist pumped at Samara saying it.

Can you explain why Caput? is my favorite breakfast cereal, Captain Crunch. Specifically, I love peanut butter Captain Crunch. I'll be honest with you, the attraction to cereal, especially if you were in the 60s and 70s born, is they used to put prizes in the cereal. And, man, Captain Crunch had the most innovative, probably the best thing they ever had.

It was like a car. And you needed a balloon. You blow the balloon up. You attach it to the car. And in the air of that balloon, what we, was the car down the, not down the block,

like four meters. Yeah, but it was all about the, the prize that you would get out of the cereal. And so living at my grandmoms house with all my cousins, early bird gets the worm, man. Get up Saturday mornings at like 6.37

when Courageous Cat, Minut Mousses is on. And the thing was, we were not allowed to cheat. You were not allowed to put your hand inside the box or your dirty hands in the box get your dirty ass out of that box my grandma um you have to naturally let the the prize fall out so you know that's why i love captain crunch how do i spend the first hour of my day today specifically all right i overslept a day i got up

at 830 normally my body clock wakes me up at like 5306. 7 a.m. And I do my morning routine. I do my gratitudes. My gratitude is five minutes of whatever I'm looking at. I'm thinking. Like right now I'm thankful for incense. I'm thankful for Stevie Wonders songs in the Keep Life record. I'm thankful for my crystal collection. I'm thankful for eucalyptics flowers. I'm thankful for the color red. It's just an exercise of gratitude. I do my breathing exercises for about 10 minutes. It's 2026, so one of my therapists is requiring me to write out my goals. I've been procrastinating.

So procrastinating is one of the, or stalling. I was supposed to turn in my 2006 list in December, and I have yet to do it. So I got to work on that. Then I listened to the brand new song that I created two nights ago. that Tarek's very excited about going to make some changes to it. I approve the credits for the Earth Wouldn't Fire movie. And then and push back to the feedback I got for the Open Mike Eagle episode. There's a book that I got that teaches like leaders or journalists how to be direct.

But even based on this, I'm failing because, you know, I'm answering a question that should easily just be. 40 seconds. It's nine hours. Anyway. So yes, I am actively learning how to be a succinct communicator because that's an effective communicator. And then I got out of bed and here I am at my day job telling you what I did today. All right, I hope that answers your question. All right, so the next one is I asked Malcolm Gladwell this question last year and he really liked it. So my producers put it to me.

What piece of art do I wish I discovered earlier? As far as music's concerned, I wish that I was a year early to J. Dilla. Huteep got to J. Dillah's World in 94. I got to J. Dillah's World in 95. Wish I had that extra year just to be even further enlightened. As far as art is concerned, I got very lucky. I went to the Jim Henson slash. Charlie Chaplin Studios.

Shout out to McGee and John Mayer for saving that institution, by the way. And before he passed away, artist Ernie Barnes. Ernie Barnes, of course, being the artist who did all the artwork for the Good Times, sitcom, you also know his paintings as Marvin Gay's Sugar Shack cover from the

I Want You album cover. So before he passed away, way, he wanted all of his artwork, all of his sketches, to go to the Jim Henson Studios. So when you initially get there, it's just unindated with like 300 art pieces, just hanging all over the walls, like everywhere. There's even a copy of Sugar Shack. I believe Eddie Murphy owns the original Sugar Shack. And when they put me hip to the fact that all of his artwork was there, I asked the

manager of the place like can I acquire one of these? They're like oh my god yes we're trying to get rid of them so um I got very lucky uh right before the pandemic and I purchased uh three of his pieces uh which now are kind of priceless like I wish I would have collected his stuff earlier I know that um in one of Kanye West's houses uh he commissioned earning Barnes to paint his ceiling, sort of like a hood version of the Sistine Chapel over in Italy. So, yeah, I wish I'd kind of acquire Ernie Barnes's words, you know, earlier. All right. So someone asked, if I had a week to myself, where would I go? And why? If I had a week to myself, I love going to Japan because the food there is just otherworldly.

Yeah, any place with grade A, omacasi sushi, that's how I get down. Way to my heart is taking me to an omicasse spot with quality sushi. Yeah, Maui, Maui in Hawaii where Shep Gordon is. I love going out there and just, oh, man, so beautiful. Also, you know, I love Portland. I love Austin trains. I think, all right, if you're just, you know, if you. Given a week, my new thing is train travel, luxury train travel.

You know, Soul Train is my favorite show, and actual trains are my favorite mode of transportation. So I would probably go to South Africa. I believe South Africa has the most riteous, fanciest train travel. Like they have a line that sort of coast the entire coast of Africa from like northern all the way down to South Africa. I think it's like a four-day or five-day excursion. So that's what I would do. Lastly, where is your next vacation? Chelsea Handler and I spoke about why she loves Spain so much.

Actually, Chelsea is our guest today on the Tonight Show. This is where I am right now doing it. I'm a guy that travels a lot so vacations aren't to me. Like vacation is work and being home is very. vacation. But yeah, you know, I love world traveling. So again, shout out to those cities I mentioned earlier, like Portland and Austin and Tokyo and Hawaii and the UK. I still love it there. I used to live there. Anyway, readers, thank you so much. I hope this answers some of your questions. And yeah, can't wait to do this again. And remember, you could submit questions through

QuestloveSupSupreme.com or comment it on your questions. YouTube, IG or Spotify episode pages. Make sure you follow us also. We need the numbers. Or, you know, try Facebook, Messenger or IGDM. But yeah, y'all, just keep it on the comments on Spotify or YouTube, all right? And make sure you like and subscribe, all right? Like and subscribe and review this podcast.

And thank you for the feedback. And we appreciate you all. And, uh, all right. Thank you. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me. Clivert 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 I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for 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 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 Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.