The Questlove Show - Questlove Reaches Into The Mailbag & Answers - February 1

Episode Date: February 1, 2026

On the latest “minisode” of The Questlove Show, Ahmir answers questions from the audience—ranging from his top five TV theme songs (pulled largely from 1970s and ’80s television, with plenty of context and backstory) to reflections on some of the show’s most challenging interviews. He talks about why asking personal questions matters, especially when guests struggle to elaborate, and how those moments can still unlock something human. Quest also shares anecdotes about the technical challenges of syncing music to film, his love of off-beat rhythms, and the lasting influence of J Dilla.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. 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 Clifford 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 IHeard 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, for 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. Ellen, 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, 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 IHeart, 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 Questlovesup supreme.com. And, you know, we'll be recording these a few times a month where I'll basically, uh, you know, answer letters. So we have a message from Executes on IG asks, what are my top five TV theme songs?

No particular order. The theme to Barney Miller. Funky bass line. But we used to do the Barney, like Google or YouTube Barney Miller theme. Very funky. Number four. You know it's weird.

One, it has a very odd title, which is a song called Suicide is Painless. suicide is painless is also known as the theme for MASH. MASH was, I've never watched one episode of MASH, but the second you heard that theme, no matter where you were, if you were my age, you knew it was time to go to bed. So whenever I hear MASH, suddenly the next thing that happens is, go to bed.

So suicide is painless, the theme to MASH. The third theme I will mention is the Bobby McFerrin version of the comedy show now known as the Huxable household. I can say Huxable, right? Yeah, as you know, each season, there would be a, I love shows that do new title cards each season each season or spices it up and does new things. the all-acopella Bobby McFerrin version of that comedy show with the Huxable family in it. That to me is a very notable. When you start harmonizing with a theme, that means you're onto something. So I will say that that's number three.

Okay, this is weird. There's a piano player named John Costa. I believe he's Pittsburgh-related and jazz musician. and he's the sound of Fred Rogers, which we affectionately known as the Mr. Rogers neighborhood show. As a child of the 70s, that's one of the shows I was allowed to watch. A very friendly, you know, like, it's so weird that it would just very little, very little to work with in terms of instrumentation.

somehow John Costa just absolutely sort of conveys warmth and emotion and his entire scoring, the theme song and the closing song and things in between as well. Probably my favorite thing of that whole show is the sort of sign-off production tag, which is the last thing that you hear. There's a really long arpe. arpeggio at the very end of the show. It's like seven, eight seconds. And that is the comforting, like if I think of a comforting moment in my childhood, that's the soundtrack to it. Just that last eight second arpeggio thing. But my number one theme song of all time comes courtesy of my

all time favorite television show, which is Soul Train. Now, Soul Train is going through various themes. The most iconic of them, of course, was written by two legendary Philadelphia producers Gamble and Huff the sound of Philadelphia. Soul Train, Soul Train. That's the most iconic one. But that's not my favorite Soul Train theme. The best Soul Train theme of all time comes courtesy of an artist named O'Brien.

And that's the 1983 to 1987 Soul Train's a Coming theme. There's two versions of it. Shout out to my boy DJ Nick Puzzo, who likes the original version only, the LP version, which is cool. I mean, it sounds like Zap or like West Coast, you know, trunk music. But the remix version of Soul Transit Coming, the late 83 to spring of 87 version to me is the best. And actually, to add on to Adela theory, Jay Dilla's mom made note that the sort of offbeat clapping of the final scene in the Cosby Portier trilogy movie, a piece of the action. If you're a movie theater aficionado of the 70s, you know that Bill Cosby, Sidney Portier made some classic films together. I'm not counting ghost dad.

Well, I think Portia directed ghost dad. But, of course, I'm talking about Uptown Saturday Night, absolute classic. Let's do it again, absolute classic. A piece of action is not as strong as the first two, but it'll do.

I believe that's the acting debut of Shirley Ralph Emmy Award winner, Shirley Ralph, as a teenager. But at the very end, it's a story about a school teacher in the public school system and there's a scene at the end where someone brings out a boom box

and they all start dancing. But, you know, when they make movies, they have not been a device that will let you listen to music in real time and also have dialogue without bleeding, music bleeding or dialogue bleeding. So oftentimes what they used to do was just have people dance to nothing.

So if you're ever watching a movie and the music's, not matching the movement. It's often because the director just says, enrol. And they'll just dance to anything. Nowadays, I just did a cameo on the new Mindy Kaling show, her new project. And there's a music scene in there. And what they do is they just play a click track. So they'll be in like a nightclub setting or whatever. And you'll just hear, and you're supposed to respond to that. but when the editing happens, then they'll insert the song that's supposed to be in there.

But in this case, a piece of the action, they're clapping to a song, but once they added the staple singer song to it, the clapping started to drag. And a 10-year-old James Yancey took note that, wow, why are they clapping off rhythm? And that was his eureka moment. So for me in Soul Train, there's a half hour mark in the theme.

And in that theme, there's an editing glitch. And the editing glitch causes the clap to be delayed as well. That's sort of the reason why I like playing offbeat, like just as a tribute to that, my favorite theme. So they're my five favorite themes, executes. All right. Okay. next Mario what's up Mario says question from the mailbag

all right much respect for you having the late great legend Frankie Beverly but it was a hard listen because he really wasn't providing much in the way of details and his answers since you've always been finding your way with interviewing how do you feel when you have a difficult interview

do you do anything special when the Franklin Beverly interview was done would you just treat it like it was any other show it's hard to know what type of guest you're going to have when you're in this type of situations. Oftentimes

there is kind of a sigh of relief on the end of the artist who will usually give note back that, wow, I never did an interview like that. Oftentimes I like to ask questions that no one asks.

I learned this probably during Sline the Family Stone. There was a two members of that group that I interviewed that started to tear up at the end because they said to me like, wow, I never knew how important it was for someone to ask me, how do I feel?

I purposely, in the sly and the family stone, documentary asked, hey, how do you feel about something? Which is different than tell me about when blah, blah, blah happened. Because how you feel? feel causes you to question yourself and your emotions. That's how you know a person's human.

And oftentimes, we're not treated as human. We're treated as product. And artists are especially treated as product. Tell me about your new album. Now, sometimes I just want to ask, where'd you have for breakfast today? But in the case of Frankie Beverly, Frankie was, yeah, kind of north of 70,

but regardless, we felt it was necessary to give him his flowers. So that's why we titled it, Frankie Beverly gets his flowers. Previously, I will say that the Roy Ayers interview was a little bit difficult. We weren't prepared because he had sort of spotty memory on things. And sometimes you just got to go with it. I, too, had a lot of questions. I had read Jan Gay's book. Jan Gay is wife, widow.

She just recently passed of Marvin Gay. and in her book, I believe it's called After the Dance, I think. And she talks about her time with Frankie Beverly. And that was her version of stuff. Wow, we. Okay. So, yeah, I had a lot of questions pertaining to Marvin Gay, discovering him, and also his time in Philadelphia and all that stuff.

But nevertheless, I'm glad to have gotten one of his last. interviews, very honored for that. But, you know, sometimes you just, it makes you a better communicator. I just say that having a conversation with people, sometimes you're just not prepared for how open someone is. But I enjoy it nevertheless. But thank you for your question, Mario. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me. Clever Taylor the fourth. You might have seen the skits, my basketball in college, football journey or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford 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 Clifford show on the IHeart 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. 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,

for wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slice of 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 Marencini. 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 podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.