i stumbled upon Questlove 'admitting' that he'd slept on the NPG band after watching the 1992 Blu Ray from the D&P set. I was wondering what all of you thought. To me, as a listener of his fantastic Questlove Supreme podcast, I found it very odd. There are times when I listen to his podcast and I'm startled by what a historian he is. He seems to know a lot on a lot of musicians. I'm always impressed and you can tell he's not pretending. He actually seems to know what he is talking about from a wide range of musicans...Steve Ferrone to Ray Parker to Jack White to Greg Phillinganes, Steve Miller to Elvis Costello. Amazing.

So it is equally amazing to me that a man who is so so loving of Prince, would somehow miss the 90s period like he says he has. He didn't actually konw that the band was INCREDIBLE in the 90s? He wasn't aware that Michael Bland and Sonny T were possibly Prince's most amazing rhythm section...and consiering all those that came before and after, that says a LOT. He didn't realize Tommy Elm was a player of his calibre? What about Rosie? I just find it unbelievable. I can only think, he must be good friends with the Rev members and so, he isn't as open to celebrating the greatness of Prince's bands following. Live, it's not even a competition. Prince got exponentially better and more interesting post Rev.

I had that realization as well. It's a little weird. He seems to be very much into 80s Prince, but not much into 90s/00s/10s Prince.

Maybe that's why most Prince fans I know doesn't take him serious when he's pretending to be some Prince "scholar"

I figure out it's another case of don't bite the hand that feeds you, maybe?

I don't think Questlove is a psuedo Prince fan. This guy drops Prince's name in a really high percentage of his shows. I believe he's a major fan which is why I don't believe he is unaware of Prince's greatness all throughout and through the first part of the 90s. I mean, he seems to hold his own output live and studio with D'Angelo in very high regard...which is what makes me sort of laugh. D'Angelo and co could not do what Prince and the band did on the Glam Slam show. Simply, not able. That Glam Slam show is just incredible...just the Sacrifice song alone.

RJOrion said:

A lot of people in general don't understand the live prowess of Prince and his bands. While this was a very good band, they didn't mature until 94', at which point they were one of the best Prince bands ever. As to Questlove, a huge fan with some deep knowledge and access to some unreleased gems and outtakes by Prince, even if he hoards them for himself

Loved The Revolution, including the Parade extended Revolution. Loved the SOTT band. And loved the original NPG before it became a revolving door of musicians.

NPG: Sonny T, Michael Bland, Tommy Barbarella and Prince. Maybe Rosie too. Forget the silly dancers and rappers.

RJOrion said:

Questhate is a glorified Purple Rain teenybopper.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

RJOrion said:

The Love Symbol album proves the greatness of the NPG band...no other Prince album instrumentation sounds as good, or has aged as well...

TRC has aged better. Symbol albums production is cluttered af.

Symbol's like fine wine compared to the other 90s production. Dude started going HAM with the multitracking right around Lovesexy and didn't start tapering it back until Emancipation.

All the WB era 90s stuff is a big cluttered mess. Maybe that's why I always preferred the 00s. If he did N.E.W.S. in the 90s there'd be all sorts of cheesy Windows 95 bings and pings going on or something.

RODSERLING said:

I don't take Questoove in high regards. The NPG band and what Prince did with D&P in ymterm of hip/hop, bmwas better than The Roots.

The Roots were so friggin' whack, I don't care.

Whackass backpacker rhymes over lame instrumentals. "Live band" hip-hop, talk about missing the entire point. And I always found it condescending that the rock and metal kids at school who hated rap and sampling were always down with The Roots, like rap was only acceptible if it used "real" instruments. They couldn't name more than one rapper in that entire cornball crew but boy did they rep The Roots like they were the Mt. Everest summit of hip-hop.

Now look at their mighty Roots crew--"house band" for Jiminy Fallon, the corniest, cringiest host in all of talk show media. They truly deserve each other.

I'm glad Questlove at least confessed the few "original" elements of their style and his more "unique" beat patterns he outright stole from J Dilla, a true original/innovator.

[Edited 3/8/24 22:41pm]

Wow some of y'all have lost your damn minds. Questlove is a national treasure imho, and the Roots have made some amazing records. Blackthought is one of the greatest rappers of all time, and there's a reason why the whole damn industry respects these guys. The whole "soulquarian" era of hiphop and R&B was so incredible.

There are definitely some eras of Prince that I kinda slept on over the years, we all have our blind spots. Back in 92 there was a LOT of great new music coming out and Prince was starting to sound a bit corny especially with the Tony M thing. It was easy to pass on it, in favour of some of the other more exciting things happening in music at that time. Yes, in terms of pure musicianship etc we all love Sonny and Michael B and Rosie and those 90s iterations of the NPG, they are awesome but it is hard to compete with our nostalgic memories of the Revolution in terms of band cohesion etc.

Still, I really enjoyed the Glam Slam performance a lot and it reminded me in particular of how great Rosie was back then. I could live without the Game Boyz tho.

My personal take - the NPG of that era (early 90s) included some of the best musicians Prince ever worked with. But together they also made some of the worst music of Prince's career, including some feeble attempts at chasing hiphop trends. This also at a time when Prince was peaking commercially but also starting to sound a bit dated. But of course, the bands were always great.

We all have our blind spots. I really love the D&P era NPG, in the moments when Tony, Damon and Kirk kept quiet. But I can totally see why ?uest might have disregarded that band, it was Prince at his most commercial and poppy.

MsNia said:

Wow some of y'all have lost your damn minds. Questlove is a national treasure imho, and the Roots have made some amazing records. Blackthought is one of the greatest rappers of all time, and there's a reason why the whole damn industry respects these guys. The whole "soulquarian" era of hiphop and R&B was so incredible.

There are definitely some eras of Prince that I kinda slept on over the years, we all have our blind spots. Back in 92 there was a LOT of great new music coming out and Prince was starting to sound a bit corny especially with the Tony M thing. It was easy to pass on it, in favour of some of the other more exciting things happening in music at that time. Yes, in terms of pure musicianship etc we all love Sonny and Michael B and Rosie and those 90s iterations of the NPG, they are awesome but it is hard to compete with our nostalgic memories of the Revolution in terms of band cohesion etc.

Still, I really enjoyed the Glam Slam performance a lot and it reminded me in particular of how great Rosie was back then. I could live without the Game Boyz tho.

My personal take - the NPG of that era (early 90s) included some of the best musicians Prince ever worked with. But together they also made some of the worst music of Prince's career, including some feeble attempts at chasing hiphop trends. This also at a time when Prince was peaking commercially but also starting to sound a bit dated. But of course, the bands were always great.

We all have our blind spots. I really love the D&P era NPG, in the moments when Tony, Damon and Kirk kept quiet. But I can totally see why ?uest might have disregarded that band, it was Prince at his most commercial and poppy.

exactly right, yes. good band, great at times, but they werent writing the songs. prince was. and he wasnt writing his best or most interesting songs around that band. maybe you could say he was writing to the npgs strengths, or perceived strengths, and thats why he wasnt really pushing himself that hard. prince at that time had diff goals. prince in the 80s wanted to be popular and go against the grain. in the 90s prince wanted to more or less be popular and not go against the grain.

but basically, why would anyone think questlove, a drummer in a HIP HOP band, in the early 90s, would think a band incorporating hip hop not esp well would think that band was good? totally makes sense he would have dismissed the npg.

also, i mean, the npg were a good band, they were drilled by PRINCE so ofc they were going to be pretty tight, that goes without saying, but were they as tight as the 87/88 band? nah.

like someone else said, they got better in 93/94/95.

questlove is also prone to insane hyperbole when hes trying to make a point, so him saying they were incredible (ie 9/10) prob means they were really more like a 7/10.

[Edited 3/9/24 3:06am]

WhisperingDandelions said:

RODSERLING said:

I don't take Questoove in high regards. The NPG band and what Prince did with D&P in ymterm of hip/hop, bmwas better than The Roots.

The Roots were so friggin' whack, I don't care.

Whackass backpacker rhymes over lame instrumentals. "Live band" hip-hop, talk about missing the entire point. And I always found it condescending that the rock and metal kids at school who hated rap and sampling were always down with The Roots, like rap was only acceptible if it used "real" instruments. They couldn't name more than one rapper in that entire cornball crew but boy did they rep The Roots like they were the Mt. Everest summit of hip-hop.

Now look at their mighty Roots crew--"house band" for Jiminy Fallon, the corniest, cringiest host in all of talk show media. They truly deserve each other.

I'm glad Questlove at least confessed the few "original" elements of their style and his more "unique" beat patterns he outright stole from J Dilla, a true original/innovator.

[Edited 3/8/24 22:41pm]

did you ever even listen to from the ground up? or organix? dissing the roots cos they were a band, and just cos ppl not into rap liked them cos they were a band, so what? some ppl like bands more than programmed music. so be it. i love the 90s roots stuff tbh. i preferred them BEFORE they started trying to sound like a more regular rap group around 95/96. and i was into all other rap at the same time made with samplers so its not like im some guy who was saying 'but why cant they replace the sp1200 with a drummer?'. they might be backing fallon but hey, they just want a steady salary. i dont actually think the roots made as many good albums as they could have, ie albums more than the sum of their parts, but the parts were all excellent. and they have more than enough great songs in their back catalogue. they were never going to be a top tier group, but theyre a great cult hip hop group.

olb99 said:

I had that realization as well. It's a little weird. He seems to be very much into 80s Prince, but not much into 90s/00s/10s Prince.

.

That´s what I thought too. And those Prince YouTube lives that he threw during the pandemic basically focused on the 80s Prince. It´s weird to think that a fan who has so much music knowledge basically slept on the 90s

WhisperingDandelions said:

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

RJOrion said: TRC has aged better. Symbol albums production is cluttered af.

Symbol's like fine wine compared to the other 90s production. Dude started going HAM with the multitracking right around Lovesexy and didn't start tapering it back until Emancipation.

All the WB era 90s stuff is a big cluttered mess. Maybe that's why I always preferred the 00s. If he did N.E.W.S. in the 90s there'd be all sorts of cheesy Windows 95 bings and pings going on or something.

.

- Agree. I think it´s interesting that Symbol´s production sounds a lot more ´organic´ than Diamonds and Pearls in general, with only one year between them.

roots are GREAT, but this guy's prince opinions have always been narrow minded and dumb

lustmealways said:

roots are GREAT, but this guy's prince opinions have always been narrow minded and dumb

Never been a real fan of the Roots and whatever they were trying in Hip Hop.
and Questlove isn't worthy of calling of himself a Prince scho;lar if he can't even get the dates right to some of Prince's most wellknown shows from the 80s that he claimed to be some expert of.
Questlove is just a regular fan who pretends to be more.

"regular fan".

He has (had?) access to more unreleased material than the average fan, thanks to his connections.

olb99 said:

"regular fan".

He has (had?) access to more unreleased material than the average fan, thanks to his connections.

That still makes him a regular fan. Just because someone gave him a load of unreleased things doesn't make him some uber scholar or uber fan. It takes more than having a lot of material to be a scholar.
There are some out there with much more than what he has but they don't call themsleves 'scholar' or pound themself on theere chest like he does regading anything Prince.
Questlove is in the dark about Prince's output beyond the 80s so not really a 'scholar' in my mind he isn't even a 'regular fan' if he dosn't even know shit about those beyond 80s eras and can't even get wellknown dates right for legendary 80s shows.
Quest is just a Purple Rain poser.
It wouldn't surprise me if D'angelo was the 'real' fan in that crew and Quest is just some hanger on in Prince fandom.

[Edited 3/11/24 4:40am]

Some of the posts in this thread remind me of similar posts that crop up about Prince's past romantic partners. You sound like still hung-up ex-lovers. The guy makes one off the cuff remark and you pile on, giddy at having found in a chink in his armour. IDGAF about Questlove, I'm not white knighting for him, just pointing out the parasocial pile-on reflects more on you than it says anything about him or his fandom.

NouveauDance said:

NouveauDance said:

Some of the posts in this thread remind me of similar posts that crop up about Prince's past romantic partners. You sound like still hung-up ex-lovers. The guy makes one off the cuff remark and you pile on, giddy at having found in a chink in his armour. IDGAF about Questlove, I'm not white knighting for him, just pointing out the parasocial pile-on reflects more on you than it says anything about him or his fandom.

I thnk it's more that he pretends to be some high and mighty uber fan/gatekeeper when he just isn't with his constant flow of errors that people have a problem with.
But ok, you think this thing is incidental with him when it's not and people are just pointing it out.

JorisE73 said:

olb99 said:

"regular fan".

He has (had?) access to more unreleased material than the average fan, thanks to his connections.

That still makes him a regular fan. Just because someone gave him a load of unreleased things doesn't make him some uber scholar or uber fan. It takes more than having a lot of material to be a scholar.
There are some out there with much more than what he has but they don't call themsleves 'scholar' or pound themself on theere chest like he does regading anything Prince.
Questlove is in the dark about Prince's output beyond the 80s so not really a 'scholar' in my mind he isn't even a 'regular fan' if he dosn't even know shit about those beyond 80s eras and can't even get wellknown dates right for legendary 80s shows.
Quest is just a Purple Rain poser.
It wouldn't surprise me if D'angelo was the 'real' fan in that crew and Quest is just some hanger on in Prince fandom.

[Edited 3/11/24 4:40am]

what does real fan mean? that you have to love every single thing from the start to the end of his career?

its not that questlove didnt know the npg era, i remember his write up on prince in rap pages magazine from the late 90s or thereabouts so he obv did listen to that stuff. it just sounds like he has changed his mind.

with age, comes wisdom, or at least different opinions and perspectives. sounds like he just is hearing this incarnation of the npg differently to how he has done in the past.

everyone is allowed to change their mind.