Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson
Questlove is an American drummer, DJ, music journalist, and record producer. He is best known as the drummer of the Grammy Award-winning band The Roots.
As the son of doo-wop star Lee Andrews (of Lee Andrews & the Hearts), Thompson was exposed to music at an early age. He was performing on drums by the age of seven, and by 13 had become a musical director. His parents then enrolled him at the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, where he was exposed to a wide range of music and other performing arts. In 1987 Questlove co-founded The Roots with high school classmate Tariq Trotter. He has been with the group ever since. The group is now the house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
Questlove has also maintained an active career in music outside of his work with The Roots. He has produced for artists such as Common, D'Angelo, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, and Jay-Z, and more recently, Al Green, Amy Winehouse, and John Legend. He has played drums on albums by Christina Aguilera, John Mayer, and Joshua Redman, to name a few, and was one of a handful of musicians picked to back Hank Williams Jr. on a new version of "All My Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" for the season premiere of Monday Night Football.
The list of Questlove's side projects is equally impressive. In 2001 he helped create The Philadelphia Experiment, a collaborative instrumental jazz trio with bassist Christian McBride and avant-garde jazz pianist Uri Caine. In 2011 he teamed up with Parisian star Keren Ann to present Philly-Paris Lockdown, a one-night celebration of 1900s Paris that took place at the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts. The two were joined by a slew of artists to present an event awash in jazz, classical, and hip-hop styles. The collaboration reworked compositions by Satie, Ravel, Debussy, and Stravinsky.
In addition to the list of awards and nominations he has received as a member of The Roots, Thompson was awarded an Esky for Best Scribe in Esquire magazine's 2006 Esky Music Awards, was ranked #2 in the "50 Top Tweeters in Music" by Rolling Stone, and placed 8th as Rolling Stone Reader's Pick for "Best Drummers of all Time."
Related Events
