Questlove is one of the hardest working people in the music business. He’s the drummer/bandleader for The Roots (whose current gig as the house band on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon has them on TV 5 nights a week). He curates and performs weekly “Bowl Train” DJ sets at Brooklyn Bowl. He’s a music historian, maintaining a famously massive collection of records and studying a diverse array of genres and time- periods. Now, he’s adding “Internet Radio Show Host” to his lengthy resume, with the upcoming September 7th launch of his new program “Questlove Supreme” on Pandora.
According to a new story in the New York Times, Questlove has always been excited about the possibilities of producing a radio show that would open listeners’ eyes to more than just the biggest and most heavily promoted music of a specific genre. “I want a world in which Drake’s ‘One Dance’ can also live with Frank Zappa’s ‘Uncle Meat’ can live with James Brown’s ‘Talkin’ Loud and Sayin’ Nothing,’” Questlove said, “and all stops in between.”
The new show is the result of a meeting Questlove had with Pandora last year. While he was initially hesitant to get in bed with the company after some past issues with musicians regarding royalties, he was shown the company’s its system for categorizing songs by hundreds of precise musical attributes, called the Music Genome Project. Intrigued by a technology company that was as obsessive about the fundamentals of music as he was, Questlove immediately began discussing new projects and Pandora’s first artist ambassador.
“Questlove Supreme,” the first product of Quest’s partnership with Pandora, will be weekly three-hour radio show with wide-ranging playlists and guests including the actress Maya Rudolph and the singer Kimbra. The puts the eclectic tastest of the host on display. He describes the show as an extension of the music courses he teaches at NYU “the black nerd version of NPR.”To prepare for each show, Questlove said, he goes through about 200 songs. “This is a commitment deeper than any girlfriend I’ve ever had,” he said, “or any diet I’ve tried to stick to.”
With his exhaustive attention to detail and his seemingly endless music knowledge, “Questlove Supreme” promises to be some pretty incredible radio.