Questlove Writes Essay About Prince's Music and Influence

Questlove has spent the past few days sharing his admiration for the late Prince. When news broke about the icon's death, he was one of many artists to convey shock on social media. During his DJ set in Brooklyn, he played Prince songs while Finding Nemo played on the club's screen (as a reference to the true story where Prince fired Questlove as a DJ and put on the movie instead). Now, he's written an essay for Rolling Stone detailing the impact Prince had on his career. "Much of my motivation for waking up at 5 a.m. to work—and sometimes going to bed at 5 a.m. after work—came from him," he wrote. "Whenever it seemed like too steep a climb, I reminded myself that Prince did it, so I had to also." He also detailed how, at age 11, his born-again Christian parents destroyed four different copies of 1999 that he snuck into his house. "Prince was in my ears and he was in my head," he wrote. "Starting then, I patterned everything in my life after Prince." Read the entire essay and find some excerpts below.

On a day he spent with Prince in Paisley Park:

By this time, Prince was a Jehovah's Witness, and he didn't stand for cursing. I slipped up. It wasn't anything too major. I think I said "shit." Prince had a curse jar; every curse cost a dollar. "But you're rich," he said. "Put in $20." 

On how Prince influenced his record buying habits:

He began to mentor me in musical matters, too. I wouldn't have started listening to Joni Mitchell without him. And that led me to Jaco Pastorius, who led me to Wayne Shorter, who led me to Miles Davis. I had a simple rule: if Prince listened to it, I listened to it.

On how Prince's B-sides were "the true mark of genius":

A song like "Something in the Water (Does Not Compute)" told me that Prince was not a regular person, or a regular musician. He had removed the bass from the original demo (at the time forbidden in black music, an innovation that would pay off even more powerfully on "When Doves Cry"), added a dizzying snare/hi-hat combination and delivered his vocals in a kind of ice-cold, almost robotic manner. It wasn't just one new idea—it was several, all together; you knew from that song and the album tracks around it ("Automatic," "Lady Cab Driver") that he was going to be the new breed leader.

via Evan Minsker