From the energizing power of togetherness,
to restorative moments of solitude.
From the love we show each other,
for the joy of loving ourselves
and our Blackness.
It's apparent on the screen that Black folks are joy
especially when we get together.
You'll see this for yourself
in the electric new documentary film,
"Summer of Soul."
Making his directorial debut, Questlove takes us
on a journey to the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival
which was an experience nearly lost
in history and time.
My colleague, the journalist, Pierre-Antoine Louis,
hung out with Questlove in Harlem to find out more.
Take it away, Pierre.
- Thank you, Veronica. Hey, family.
Once again, I'm Pierre-Antoine Louis,
"New York Times" writer and "How'd U Meet?" podcast host.
I'm so excited to be here in Harlem
with the phenomenal Questlove as he introduces us
to his debut film, the epitome of Black Joy and Music realness,
"Summer of Soul."
[upbeat music]
- The Revolution will not be televised
Will not be televised
Will not be televised Will not be televised
The revolution will be no re-run, brothers.
The revolution will be live.
[dramatic musical flourish]
- When did you find out about the festival?
- Okay, so I inadvertently
found out about the festival.
I was in Japan, 1997,
and unbeknownst to me,
I saw two minutes of the Sly and the Family Stone footage
at, like, some really hip restaurant in Tokyo.
You know, they were just painting, like, random soul artists all over their walls
and I remember seeing
Sly and his sister Rose.
They were doing a weird
vaudeville-esque dance thing called the hambone.
[laughter] You know, that's--
I was like, Sly and the Family Stones doing the hambone?
Okay.
But I saw it without any context
and I only saw two minutes of it.
So, naturally, my mind, I just thought,
oh, this is like some European music festival.
They must be in Switzerland or Montreux Jazz Festival
and that sort of thing 'cause I didn't see the faces at all.
Like, the cameras were far away.
And then 20 years later, 19--
I'm sorry, in 2017,
these two gentlemen,
Robert Fyvolent and David Dinerstein,
they approached me
about this mythical, magical music festival
that happened here in Mount Morris Park.
And he said Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone, Nina Simone
and B.B. King and Gladys Knight & the Pips
and, like, all these names... - Yeah.
- And they're like, over 300,000 people were witness to this,
and there's no record of it anywhere.
And, you know, I'm Googling all this stuff,
and I'm like, this didn't happen.
So in my mind, I was a little skeptical.
Like, oh, wait a minute, like... - Right.
- If this is the Black Woodstock, like, how come it's not up there in history?
Like, 'cause, you know, if it's on the Internet, it's real, right?
Like, that was sort of, like, my kind of position.
And sure enough, man, they showed me this footage
and I was just--
I was--I was taken aback
because it was real and it was magical.
The first thing they showed me was this live footage...
- Mm-hmm.
- From another camera angle, and I realized, like,
whoa, this is a bit--this is Harlem?
Actual Harlem? And they're like, yes, this happened.
And I was like, it was recorded, and nobody was interested?
Not anybody? And...
Unfortunately, that's the sad fact.
And that was--that was sort of the seed in my head, like,
you know, is our history that disposable?
- Right.
- Is Black eraser that casual?
Like, we're just the casual... [whooshes]
Throwing history away like that?
So I--that, to me, made me more obsessed.
We're getting to the bottom of this.
Like--so I felt more like a private investigator...
[laughs] Of soul.
This private investigator of soul. [laughs]
- Families, fathers,
mothers, kids running around--
I was one of those kids.
Beautiful, beautiful women,
beautiful men.
It was like seeing royalty.
- Especially when you think about the lineup--
when I saw the lineup, I'm like, how did we not hear about this?
And all you saw in the crowd was just joy,
people just happy,
and them just kind of needing this.
Can you talk a bit about joy and the importance of that
when it comes to gathering around music?
- So here's the deal.
It's probably best worded by one of our talking heads,
one of the festival attendees at the time.
He was 17, and his name is Darrell Lewis.
- Mm-hmm.
- Darrell is the father of Miles Marshall Lewis,
you know, great author, former journalist at "Vibe."
And, you know, like, I grew up with Miles' articles
in "The Source" and stuff.
And Darrell wasn't playing.
Like, we were trying to figure out the mystery ourselves
and he says, he's like, you know,
you just got to understand where-- where we were at that time.
Martin Luther King had gotten assassinated.
- Yep.
- And...
the prime purpose for this concert
was really just to keep Black people
from even thinking about any civil unrest
or riots in the streets.
That was the only reason why.
It was like, we gotta have something for them to do
and keep them occupied, and keep them happy.
And once the summer was over,
it was kinda like, all right, well...
- [laughs] Like... - We're done.
[laughs] We're good.
And you know what?
Actually,
what wound up sorta stealing the thunder
of what this movie should have been...
- Yeah. - Is Soul Train.
- Mm.
- So Soul Train becomes the--
the national paradigm shift
that affects every Black person in America.
And that's one of the first true examples
of Black joy.
You know, that Soul Train actually wound up being
the first true example
of Black joy and Afrocentricity--
and not--not-- not by default, you know,
because Soul Train was a powerful component,
and that changed my life. - Mm-hmm.
- But I will say that there's a-- there's a moment
in Prince's autobiography that always stuck with me
where he talks about how
seeing Woodstock at the age of 11 changed his life.
You know, it's 1970, he's 11 years old, and this is--
this is one of the rare bonding moments
that he had with his father as a kid.
And that was his come-to-Jesus moment
watching Woodstock on TV.
So--not on TV, in the movie theaters.
And, you know, I often wonder, like,
man, like, this movie could have or should have been that for me.
- Right.
- Luckily, I found a life in music,
another way to that promise, holy-- you know, that Promised Land.
But you know, what about the millions of others
that didn't have this film as a means to do that?
And you know, like, 'cause Woodstock
is way much more than just a concert.
It became, like, the defining moment of a generation.
- Mm-hmm.
- And this could have been that... both: For us.
- And, you know--
but this is powerful and potent enough to--
I still feel-- resonate and have ripple effect
long after 50 years after the fact.
This is still that powerful. - Absolutely.
I think you can still feel that way now, you know.
Something I noticed in the film,
just people walking here,
people walking together, being around.
How important do you think it is
for Black people to just have that kind of space,
just kind of be together and just be and just exist?
- It's important.
You know, and the thing is, is that it's so--
it seems such a casual, almost a trivial thing,
like, just to--just to exist,
and have a space of joy.
Just to have a good hour. - Yeah.
- Just to have, you know, a good day.
And it seems like it--
it's trivial, but I meant, we know that--
there are people I know that live hour to hour,
day to day, and then, you know, oftentimes, Black people,
a lot of us are living in fight or flight.
- Yeah.
- And when you're in fight or flight mode,
that really doesn't allow room for growth
because you're only thinking about your next hour,
you know, your next paycheck-- you know, I lived a life like that.
When I was a kid, oh, to--
like, one of the most dreadful sentences my parents could ever say to me was,
"Ahmir, you gotta go to the store and get more toilet paper.
You gotta run to the store," and now suddenly,
like, I become--like, I gotta navigate the block
and figure out which route to go,
how to avoid the school bully
and all this other things.
And, you know, just to get home unscathed
was like a victory to me.
And so, you know, and that's sort of
like just a light childhood tale.
But I mean, there are people that, again, a lot of us,
80% of us are living in fight or flight mode,
which every day is a fight to the finish.
And just to have a good day is an achievement.
And so yeah, I deem it highly, highly important
because you can't do the growth and you can't do the work
until you're--you're in a state of peace and you won't feel
a state of peace until you are relaxed and happy.
And so, yeah, we need that a lot.
Yeah, we do need that.
- Can we even, like, measure the impact
of Black culture to, like, society?
- Measure the impact? - Mm-hmm.
- You know, we are--
I feel like we are the--
the real life human equivalent of--
I believe his name is Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree," you know,
that book of a little boy that finds a tree
that practically gives its entire limbs to him,
you know, for everything as in toys, houses, boats, and whatever.
And then, you know, the boy's kind of selfish
and taking from the tree and taking from the tree,
and the tree, so selfless-- giving and then giving and giving,
and then at the end of the--
you know, the boy then becomes an 80-year-old man
and they chop the tree down
and the last part of the tree is the cane that the boy uses.
Like, every part of that tree gets used to help the boy.
And that's often us. - Mm-hmm!
- Like, where we give and give and give and give and give and give and give,
or most times,
we're taken from and taken from and taken from and taken from and taken from,
and you rarely, rarely see--
I mean, it could be content on social media,
it could be fashion choices, it could be our slang,
our music, even our--
our science and our math from centuries ago.
So you know, if--
I think I lived a life previously
where I just thought that a lot of these things
will come to fruition maybe in my 70s or 80s.
I figured like, okay, by 80, I'll-- we'll see our first Black president,
maybe--if we still have a country left.
[laughter] You know?
Like, those things. That's what I thought,
But now I'm realizing that
we're probably living in the--
maybe in a Neo reconstruction, if you will.
- Mm-hmm.
- So I'm witnessing that in my 50s, kind of a new beginning.
And it's, you know, time will tell
how we spent this particular period.
So I knew that this is my,
you know, my--
my contribution to our new beginning.
[cheers and applause]
- Now, ladies and gentlemen,
we're going to bring out some folks.
- I was nervous.
We were so excited about being there.
We joined our hands and said prayers
before we went on stage.
- Gladys Knight...
[cheers and applause]
- Now when I stepped on stage,
I was totally, totally taken aback
because I didn't expect a crowd like that.
- And the Pips.
[cheers and applause]
- [singing] Bet you're wondering how I knew
Baby, baby, baby, 'bout your plans to make me blue
- You know.
- We're gonna take a walk in the park.
- Sure, sure. Absolutely.
- Explore. - Get away from these bugs.
[laughter]
[gentle piano music]