-Welcome, welcome. Thank you for being here.
Congrats on another book. Look at this.
"Creative Quest."
You were just in L.A. You were signing books.
-Yeah. Signing a lot of books.
-You said that your hand still hurts?
-Dude, I signed probably 2,500 books in two days.
-Holy moly.
One of the things in here I thought was cool --
I mean, it's how to live your life to its most creative.
Your most creative life, basically, right?
-I mean, you know, I name-dropped Malcolm Gladwell
a lot during my last book tour.
And he came up with the theory 10,000 hours
of preparation equals genius.
And so, I guess my editor wanted me to break down
what do you do in those 10,000 hours.
So we'd go through everything, from the spark of an idea
to networking to executing and to even, like, failing.
Like, every step of creative process.
-So you talk about your --
You think failure's a big important part of...?
-Failure's the most important part.
Because, I mean, that's where your lesson's learned.
Like, once you've -- Every great person has failed.
Any person on top has had a failing moment
in which they learn from it and then they become better.
That's how you become --
-Have you ever had a creative low, a creative low?
-You know I am about deejay gigs.
-Yeah, no, I've seen --
First of all -- I don't go near you, first of all.
'Cause I'm always the guy requesting songs, you're like,
"Dude, please let me do it." -Yeah, I'm --
-I'm like, "Can you play Rick Astley?"
And you're like, "Get out of here, dude!
Stop asking me to play that."
-I'm very meticulous about my deejay-gig preparation.
I'm like what John Nash, from "A Beautiful Mind," like,
putting up math formulas and all that stuff.
And I get the dream gig of a lifetime.
Like early 2016.
And I have four months' preparation.
I prepared for it.
16 weeks of doing every combination of BPMs
and the key to the song and all that stuff,
and it's a six-hour deejay gig.
So, first hour into it, I think I'm killing it.
And my host taps me on the shoulder,
and I'm trying to ignore him.
Like, I thought it was someone just like,
"Hey, man, play Rick Astley." -Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[ Laughter ]
-"How's Jimmy here?" -Right. So, basically,
taps me on the shoulder.
And I can't say his name. NDA.
And he's like, "Hey, you're doing a good job.
But, you know, I love the disco, and the calypso,
and all that stuff, but look at them."
And, like, his kids are sitting there like...
He's like, "They want to have fun, too.
So, you know, pep it up."
And so -- -Did he more sound like --
"Uh..." -Yes. Oh, yes.
-Michelle and Sasha -- -He didn't say those names,
but, yes. -Okay, all right.
So now I'm starting to understand what's going on.
I remember this gig.
This is not -- It did not go well?
-It forced me into retirement.
So, suddenly, I became the deejay I hated the most.
I'm Googling songs that teenagers like,
"What is 'Swag Surfin'," like...
I'm about to have a panic attack.
'Cause, you know, this is the one thing I can do in life.
And at the end of the night, our host is like,
"So, you know, this is the best time we ever had.
This is the greatest thing ever.
And, you know, so you should be proud of yourself.
You served the people. You served the people.
You did well." [ Laughter ]
And he sensed that I felt bad about it.
And he's like, "Well, you know, you're an artist,
and I know you had your own agenda and everything,
but you served the people."
And he's like, "So, do you feel good?"
And I was like, "Yeah, I did serve the people."
So, "You feel better now?" and I was like, "No."
[ Laughter ] -"No. I'm depressed."
-Yeah. So, I stopped deejaying.
But six months later,
I came back, and now I deejay for kids.
So I now -- [ Cheers and applause ]
-I saw you do that.
I saw that you do that.
I like -- because I remember --
I've seen you a couple times at Brooklyn Bowl,
and then you stopped doing that, and you said,
"No, I'm at Brooklyn Bowl, but I'm doing these gigs
around the country during the day."
-So any place that I used to deejay at now,
I deejay, like, Sunday afternoons
and make sure that it's all-ages so that mom and dad
can bring their 2- and 3-year-old.
-Why? [ Laughter ]
-Because when I was young, I was the person that was,
you know, behind the rope,
looking at the deejay at a block party.
So that experience needs to come back
for another generation of people.
Like, hip-hop is now exclusive
in nightclubs that you can't get into.
-Yeah. -But it used to be for the --
"For the people." So that's what I do now.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-You guys got to check out this book.
Congratulations on "creative Quest."
Oh, one more thing.
Questlove brought a copy of the book
for everyone in the audience tonight!
[ Cheers and applause ]
So that's what I'm talking about! Hey!