Questlove Reaches Into The Mail Bag & Answers - February 6

In this mini “musings” episode of the Questlove Show, Questlove answers listener questions and opens up about his love of certain breakfast cereals, his current morning gratitude and breathing rituals, and his ongoing work to become a more succinct communicator. He reflects on waking up to the music of his late friend J Dilla, the work of painter Ernie Barnes, and balancing creative projects including a new song and an Earth, Wind & Fire film. Quest also shares his ideal getaways—from omakase in Japan to luxury train travel—and invites fans to keep sending questions through the QLS channels.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The quest Loft Show is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
What's Up, Good People? This is quest Love.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
In addition to our weekly interviews of The Quest Loft Show,
I'm going to be doing some things periodically where I'll
tell you a little bit more about a guest or
what's going on in my life.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
I think they call this musings. You know.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Another thing we want to do is take your feedback,
take your questions, and I will answer them to the
best of my abilities. So I'm giving you the listeners
a chance to engage with me. You could DM me
to either the QLs account. Matter of fact, only dm
the QLs account. Don't DM my account because I barely

(00:43):
check my own account. Okay, follow QLs on ig or
go through Questlove Supreme dot com. And you know, we'll
be recording these a few times a month where I'll basically,
you know, answer letters. So people pointed out that I
fist pumped at Samrow saying it. Can you explain why

(01:07):
cappin is my favorite breakfast Cereal Captain Crunch, specifically, I
love peanut butter Captain Crunch.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
I'll be honest with you.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
The attraction to Cereal, especially if you were in the
sixties and seventies born Is they used to put prizes
in the cereal and man Captain Crunch had the most
innovative probably the best thing they ever had. It was
like a car and you needed a balloon. You blow

(01:37):
the balloon up and you attach it to the car
and the air of that balloon. What we was the
car down the not down the block like four meters. Yeah,
but it was all about the prize that you would
get out of the cereal. And so living at my
grandmam's house with all my cousins, Early Berry gets the worm.
Man get up Saturday mornings at like six thirty evan

(02:00):
when Courageous Cat Minute Mouse's is on. And the thing was,
we were not allowed to cheat. You were not allowed
to put your hand inside the box or your.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Dirty hands in the cat your dirty hands hands out
of that.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Box, my Grandma, you would have to naturally let the
prize fall out. So you know, that's why I love
Captain Crunch. How do I spend the first hour of
my day today?

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Specifically?

Speaker 1 (02:28):
All right, I overslept the day I got up at
eight thirty. Normally my body clock wakes me up at
like five point thirty seven. Am and I do my
morning routine. I to my gratitudes. My gratitudes is five
minutes of whatever I'm looking at I'm thinking like right now,

(02:49):
I'm thankful, for instance, I'm thankful for Stevie Wonder's songs
in the Key of Life record. I'm thankful for my
crystal collection. I'm thankful for where eucalyptics flowers. I'm thankful
for the color red. This is an exercise of gratitude.
I do my breathing exercises for about ten minutes. It's

(03:12):
twenty twenty six, so one of my therapists is requiring
me to write out my goals. I've been procrastinating, So
procrastinating is one of the or stalling. I was supposed
to turn in my twenty twenty six list in December,
and I have yet to do it. So I got
to work on that. Then I listened to the brand

(03:35):
new song that I created two nights ago. That's Week's
very excited about going to make some changes to it.
I prove the credits for the Earth, Wind and Fire movie,
and then.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
And push back to.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
The feedback I got for the Open Mic Eagle episode.
There's a book that I got that teaches like leaders
or journalist how to be direct. But even based on this,
I'm failing because you know, I'm answering a question that
should easily just be forty seconds.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
It's nine hours anyway.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
So yes, I am actively learning how to be a
suctinct communicator because that's an effective communicator.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
And then I got out.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Of bed and here I am at my day job
telling you what I did today. All right, hope that
answers your question, all right. So the next one is
I asked Malcolm Gladwell this question last year and he
really liked it. So my producers put it to me.
What piece of art do I wish I'd discovered earlier?
As far as music's concerned. I wish that I was

(04:43):
a year early to jay Dilla. Hugh Tip got to
jay Dilla's World in ninety four. I got to jay
Dilla's World in ninety five. Wish I had that extra year,
just to be even further enlightened as far as artist concerned.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
I got very lucky. I went to the Jim Henson.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Slash Charlie Chaplin Studios. Shout out to McGee and John
Mayer for saving that institution, by the way, and before
he passed away, artists Ernie Barnes. Ernie Barnes of course,
being an artist who did all the artwork for the
Good Times sitcom. You also know his paintings as Marvin

(05:30):
Gaye's Sugar Shack cover from Me I Want You album cover.
So before he passed away, he wanted all of his artwork,
all the sketches, to go to the Jim Henson studios.
So when you initially get there, it's just undated with
like three hundred art pieces just hanging all over the walls,

(05:55):
like everywhere. There's even a copy of Sugar Shack. I
believe Eddie Murphy owns the original Sugar Shack. And when
they put me him to the fact that all of
his artworker was there, I asked the manager of the place, like,
can I acquire one of these?

Speaker 2 (06:08):
And they're like, oh my god, yes, we're trying to
get rid of them.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
So I got very lucky right before the pandemic, and
I purchased three of his pieces, which now are kind
of priceless, like I wish I would have collected his
stuff earlier. I know that in one of Kanye West
his houses, he commissioned Ernie Barnes to paint his ceiling

(06:38):
like sort of like a hood version of the Sistine
Chapel over in Italy. So yeah, I wish i'd kind
of acquired Ernie Barnes's worst you know earlier. All right,
So someone asked if I had a week to myself,
where would I go?

Speaker 2 (06:56):
And why.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
If I had a week to myself, I love going
to Japan because the food there is just otherworldly. Yeah,
any place with with grade a Omakasi sushi.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
That's that's how I get down.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Way in my heart is taking me to an Oma
Kasi spot with quality sushi.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
Mali Mali in Hawaii where Shep Gordon Is. I love
going out there and just oh man, so beautiful. Also,
you know, I love Portland. I love Austin trains. I think,
all right, if given a week, my new thing is
train travel, luxury train travel. You know, Soul Train is

(07:43):
my favorite show and actual trains are my favorite mode
of transportation.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
So I would probably go to South Africa.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
I believe South Africa has the most richiest, fanciest train travel.
Like they have a line that sort of coasts the
entire coast of Africa from like northern all the way
down to South Africa. I think it's like a four
day or five day excursion, so that's what I would do. Lastly,

(08:13):
where's your next vacation? Chelsea Handler and I spoke about
why she loves Spain so much. Actually, Chelsea is our
guest today on the Tonight Show. This is where I
am right now doing it. I'm a guy that travels
a lot, so vacations aren't to me, like vacation is

(08:33):
work and being home is vacation. But yeah, you know,
I love world traveling. So again, shout out to those
cities I mentioned earlier, like Portland and Austin and Tokyo
and Hawaii and the UK. I still love it there.
I used to live there anyway, Readers, thank you so much.

(08:53):
I hope this answered some of your questions. And yeah,
I can't wait to do this again. And remember you
get to make questions through quest love Supreme dot com
or comment on YouTube ig or Spotify episode pages. Make
sure you follow us also, we need we need the numbers,
or you know, try Facebook Messenger or I g DM.

(09:16):
But yeah, y'all, just keep it on the comments on
Spotify or YouTube, all right, and make sure you like
and subscribe, all right, like and subscribe and review this
podcast and thank you for the feedback and we appreciate
you all, and uh, all right, thank you,