Questlove Remembers The Great Bob Power

The QLS family lost a great friend, supporter, and one of music's greatest ears in the passing of Bob Power. In a small mini episode, Questlove reflects on Bob, who appeared on the second episode of Questlove Supreme back in 2016. He credits as one of hip hop’s greatest advocates and a defining force in boom-bap. He recalls how Bob’s work with De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest helped inspire and shape the sound of The Roots, comparing Bob’s role to George Martin’s with The Beatles. Questlove shares stories about Bob’s meticulous studio approach—mixing quietly and balancing clarity with gritty texture. Quest' also touches on recent collaboration with Bob, a funny phone call in the past, and more. The Bob Power episode of Questlove Supreme has been posted atop the feed. Bob Power forever. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Loft Show is a production of iHeart Radio. They
are What's Up so check it. We are still dealing

(00:22):
with the passing of really of hip hop's greatest advocate,
Bob Power, master engineer, producer, musician. I would like to
say that Bob really really enhanced what we know as
boom bap hip hop. I felt it was rather apropos

(00:45):
for us to pay tribute to him by replaying his episode.
And what's notable about this episode is that it's the
second episode of Questloft Supreme.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
I mean, right now, Jake, we are where.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
At least three hundred plus Yeah, so we're three hundred
plus strong. So for you to agree to be our
second guest, I mean, that's just that really speaks of
Bob's character of really being there for you. Like I
would have to say this, probably I've gotten narry a

(01:26):
no from Bob for any thing that I've requested to
mix the song or recall this mix or any of
those things. And the thing that I want people to
really know about Bob, besides all of his achievements, is
just what a really and I know, like words like

(01:48):
a sweet guy, a lovely guy, all heart and all
those things. But I mean, Bob was like even based
on how hip hop heads meant by if you are
a Daylight fan, you can hear the various times on
Tribe Records or Daylau Records, and you know, kind of

(02:10):
in their humorous stratosphere, in the galaxy of humor, that
is the native tongues.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Bob plays a big part of that world. And also
I will say that.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Bob kind of entered my life in a transitional period.
We started recording what you guys know as do You
Want More in the third week of December of nineteen
ninety three.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
The music world normally shuts down for.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
The second half of December, you know, for the holidays,
and usually gets back into business maybe the second week
of January. So this quite unspoken month that's taken off
for the industry people. But Bob was so much in
demand because of the albums that he's done, De La
Soul's Dead Blue Mind State, all the Tribe called Quest Records,

(03:07):
a lot of remixes, any remixes that Q Tip or
Ali Shahid or the Daylight guys have done, be a
bush Baby's, the Foosh Nickings, any of those, Like Bob
was pretty much the unspoken. I mean he was George
Martin of a tribe called Quest Beatles or Dela Soul's Beatles,
and so he I think, newly married, had two weeks

(03:33):
off before he had to start work again, and immediately
it was like an instant Yes, I'll do this, because
that's how enthusiastic he was about the idea of the Roots.
You know, Richard played them some rough stuff, and you know,
Bob just loved the idea of a live band doing stuff.

(03:54):
He had just did Blue Mind State, which really I
mean quite as it's kept as influential was day La
Soul is on the Roots. I think I rarely put
two and two together, how like the Roots are probably
the manifested result of the seeds laid by day La

(04:14):
Soul for Balloon Mind State, Dayla Soul, like three Ft
and Hine and Rising that allowed Trek and I to
discover who our true selves were, which were we were nerds.
We weren't thugged out, we were like nerds, and that
album allowed us to be that. Day Last Soul Is
Dead was the album that I credit that made me

(04:38):
Tuik want to start a group because every song was
just blowing our minds and it was like, well, we
want to do that too.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
We want to make music that blows people's minds.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
And then you know, come the very dark Balloon Mind
State record, which has a lot of jazz overtones and
live musicianship. It probably birthed organics without me knowing it,
but Bob is really responsible for those sounds, and probably
what is notable, I realized that Bob is quietly also

(05:08):
responsible for my writing career, and that's only because Bob
just had one request. He's like, I want to make
the best record for you that I can. I need
complete and absolute silence if you're in the studio now,
you know, I've been to some sessions at D and

(05:28):
D during the hip hop renaissance doing the height of
that era, and usually, like if there's a session, there's
a lot of weed, a lot of your boys coming
over the producer asking you to, like, yo, turn that
shit up, man, and you know they'll put it on
the big speakers. And none of those songs that we
did on Do You Want More until the final mix

(05:50):
was done, we never played on like the giant large.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Speakers to blast it.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
Bob always insisted that you know, well, they're called Genolik
speakers or sometimes Yamaha NS tens or even like those
clock radio. Yes, if you're of age and you know
what a clock radio is, basically the cheapest speaker that
you listen to music on. Bob mixed our entire discography

(06:16):
almost at a whisper, like at a low volume, because
his theory was if this sounds beautiful on shitty speakers
and as low volume as possible, then when you really
back blasted, it'll be amazing. And so Bob was just
always famous for it and really didn't hesitate to say, guys,

(06:37):
I need to concentrate.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
And we would go in the break room and whatever
and eat. And so.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
I guess when I started doing the liner notes for
Do You Want More? I decided to give Bob a
new quote for each of the songs listed, like if
you look on the first song, it's like engineered by Bob, guys,
I'm trying to concentrate power, and the next all be
engineered by Bob.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Hey, guys, really like can you keep it down? Power?

Speaker 1 (07:07):
And that's been the running joke so at the age
of the Internet, especially with social media, the music version
of IMDb, which like what are those websites like discogs
or whatever, when they give like complete liner notes of
who worked on it.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Bob called me laughing one day.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
It's like, I got you to blame for this, and
I'm like, what do you He's like, have you looked
me up on discogs?

Speaker 2 (07:30):
And I looked up.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
And because of the technicality factor, Bob has like at
least over thirty different you know, Like for me, I
am I'm under brother question and then I was Questlove
and that was quest Love with a question mark, question
mark with a Q like various names, or a mere
Colleias Thompson, a mere quest Love Thompson. Like I have

(07:53):
five credits, Bob had over like thirty five of them,
and with a straight face, they typed out all of
his tech.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
Nicole I was like, ah, guys.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
But that's who Bob was. And I didn't expect this news.
I know, I know that I try to not normalize
pain and death, but sadly, you know, we're at a
place now, in this time period where it's like yo,
da da Da died and you're like, yeah, that checks
that checks out. But when Michelle and Diocello texted me

(08:28):
while I was on stage at the tonight show. That
was a gut punch I was not ready for. But
I mean, besides just really being an ass kicking engineer,
which I'm sure I say this on the podcast, but
just to let you guys know, like if you see
all this outpouring of love of Bob Power, you know
what makes him unique is just from a technical standpoint.

(08:54):
As much as we like to turn up the music
and make it louder and all those things, if you
engineer too then and too loud, if you play it
on record, your record will skip. We once had issues
with Melo my man on do You Want More? The
mix was coming in too hot, and you know, we

(09:14):
would back in the day, we would complete a mix
and then you would send that complete mix to get
it pressed up on like what they call lacquer or
test press, yeah, acetate, to test it to see how
it sounds on your stereo. And then you come back
with notes and say, well, you know, the snare drums
a little too low. You bring it up and then

(09:36):
you adjust it and the record kept skipping, and Bob realized,
like too much bass, like you know, bass and drums
will make a record skip on wax. Of course, now
we live in the age where everything is streams, so
you know, you get muddy mixes. But for the most part,
if you study boombat hip hop, a lot of the
beauty of it. If you listen to the Wu Tang record,

(09:57):
if you listen to the Jungle Brothers, there's like a really.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Dirty, do it yourself aesthetic.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
And Bob was really the one that said, guys like,
if I clean this up, you're still gonna have the
grit if you let me clean it up. So oftentimes,
especially with the Tribe guys, he would ask them, hey,
that loop you sample is that available on CD?

Speaker 2 (10:20):
Is there a digital version of it? Can we do
it cleaner?

Speaker 1 (10:22):
And of course you're like a man, but you know
you need all the static and the dirt and the
grime of this old record that's like forty years old.
And somehow, you know, as a result, the reason why
the low End Theory and Midnight Marada sounds so big,
big drums big. You know, it's just that Bob had

(10:45):
just a bigger vision for voices and music to be
like loud enough but not loud enough to destroy your
wax of your DJ. But I mean, I can go
on and forever about Bob, But I thought I'd put
this little intro on top, just to really explain to
you the.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
Loss that we experienced.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
I really was looking forward to working with him on
this new roots album. I'm glad I got him to
complete the mixes of the like seven or eight songs
from d onet More that didn't make the original round.
If you get the box set, you can hear all
those things.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
And it was like he never left. So we love you,
Bob Power, Thank you. Quest Loam Show is a production

(11:46):
of iHeartRadio