Apr 25, 2016
The Roots co-founder and drummer Questlove has penned an extensive and heartfelt essay where he documents just how much influence Prince had on his life.
The late icon was found slumped in an elevator at his Paisley Park compound in Minnesota and was pronounced dead on April 21st. There was a mass outpouring of grief upon the tragic news, and now Questlove has wrote openly in Rolling Stone about the singer who was just 57 years old.
“Prince was in my ears and he was in my head. I patterned everything in my life after Prince,” Questlove started with before he declared that everything from the way he dressed to his taste in women influenced him as a young kid growing up in Philadelphia.
“In the wake of his death everyone is talking about his genius. That's understandable. But most of the discussion is general. I like to think about the specifics. I like to think of the way he innovated even early on, the way he turned away from the traditional blueprint of funk and soul music.”
Questlove then explained how he thought the "Purple Rain" singer was actually, “more hip hop than anyone.” “Prince's programming work on 1999 was beyond anything I had ever heard, just as innovative as the best hip-hop producers in the years to come: the Bomb Squad, DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Dr. Dre, A Tribe Called Quest, J Dilla,” he wrote.
Finally, he went on to credit his work rate and ambition that he has had during his career solely to Prince.
“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."
"For the last twenty years, whenever I was up at five in the morning, I knew that Prince was up too, somewhere, in a sense sharing a workspace with me. For the last few days, 5 a.m. has felt different. It's just a lonely hour now, a cold time before the sun comes up.”
Image: Forbes