“Questlove, drummer for The Roots, is a devoted Prince fan,” writes Geoff Edgers in Wednesday’s (9/5) Washington Post. “Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Thompson … loved Prince, from the moment he picked up ‘1999’ as an 11-year-old…. The late artist’s estate hired him to lead ‘4U: A Symphonic Celebration of Prince,’ a tour that opens Thursday, includes arranger Brent Fischer and … will feature as many as 50 players but nobody on the microphone. Q: Prince didn’t have a will…. Do you think about what Prince would want? Questlove: Orchestral music has been a major part of his music for the last 30 years. So this is actually a natural step…. He did like two or three orchestral readings of his songs to ballet. Q: Tell us about the string arrangements. Questlove: Brent Fischer was a part of the orchestra and a part of the arranging.… The way that I connect these songs, there’s an ebb and flow…. There’s an arrangement of ‘Something in the Water (Does Not Compute)’ that [Prince] started to do … before the ‘Purple Rain’ album came out…. It’s more fleshed out, more arranged, that’s what I went with.”
Posted September 6, 2018
Photo of Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson by Michael Baca
