The new documentary “Sly Lives, aka the Burden of Black Genius,” which focuses on the life and career of the brilliant but troubled musician Sly Stone and his group Sly and the Family Stone, is both a conventional documentary and an extremely unconventional one.
Like its predecessor, the Oscar and Grammy-winning “Summer of Soul” — which was also directed by the Roots’ Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and produced by Joseph Patel — “Sly Lives” works to incorporate the main story with a larger theme, in this case, as the subtitle indicates, the pressures that come with being both Black and a genius — pressures that have brought down more than one such genius and have led many of them toward self-destruction. That subtitle isn’t saying that geniuses aren’t created equally — but what happens after that genius manifests itself can be very different for minorities, particularly Black people.
Even with that weighty theme, “Sly Lives” is one of the most engaging and far-reaching music documentaries this writer has seen, and taken as a whole, it may be the best (and I’ve seen a lot of them). The broader theme may not work for every viewer, but in a very meta way, it explores and proposes reasons, via interviews with multiple other artists and creatives, why such a positive, charismatic and multi-cultural-forward musical genius as Sly Stone (who was born Sylvester Stewart in 1943) would fall into drug abuse, financial ruin and prison.
Yet the film also works as an exhilarating history of Sly and the band’s rise and that musical genius, and the fact that the interviews and much of the analysis was led by Questlove — no small musical genius himself — gives it an insight and authority that most music documentaries cannot claim. In easily digestible segments, some of his hit songs like “Dance to the Music” are pulled apart, instrument by instrument, to illustrate why the songwriting, arrangements and production are so effective and innovative.
The film carefully toes the line between appealing to hardcore fans as well as casual ones — a difficult line to walk, as the filmmakers say below — and it’s not necessarily a complete one: Some of the darker, drug-addled chapters in Sly’s story have been told in lurid detail in books and many magazine articles, and the film covers but does not dwell on those moments and in some ways seems to want to counter them. And although it does become just a bit hagiographic toward the end, in the broader picture, those are minor complaints: “Sly Lives” is as enthralling a document of his and the group’s rise and heyday as you’ll ever see.
A large part of the reason for the film’s authority is down to Questlove, and not just because of his musical depth: He conducted many of the main interviews himself, and, as is evident in other recent music docs like “Have You Got It Yet” and “Ron Wood,” there is enormous value in the interview subjects personally knowing their interviewer: You often feel like you’re eavesdropping on a deep conversation between musicians who respect each other, rather than someone recycling a canned statement to a journalist. That intimacy is amplified by the Interrotron filming device, which finds the interviewees usually speaking directly to the camera — directly to the viewer — rather than off to the side. As a result, the personal stories about the pressures of fame from Outkast’s Andre 3000, D’Angelo, Q-Tip, Living Colour’s Vernon Reid and others take on an added resonance.
The film is released on Hulu on Thursday; a soundtrack album featuring previously unreleased Sly material included in the film drops Thursday night.
The below conversation with Questlove and Patel took place on Feb. 7 in New York, was hosted by Hulu and Onyx Collective and moderated by Variety‘s Jem Aswad. (Disclosure: Patel and Aswad worked together at MTV News in the 2000s.)
“Sly Lives” avoids a lot of the major cliches of music documentaries, was that intentional?
Joseph Patel: We were trying to figure out a way to not do this do the same as every other doc. In the first meeting we had, Ahmir said, “I want it to be about Sly, but it should be about something bigger,” and this idea of the burden of Black genius came up. I think he went through that personally after [the success of] “Summer of Soul” and it’s something that he saw his peers going through. So my job as a producer is, how we bring that idea to life? Ahmir said he wanted to use the Interrotron, so that it’s like the subjects are talking to you, across the table, and telling you personal stories and their personal feelings. So that was all by design.
Questlove: Our first cut was like 244 minutes —it was lengthy. But the number-one thing with most documentaries, at least with creatives involved, is it’s almost like there’s two people we have to talk to: the inside-baseball squad that already knows all about the subject, but then you have to think of the person that knows absolutely nothing about it.
So context is important, but more important to me was the human connection story. Oftentimes I’m in the passenger seat of a broken-down car of creativity and I often wish I could have an intervention talk with the person in the driver’s seat. [In making this film], I would it be lying if D’Angelo, Lauryn, SZA, Solange weren’t on my mind; if Michael [Jackson], Prince, Whitney Houston, Charlie Parker, Nina Simone, Miles Davis, Marvin [Gaye] — everyone. This is probably the closest that I could get to pressing the panic button for [so many] artists I’ve worked with. There’s always a sabotage, panic, career-ruining moment that happens with them. So that was more on my mind than anything — not to mention, both of our lives [his and Patel’s] have changed after the Oscar. I don’t mind being transparent about what that is, and I think with this movie, we were able to express that.
The answer to the question “What is the burden of Black genius” is answered throughout the entire film, even though there’s no straight question-and-answer.
Q: That was definitely a heavily debated topic: “Why can’t it be just the burden of genius” and more inclusive of other geniuses? But there’s a very specific burden here, where it’s like you’re doing it for history’s sake — it’s not just your own personal [achievements]. You become exemplary, and even that’s a burden — like, being white people’s favorite Black person! [laughter] Shoot, every day I wake up with, “Am I still grounded? Am I?” That’s why lately I’m so big on telling people about setting your intentions and meditating. To be that example is a good burden to have, but we’re in 2025 and I feel like we need all artists clear.
JP: The way we posed the question, “What is Black genius?,” at the beginning of the film and none of the artists can give an answer, that’s a bit of a red herring: In reality, nobody was surprised by the question, and they all answered it. We chose everyone in the film for specific reason: because Nile Rodgers, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, D’Angelo, George Clinton, Andre 3000, Q-Tip, Vernon Reid — they’ve all lived it and survived it, so that question wasn’t foreign to them. And they all answered it in different ways, right? Like D’Angelo, even if you don’t know his backstory, his answers in the film still work. Even if don’t know the pressure it took for him to go out onstage every night on the “Voodoo” tour [in 2000] and take off his shirt and do “How Does It Feel” [in emulation of his borderline soft-porn video for that song], and how hard that was for him every night. Ahmir [who played drums on that tour and album] was witness to that.
Q: There’s a moment where he gives me this look, like “Are you ambushing me right now, asking these questions?”
The things says about that pressure are really deep. When he talks about the “guilt” of success, is he talking about the fact that he made it and others didn’t, or is it more to it?
JP: He’s talking about Sly, but he’s really talking about himself.
Q: He’s definitely talking about himself. The origin of his personal story is literally being a chosen one —being a fifth or sixth or seventh wheel in a situation in which he was not even looking or asking for what he got, and yet he was chosen. Yeah, guilt is probably the number one emotion.
You know, people ask me all the time — like, they’ve heard my answers about the incident on the Oscar night, and they thought it was quite convenient that I say, “I wasn’t paying attention, I couldn’t even hear what he was saying.” To tell you the truth, in those five minutes — you know when your category is coming up, and you’re not in your right mind in the minutes before. And literally, all that’s happening, but in my head I’m thinking, (sighs) “If we win, is my band still gonna like me? Is my family still gonna like me? Am I gonna like me?” And it’s almost like a “15-14-13-12” New Year’s Eve countdown. And yeah, to be presumptuous, yes, I pretty much 90% felt that we were going to win, but I wasn’t thinking about that — I was literally feeling the guilt of it all. And that’s the case with almost everyone, from Ma Rainey in the early 1920s to Kendrick Lamar — I wonder what his life is into this year, you know? It’s everyone’s story.
JP: Everyone wants Andre 3000 to rap, and he’s just like, “I don’t want to do that. If I do that, I’m going to end up like this [in a bad place again],” and so he plays the flute.
Q: He was the one person that we could be totally transparent with: “This is exactly why we wanna make this film.” And the way that he just responded with glee, like, “Oh my God, thank you. Finally, someone to talk to about what I’ve been feeling.”
JP: He even showed up early! (laughter)
Q: He totally understood the assignment and welcomed it, because he’s in a phase of life right now where he’s choosing himself, which is not a selfish thing.
JP: The point of the movie is just show artists like him some grace. It’s like, we want something from him, but if he’s not ready to deal with it or face it, or doesn’t want to and understands that how destructive it might be, just show him some grace.
Q: But the amount of resistance that we got … there were at least 20 [potential interviewees] that we went to, and just the paralyzing fear of being put in this position made a lot of them [pull out at the last minute], where we’re on the set waiting for them and get a message, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t get on the plane…”
JP: Let me clarify …
Q: Don’t say names!
JP: What he’s trying to say is basically, there were a handful of artists that we wanted to speak to for this movie who, when we told them it was about Sly, they were like, “Well, I don’t know anything about Sly.” But when we told them the bigger idea, they were like, “I’d love to talk about that.” Two artists in particular canceled on the day of [the scheduled shoot]! One in particular canceled by sending Ahmir a video message at four in the morning saying, “Oh, I’m not in New York, I just can’t do it.” I was really angry as a producer, right? We paid for the crew, we paid for the location — money we’re not getting back. But Ahmir was like, “No, this is them acting this theory out in real time.” I think that shows a lot of understanding on his part: The film was about Sly and the Family Stone, but it’s also about this other thing that scared them off.
Was there anyone who was about to flee and you talked them back?
Q: About? (He cackles)
JP: D’angelo was eight hours late!
Q: I know for a lot of us [musicians], the pandemic was the first time we hadn’t been onstage in a long time — in my life, since the age of 5, a month hadn’t gone by where I was not on stage doing something, either in school or with my parents or whatever. And then suddenly, in 2020, seven months went by and I hadn’t been onstage and barely touched a drum set. So I spent a lot of that time doing a lot of therapy work that I’d been kicking the can down the road. And I think we’re in a place now where we are slowly making strides to maintain our mental health, our sanity. And whatever my future canon is going to be, that’s my main concern with the content that I put out there. We can handle this, but you have to have the will to do it, and I feel as though artists might hopefully see this and really start asking those questions and going with it and working on themselves. That’s my purpose.
The timing of the release of this film is both unfortunate and fortunate: Unfortunate in terms of what we now have to deal with in the world, but fortunate that it’s arriving at a time when minds will be ripe for it.
Q: We didn’t necessarily think, “In 2025 we’ll be back with our ex” [Trump] (laughter). But I still have hope that, despite the fuckery we’re seeing now, that artistry and artists will lead the charge.
JP: The thing that I hope people understand is that feeling of being a Black artist on a [white-focused] talk show. That’s something Vernon’s gone through as a member of Living Colour, so when he speaks and he’s interpreting that scene, it’s not just the talking head interpreting that scene — he’s been through it.
Q: Yeah, I mean, oftentimes we’re not treated as human beings, and that was the most important part. It’s rare where you see a person, you know, rather than a personality. Black people are either seen as superhuman — we’re a “credit to our race,” we’re the smartest people, we’re the greatest dancers, we broke these records, quantity, quantity, quantity — or we’re subhuman!: This person murdered his wife, this person’s an animal and should be in jail. It’s important that you realize the humanity first. Many people ask, “Why didn’t you have stuff [in the film about] Sly living in an RV?” [as he famously did for a period of time]. He just likes living in RVs — he wasn’t homeless or destitute or anything.
Ahmir, how did you work on this film and the “50 Years of SNL Music” doc at the same time? They’re released about two weeks apart.
Q: That was my happy place! Where Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we could work on “SNL” — whew, something fun to do. Because there were some days, man, where I needed something fun to do.
JP: Tellingly, I did not work on his happy place! (laughter)
Q: I mean, to put this [“Sly”] project together took a lot of us, especially him, like, right to the edge of madness, you know? And to do that on top of seven other things was a task.
Here’s the big question: Why isn’t he in the film? He just published an autobiography.
JP: I can answer this — we haven’t actually said this publicly. We interviewed Sly for “Summer of Soul” in 2020, and he had just gotten clean. He just doesn’t have the motor functions — he can’t speak in full sentences. His eyes reveal a lucidity, but his motor function doesn’t exist. And so when we started this film, in the first one or two conversations, we were like, “We don’t want to do that — it doesn’t feel right, it would feel exploitative.” Amir’s first thing he said was, “Let’s tell this story with a lot of empathy,” and that’s not empathetic. So that’s why he’s not in the film.
What’s coming next?
Q: There’s a lot more projects coming. He’s working on the J Dilla project [a history of the groundbreaking songwriter-producer James “J. Dilla” Yancey, whose innovative work with A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Common and others helped shape the sound of hip-hop; he died in 2006 at the age of just 32.]
JP: Today is Dilla’s birthday! Yes, we are working on a J Dilla documentary. The roles are reversed: I’m directing, he’s executive producing.
In a weird way, it’s the third film in a trilogy — “Summer of Soul,” “Sly Lives,” and now Dilla. The film is based on Dan Charnas’ book, “Dilla Time.” When Ahmir and I work together, there’s always second side to the project; we want to tell a specific story that has a bigger appeal, a broader appeal. “Summer of Soul” is about, what does Black History mean to American history? “Sly Lives” is about Sly Stone, but it’s really about this burden of Black genius. The Dilla story is about a man who affected time — both in his music and in the life he lived. At one point he had all the time in the world, and then his life changes and he has no time at all. So it’s about time.
Last question — the archival footage in “Sly Lives” is incredible. I’m just thinking about the nightmare of the clearances (laughter). What didn’t you get that you really wanted in the film?
JP: Not a lot, actually.
Q: For me, probably the biggest one was trying [unsuccessfully] to clear “Que Sera Sera,” but it’s actually apropos that we ended with “Just Like a Baby” [Sly’s 1971 song from “There’s a Riot Goin’ on” album]. My first memory in life is Sly Stone. It’s it’s unfortunate sometimes that — well, there’s a joke where [Dave] Chappelle says, “You know the reason why we shut the volume down when the car gets pulled over by the police? Because no one wants to get their ass beat to a soundtrack.”
Well, my first memory in life is from when I was two years old: my sister washing my hair in the bathtub. I believe some cleanser fell into the bathtub, and I’m two, so I don’t know that you shouldn’t open your eyes when you’re getting your face washed. And so my memory is my Aunt Karen and my mom kind of pinning me down like a wrestler, and my dad and my sister trying to flush my eyes out while I’m screaming — and in the background is that bassline from “Just Like a Baby.” Yeah, even though I’m only two years old, I remember laying back in panic and seeing that American flag [album cover] and my dad’s record set, and hearing that surreal song. I’d lost that memory but when I was 11, I heard that song again, and instantly it triggered. So Sly was there at the beginning, and it’s almost apropos that this movie ends with “Just Like a Baby” playing over the credits.
“Sly Lives” hails from MRC, Network Entertainment Inc., Two One Five Entertainment Inc., RadicalMedia, Stardust Films LLC and ID8 Multimedia, Inc., in association with Sony Music Entertainment.
The film is produced by Joseph Patel and Derik Murray (Network Entertainment Inc.) and directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson (Two One Five Entertainment Inc.).
Executive producers are Amit Dey, Brian Gersh (Network Entertainment Inc.), Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson (Two One Five Entertainment Inc.), Shawn Gee (Two One Five Entertainment Inc.), Zarah Zohlman (Two One Five Entertainment Inc.), Common (Stardust Films LLC), Derek Dudley (ID8 Multimedia, Inc.), Shelby Stone (ID8 Multimedia, Inc.), Ron Weisner, Paul Gertz (Network Entertainment Inc.), Kent Wingerak (Network Entertainment Inc.), Ali Pejman (Network Entertainment Inc.), Jon Kamen (RadicalMedia) and Dave Sirulnick (RadicalMedia).
