Roots drummer and one of hip-hop’s most respected men ?uestlove sat down with French magazine Tyler had some interesting things to say about the Soulquarians new project and why Black Thought reigns supreme over nearly everyone.
On the Soulquarians:
We are producing Al Green’s next record….I think we were wasting our time. Why produce cats of today when we can produce the cats of yesterday? We’ve written eight songs with Al Green in one session. Hands down, the ruff mixes are better than anything he’s recorded in the last twenty years. The album is supposed to come out next year. I went to the president of Blue Note, I talked a little shit. I didn’t think that he would pay attention to me. I was like, “You know that this Al Green come back was ok, but you know that I would have knocked it out the park, right?”, and he was laughing. And then, we got a call, four month later: “You want that job?”
On where no one can compete with Black Thought on stage:
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There’s one gift that Black Thought has and that no other MC has, except for one: ab-so-lute breath control. I’ve only seen one other MC absolutely master perfect breath control and his name is KRS One. KRS One can project his voice clearly and absolutely reach the last row of the room all without losing his breath, without cupping the mic, without feedback, without anything. I’ve seen about seven shows in the past five days, I’ve seen everything from Jadakiss doing a party to Jay-Z and Nas finally reunite with each other. If you don’t do shows, constantly, like every day, and you don’t exercise your voice, it’s hard to know how to project your voice and to make sure that it’s clear. On stage, aside from KRS One, Tariq is the king of breath control. He can rhyme at 200 BPM without losing his breath once and you can understand every syllable.
