SLY Lives! is a welcome and overdue celebration of the life and legacy of a musical legend.
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In 2021, Amir "Questlove" Thompson, best known as the drummer for The Roots, surprised a lot of people by releasing a documentary called Summer of Soul. In it, Thompson provides a showcase and breakdown of the Harlem Cultural Festival, which was known as Black Woodstock but never achieved the same legendary status as the other concert. It is one of the best music documentaries I've ever seen. The interviews are free and well-integrated into the concert footage and Thompson has an inherent knack for weaving in the necessary socio-political context of the event without ever losing momentum. Also, it's just great that someone restored and celebrated this event, including a great collection of live recordings I highly recommend, before many of the performers are unable to share their experiences. Cut to four years later, and Questlove is back with an in-depth look into the rise and fall of one of the most influential bands of all time, Sly and the Family Stone, a band that performed at the Harlem Cultural Festival. Was Thompson able to recreate the magic with a more straight forward documentary?
The Setup
The film covers the life and career of Sly Stone, the band leader, songwriter and primary musician behind Sly and the Family Stone. Through a series of interviews with Sly, former band members, and music historians, the film tries to piece together Stone's musical legacy and gauge how much his incredibly music acumen was a blessing and how much of it was a curse.
Cards on the table, I was already predisposed to love this documentary. While I had been loosely familiar with a number of famous Sly and the Family Stone songs through their use in movies and TV ("Everyday People" and "Dance to the Music" in particular), when I was in high school, Rolling Stone released their 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time list and I decided to check out as many of them as I could. One of them was arguably Sly and the Family Stone's greatest album Stand! and I was a fan of Stone's music and the band for life.
So having a documentary where music folks, talk about how said music was constructed and why it hits as hard as it does (i.e. the drum break at the end of the titular track off of Stand!) is right up my alley. But even with that bias firmly in place, SLY LIVES! also has a number of smart/novel additions.
The Interviews
Something I love about Questlove as a documentarian is that he doesn't pretend that he has distance from his subjects or his interviewees. Right off the bat we hear him asking folks questions about what it means to have "black genius," which is a perfect question for hip-hop's most famous drummer who's paired up with one of the most talent MCs ever (Black Thought) to ask. He's also good about including his reactions including stuff he finds hilarious and keeps it in the cut.
So when George Clinton, colored dreads and all, pops in and shares some wild drug stories with a killer punchline, we get to hear him basically rolling on the ground with laughter in the background. It is a ridiculous level of charming and makes all of these moments feel more conversational and less confrontational. It's a major advantage to Questlove being as ingratiated into the music business as he is.
Tracking the Impact
A lot of music documentaries frustrate me because they tend to track the influence of an artist at the very end. Like, hey they're not as famous anymore but here's the giant web of their legacy. It's the equivalent of a music biopic putting on "XYZ artist went on to sell millions of albums and get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame."
SLY Lives! bucks this by seemingly track ingStone's influence in real time throughout his career and life. As an example, without context it might be hard to see why the makeup of Sly's band was a big deal. But if you see how other artists who drifted between genres and had multi-gendered, multi-racial coalitions for bands like Prince's Revolution.
My personal favorite is something that Questlove again is perfectly suited to do, which is to track Sly's enduring legacy not just through his music and image, but also how his music was integral to early sample heavy hip-hop. So many fills ranging from slick 80s pop like Rhythm Nation to 90s gangsta rap all borrowed and built off of Sly's musical legacy and it's great to see it cataloged like this.
SLY Lives! bucks this by seemingly track ingStone's influence in real time throughout his career and life. As an example, without context it might be hard to see why the makeup of Sly's band was a big deal. But if you see how other artists who drifted between genres and had multi-gendered, multi-racial coalitions for bands like Prince's Revolution.
My personal favorite is something that Questlove again is perfectly suited to do, which is to track Sly's enduring legacy not just through his music and image, but also how his music was integral to early sample heavy hip-hop. So many fills ranging from slick 80s pop like Rhythm Nation to 90s gangsta rap all borrowed and built off of Sly's musical legacy and it's great to see it cataloged like this.
The Burden
Something that Questlove is clearly attempting to do with this movie is use Sly Stone as an example for how black entertainers in particular are viewed as a commodity to be used and cast aside once their usefulness and profitability is over. Not only that, but that being a black musician comes with an added burden of speaking for/to black folks. As such, it means finding refuge in addictions or other versions of excess is very enticing.
While I definitely think this is a worthwhile discussion and idea, these are some of the weaker portions of the film. For instance, I find it very fascinating that Sly more or less was living something akin to a commune with the band and members of his community, but there's not a lot about why Sly did that and also how that would impact him financially and from a mental pressure standpoint.
There's also a handful of comments left in the film that don't fully resonate, specifically in the pursuit of this idea. As an example, one interviewee comments that the elders of black American music don't get the same level of grace and celebration of white rock stars who all get to have regular lives and do reunion tours.
Now the reunion tour aspect may be true, but there's an awful lot of people of all races who ended up dead because the music business and entertainment business as a whole is such a pressure cooker and provides easy access to addictive and mind-altering things like drugs. Likewise, a lot of those elders of classic pop/rock music were completely f***ed out of royalties by the business and would end up with these terrifying addictions that they can't get help for, because you need money for competent help.
There's some moments that get through. For instance a former collaborator noting that Sly was likely far more introverted than he let on, but that he felt an obligation to support and have people around, and took drugs to compensate. Maybe just a theory, but a strong demonstration of how people who become important or famous adjust who they are and then attempt to self-correct with substances. Or how folks wished the audience could always evolve creatively with their favorite artists. I mean Andre 3000, a rapper who just put out an album of flute music was right there, but that's a me thing.
The Verdict: A Solid Celebration of Sly Stone
While it might not support its titular thesis as well as it could, SLY Lives! is a welcome and overdue celebration of the life and legacy of a musical legend.
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