QLS Mini: Revisiting The Open Mike Eagle Episode
The Questlove Show is providing mini episodes that offer bonus content, special features, and answers to questions from our podcast audience. On this mini, Questlove revisits the most recent episode with guest Open Mike Eagle. Ahmir speaks about doing the What Had Happened Was pod with Mike years ago, the significance of a glowing album review, and more. Make sure you catch the full episode to appreciate this bonus note.
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Speaker 1: The quest Love Show is a production of iHeartRadio. What's Up, Good people? This is quest Love. In addition to our weekly interviews of The Quest Love Show, I'm going to be doing some things periodically where I'll tell you a little bit more about a guest or what's going on in my life. I think they call this musings. You know. Another thing we want to do is take your feedback, take your questions, and I will answer them to the best of my ability. So I'm giving you the listeners a chance to engage with me. You could DM me to either the QLs account. Matter of fact, only dm the QLs account. Don't DM my account because I barely check my own account. Okay, follow QLs on ig or go through Questlove Supreme dot com. And you know, we'll be recording these a few times a month where i'll basically, you know, answer letters. Today we're talking about this week's open Mic Eagle episode. All right. So when I did the Open Mic Eagle episode, I think I discovered him by accident. This was a period in which you could not find day Lost Soul streaming. So for some reason I went to the NEXTPEX thing which I was listening to a bunch of Prince Paul stuff, and the next thing I know, I saw what had happened was with Prince Paul, and I decided, Okay, I'm gonna listen to it. Mind you, this is also during the pandemic, and it's in the pandemic in which I'm doing things on the daily like walking three miles in the countryside, or sometimes I'll just drive three to four hours upstate for no reason at all. Like you remember how isolated and bare bones it was, So that's kind of where I did a lot of ketchup on podcasts I would otherwise not have been privy to. So when I listened to the entire Prince Paul episode of what had happened was dude, I was just so mind blown. Of course, shortly after that came the LP episodes and the Dante Ross episodes as well. I don't know, I became instantly obsessed, and I was hesitant to reach out to him because I don't feel like I'm overexposed. But I almost feel as though, because of the Okay Player website, that everyone knows everything there is to know about me, Like what more could I tell or share? But Mike actually got some crazy stories for me to hear Mike say it. After the third or fourth episode, he realized that he's only been asking me maybe two or three questions of the twenty questions he has prepared for me, because if you talk to me, I'm gonna lead you down a rabbit hole, which some say could be beneficial or detrimental to my career, depending on what my publicist thinks. But pretty much at that point, the reason why I was so open with him literally about every step of those four albums, Organics, all the way, do Things Fall Apart, was that at the time I happened to be working on the Slide doc the Slide in the Family Stone documentary, you know, being as though at that time it was my second film I was working on. I noticed that north of sixty people start to forget things, and I didn't want that to happen to me. So I never officially went on record about what Mike himself says is the greatest story in the history of that podcast, when I told the infamous most death shown on d d Combe's Showdown story. Yeah, those are the things that, like I think, with time, I would have forgotten. So that podcast was probably the perfect destination for all just the small detail things that otherwise probably would not make a documentary or some sort of memoir or whatever. So I mean, I think he should be doctor Mike Eagle, like he should be hip hop's official therapists. I think I've I've mentioned this on previous QLs tapings, but you know, I've found out sort of in retrospect that I would occasionally freak people out because I don't ask casual questions like people will say, you know, q tip will call me to ask a casual question like yo, man, let's go get dinner, and I will be like, hey, what was the two snares that you used on Clap your Hands Back at Midnight Maradas? Like things that he's not thinking about. And because I'm such a technical sponge for information and uh park Griot, I guess storing that information. I figured this was the safest way for me to bond with my peers in a professional setting, because everything that you've heard on QLs like I would probably do in real life. Like basically, as much as I talk about the Jimmy Jam episode, I will say once a week I've added five additional questions to Jimmy Jam and now I'm to the point where Jimmy Jam and I are on like one am status, Like I won't hesitate at all to text him at two am to ask about how come whenever you write a rap for Janet Jackson and never rhymes or just like things I soon be asking on a podcast. So that's just the nature. I'm a curious cat. I would definitely like to go further into our cannon. You know, The Roots Come Alive. Oh god, there's I probably have more stories behind The Roots Come Alive the first round than I do and with any Roots album whatsoever, only because like I specifically remember certain things happening, like, for instance, I think I warn't havoc about this on social media. I used to pack in my suitcase doctor Bonner's peppermint soap like the gallon, the big gallon thing, and I'm not thinking about the fact that when it gets in an airplane, the air pressure will cause that thing to explode. And of course three of those songs on The Roots Come Alive were actually it at at least a momont in Paris that Dareique Brahm's about and you got me. So the thing is is that with maybe two hours on the clock before we hit the stage. I had quick decisions to make and there was no laundry met so I was like, okay, let me just take my boxers, which is all drenched with peppermint soap. Let me hang it out on the balcony of my hotel and of course on there for two hours or whatever. It was dry, right wrong. So we get to hot ass Elisi Moman the summertime and buy song too, a sweat conversation like has now gotten to my boxers? And when I tell you you've not, it's basically like putting ghost pepper on your genitals. To this day, the roots say the best drum solo I ever done in life was at that show. And that wasn't because of skill, It's because the pain I was in getting stung by peppermint soap. So stories like that, man, One of the biggest shakras of this year, a pleasant shaker, was seeing might get an eight point five and pitchfork. I know, and I'm a man of my word, like when I tell you that after creating Summer of Soul, I've decided to stop my obsession with any critical algorithm. I mean, I've joked, not joked very truthful that I used to almost not hourly, but least daily look up our Metacritic score, metacritics like the rotten Tomatoes of music, and you know, like there's a as far as I'm concerned, as long as the roots are above and eighty, that's like straight a's especially for a group with seventeen records, like most people have like six really good records and the rest is just like whatever. But I realized that my obsession with looking at our critical analysis from music periododicles and and online really just dealt with the fact that we only had the record deal to depend on, and you know, our survival really depends on us having a record deal. Well that is not the case now, you know, if anything, making records is now just a luxury to me. And so while I'm in that state of luxury, I've not read as much reviews as I normally used to. But I got admit that I had to. Look. I saw someone congratulate Mike forgetting an eight point five, and I was like what, and I read it, and I don't know, man, I'm just so like I was happy the way that de Niro was happy that Joe PESHI was getting made in Goodfellas, you know, one of us made it. It's just important because, especially from that particular digital publication. You know, true art isn't for the critical gaze, and some of the most critically claimed people I know never read their reviews. They you know, like purely create it. But for me, just to see somebody get over the very hard to police hump of that digital publication meant a lot to me. Like so, I think maybe vicariously I read it, as you know, that's how I used to look at reviews, like read the review first and look at the number. Okay, got another chance, you know, well, you know, until then, this is Quest Love and I'll catch you next on the Quest Love Show, all right,
