Questlove’s Valentine’s Day Music Picks — The Love Edition
In preparation for Valentine’s Day, Questlove digs into his collection to curate ten song suggesions that set the mood for love. From timeless classics by Minnie Riperton and Donny Hathaway to deeper cuts and modern selections from Cody Chesnutt and Meshell Ndegeocello, he shares the records that define romance in all its forms.
If you’re in a season of love, consider this your soundtrack. And stay tuned for a second edition—songs for those on the other end of the spectrum.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:00
Speaker 1: Quest Love Show is a production of iHeart Radio.
00:00:18
Speaker 2: All right, people, You know I can't have this moniker, this name Questlove and not display my mastery of what it is that I really really do. And you know, I know, I'm all things to all people. But at the end of the day, I'm a curator.
00:00:40
Speaker 1: I'm a pruner.
00:00:41
Speaker 2: I'm a farmer of music at heart, meaning having grown up in a household with three thousand records, currently owning two hundred thousand records. I will say that I believe that I know a finger or two around the kitchen, if you will, when it comes to curating music. And of course there are various times out the year where a lot of my friends will tap me to make them a mixtape right quick. Thanksgiving I'm always asked to put together to four hour Thanksgiving mix, which is harder than you think because you want something that fills the room with music, but you don't want it too wordy. So often, for like dinner requests, I do instrumental jazz, but like vibrant because you know, if you play something too mellow, then that'll bring the mood down. Of course I'll get the birthday request or you know, the office party request, or some of my chef friends will have a opening and need a five hour playlist. And you know, I do playlists like most people do the New York Times puzzles, like I just I got to challenge myself to discover new songs. But I will say that February fourteenth of every year of my life is probably the busiest.
00:02:11
Speaker 1: Now.
00:02:12
Speaker 2: Back when I was in the do you want more elodelf Half Life Days, yeah, I would make customize mixtapes, meaning individual cassettes specifically for that person and make a pretty penny doing it.
00:02:26
Speaker 1: Nowadays, I just I want to share the love and share the joy.
00:02:31
Speaker 2: So Valentine's Days represents two types of playlists for me, playlist of people in love and play list for people who are depressed.
00:02:43
Speaker 1: Because they lost love. And the thing is with slow jams.
00:02:47
Speaker 2: I find that when I do these two playlists, oftentimes the depressing playlist is the most popular one. Matter of fact, my most high file client couple, the female half of this, has gotten word back to me that the breakup Heartbreak one is our favorite because that has the most jams on it. So, you know, toxic love and us just mixing it up. That's nothing new spoiler alert. When I do the Earth Wind and Fire podcast, Philip Bailey, in a very humorous way, breaks down the song Reasons because a lot of us.
00:03:31
Speaker 1: Are like, oh, that's my song, that's my song, and.
00:03:33
Speaker 2: Reasons is about an affair like earth Wind and Fire famously turned down two million dollars to play Reasons at a wedding, only because Philip Bailey had to tell the bride and groom like, dude, you do not want your wedding to be ruined by a song about a couple cheating on each other. So I know that we tend to make toxic songs about affairs like Whitney Houston saving All My Love for You, or Sweet Thing by Rufus and Chaka Khan, or even Reasons by Earth Went and Fire.
00:04:09
Speaker 1: Those are our jams.
00:04:11
Speaker 2: But I decided to make two playlists, like one that's sort of affirmational love, real true love, and the other is the toxic breakup love, the sad love, the songs that you want to cry to.
00:04:27
Speaker 1: Because we like being melodramatic.
00:04:29
Speaker 2: So usually when I make a playlist, I start with either an interlude or in this case, a poem.
00:04:36
Speaker 1: One of my proudest moments.
00:04:37
Speaker 2: Is helping singer Cody Chestnut get to the limelight for that brief period in two thousand and two when he did The Seed two point zero with the Roots. But he had a brilliant, brilliant, kind of do it yourself record called The Headphone Masterpiece, and he opens that record with a poem by poet artist Sonya Marie, and it's called with Me and Mind and I don't know Man. With Me and Mind is almost like as many times as an artist tries to emulate the sexiness that Prince represented back in his early eighties, Heyday, look up with Me and Mind by Cody Chestnut and Sonya Marie and Chestnut by the Ways with two t's h E S n U T T all Right Cody Chestnut and Sonya Marie with Me and Mind. Another song that I love is uh, you know, I'm always in Michelle and Deoceella's ear. One of her most brilliant projects she's ever done is the Grammy nominated album Van Triloquism, which I know is nominated for a Grammy.
00:05:57
Speaker 1: I don't know if it won.
00:05:58
Speaker 2: I know she recently won a Grammy, but I think this one was just nominated and what it is is it's like an interpretation of songs that we've known and love, and she does puts her little twist on it. And I told her, I was like, Yo, you need to do part two of Van Triloquism, and I think it's only right that you take your song back. And for people that don't know what I mean, if you are a lover of Brian McKnight's song anytime.
00:06:31
Speaker 1: Do I well show my anytime?
00:06:35
Speaker 2: You know that song is essentially just outside your Door by Michelle and Diguelo Cello. And it senses me that people don't know it's the original. And for me, I'm like, yo, Michelle, when you do Ventriloquism Part two, your collection of cover songs, you should redo anytime Brian McKnight as outside your Door to let him know. Yeah, I see what you did. Like you know, I love when an artist takes the high road. Artists being reltigious to each other is not my favorite thing, but you know, sometimes you got to call out a bite. I don't care how classic the song is, so outside your Door by Michelle and Decocello. And I also appreciate the fact that she did not rhyme the words waiting anticipating.
00:07:27
Speaker 1: Which every R and B artist does anyway.
00:07:31
Speaker 2: Next up, think of al Green's many classics, Simply Beautiful is probably his most loved, quiet, intimate song. That's him playing guitar on it. I didn't know he was playing acoustic guitar.
00:07:46
Speaker 1: Who knew?
00:07:47
Speaker 2: But simply Beautiful by al Green expresses love and intimacy and quietness, and it's feeling like if you really want to know what a soul ballot should sound like and feel like it shows sensitivity, it shows kind of a there's just some really human about that song. So simply Beautiful by Algreen be my third song. My fourth song is Sensuality by the Isisley Brothers. You know Isley Brothers are notorious for putting some of the best slow jams on side two of their records. I remember one person asked me once like, well, how did they make slow jams in the seventies if, like cassette tapes weren't prominent.
00:08:35
Speaker 1: Good question.
00:08:36
Speaker 2: If you were the household that had half inch reels, like if you were what they call a gear head, meaning if you had a high end high five stereo with tubes vacuum tubing like really good, like the good System for nineteen seventy three or seventy four or seventy six or whatever year. In this seventies, nine times out of ten, you also had to purchase a half inch reel, which is basically an adult cassette. They invented a cassette to get rid of the reels, So I mean, the tape is the same, but you would have to take this giant reel and hook it up and it would allow you to have anywhere between a half hour to an hour's worth.
00:09:23
Speaker 1: Of music on these tapes.
00:09:27
Speaker 2: And if your parents were the house party type, you know, this was their version of the playlist of streaming. So you know, nowadays people hit me up, yo, just stream some music so I can play it for an hour and then you hook it up to your Bluetooth speakers. While I well, back in the seventies, yeah, I had to watch my dad like take tape and rail the real tape and play his favorite song and wait for the ending. And in order for us to have an hour worth of music enjoyment, Dad would almost have to do this like three to four hour process. So yeah, Sensuality by the AlSi Brothers is one of those songs that were always a mainstay on my dad's tapes. Fun fact for you Soul Aquarium fans. When James Poyser and I worked on Balau's Queen of Sanity, we literally I remember putting Sensuality on. We went to my record room in Philly, played it twice and did the same thing. James used the moods that Chris Jasper use, and a lot of times when I'm playing drums and a seventy soul reference, I will morph or shape shift into Ernie Eisley, primarily known for guitar playing, but Ernie Eisley also played drums on most of the Isley Brothers songs in their seventies heydays. So all those roles like in Fight the Power, just you know those roles, that's an Ernie Isley role. But in Sensuality, his tom tom work, he would have no high hats in it and he would just hit these tom times like they were like boulders rolling down the hill and it's quiet. I emulated that for Queen of Sanity for Balau. So shout out to drummer Ernie Isley. Number five is a group from the seventies called Brainstorm some of you may not be familiar with them. I know that at one point they were based out of Detroit, Michigan, that much I do know. I know that they were on Taboo Records. Shout out to Clarence Avon. I think they were one of his first clients. Singer Ella Woods her vocal on it. Also there's a male singer. I don't know if it's a professor R. J. Ross or if it's Lamont Johnson, I'm not certain. But also if you're a fan of George Michael's work with whim dion Estes, he had a song called Heaven Helped Me, like in eighty eight, but he first started out playing with Brainstorm, and they had what we would call a quiet Storm staple of a song, and that song was called this Must be Heaven, and so pretty much just in the late seventies, that song was a mainstay on quiet Storm, Black Radio and escapable and it still works to this day. Like most people gravitates towards the floaters float on, you know, because they liked the whole introduction of the band and the zodiac signs. But no, This Must Be Heaven is to me quintessential seventies kind of just atmospheric, beautiful soul.
00:13:03
Speaker 1: Ballads that are unsung.
00:13:06
Speaker 2: Number six, I will say is by one of my favorite singers, Minnie Julia Ripperton aka.
00:13:16
Speaker 1: Maya Rudolph's mama.
00:13:18
Speaker 2: Of course, Minnie Ripperton had a cult classic of a group called the Rotary Connection on Chess Records, produced by Charles Stephanie, who, of course will also get behind the boards for Earth.
00:13:32
Speaker 1: Wind and Fire.
00:13:33
Speaker 2: And you know, Stevie Wonder was such a fan that I believe Maya Rudolph told us on the very first quest of Supreme that his way of introducing himself to Minnie Ripperton was stopping by Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles to get a bucket of chicken and no pun intended blind knocking on her door. Hi, I'm Stevie Wonder, and instead of a bouquet, he gave her a bucket of fried chickens like I love your voice and any who. He wanted to produce Mini Rippleton, and Motown blocked this order. I don't know how that happened, but yes, Motown blocked him producing Mini Ripleton, but he did it anyway. So I believe that the album which is called Perfect Angel is produced by a figure called El Toro negro, which means the black bull, which means someone born May thirteenth, which means that they are a tarus, which means that was Steve Lamb Marris doing the production duties.
00:14:44
Speaker 1: So Loving You.
00:14:47
Speaker 2: One of the greatest songs that I believe Stevie Wonder has ever written for someone besides himself. By the way, for you hardcore fans out there, look up the reissue of the Perfect Angel album and there's an alternate version of Loving You in which Stevie has like a full fledged rhythm section on there. Of course, the version we all know in Love is just stripped down to just Rhodes and synth and birds, which makes it more.
00:15:18
Speaker 1: Intimate and sexy.
00:15:20
Speaker 2: And then there's the version where it's kind of like a slow Latin groove.
00:15:26
Speaker 1: But it's very, very interesting.
00:15:28
Speaker 2: So the deal is Isaac Hayes, who probably the two things that he did to push the needle or the envelope for it as far as music creativity in the seventies is number one, adding orchestration to his work. Of course, then Barry White will follow suit, and then my guys Gamble and Huff for Philadelphia will take it even further by having lush orchestrations in their work. But really, I mean, I will say that Isaac Hayes is really the true pioneer of giving a lot of space and the agency to his orchestral arrangements on top of these like soulful rhythmic sections, and I will say that probably of these songs, oh, I'm sorry. The second aspect besides your orchestration is his ability to stretch a song. Once the album format was the epicenter of how music was delivered before nineteen sixty.
00:16:39
Speaker 1: Seven, it was about forty fives.
00:16:41
Speaker 2: And then when Sergeant Pepper's came out by the Beatles and Sully, that made the album important. Like suddenly there's things like liner notes and gatefolds, and you know, an album could be a piece of art, not just disc with your three hits and a bunch of cover songs, like it'd be conceptual and all those things. So by the time Isaaca's made the Black Moses album, he was turning like his slow jams. Typical time would be somewhere between twelve to nineteen minutes, almost an entire side of an album, which you know, long slow jams. Oh Jesus Christ so he would have a motif on all these albums called Ike's Rap, and this sort of starts the blueprint. This is the blueprint of which you know when you hear those like slow jams and someone has to talk, Hey baby, Barry White does it well? Like Barry White and Isaac CAA's were like neck and neck as far as they are execution these these new untested ideas. But in terms of timing, Isaac Cay's was the first, and the reason why they're called Ike's Rap is like he'll usually the first three to four minutes, sometimes five minutes, he'll just start off with a monologue where it's like a one way conversation where he's talking to his woman on the phone or he's just on a couch, Like you hear him preparing the wine, you hear the champagne popping, and you hear him serving a glass, and like it feels like you're actually like it's like a reality show, like you're inside of his living room as he's talking to his lady. And for me, one of his best Ikes rap, I believe there's like six all together, but my favorite Ikes Rap wasn't Part three, which is called Your Love is So Dog Going Good.
00:18:38
Speaker 1: It's a nine minute just.
00:18:42
Speaker 2: Masterstroke of quiet storm genius. So Ike's wrap three. Your Love Is So Dog Go Good is my seventh choice. My eighth choice is a band that was produced by the grandfather of my longtime tour manager. Tina Farris has been tour manager of the Roots for twenty five years. We've known her for thirty back when she was a student at She was just a student at UCLA and we were just a band playing at UCLA, and we met her after the show, became friends with her, and then five years later she came to see us perform in Paris and she knew I speak a little French, and you know, she would get around and next thing I know, we were asking her to be our tour manager. And she's kind of the go to person. But her grandfather is the legendary Harvey Fucoa who of course started off in the legendary Duke wop group called Harvey and the Moon Close.
00:19:45
Speaker 1: He most famously.
00:19:47
Speaker 2: Took the Tito the Tito Jackson of the Moon Close, a young man named Marvin Pence Gay to Motown and the rest is history. Harvey also co produced He was like a father figure of Mark and so he also helped work on the What's Going On album, also helped write Sexual Healing. But Harvey also produced this band called The New Birth, to whom they were also.
00:20:14
Speaker 1: Doubled as a band called The Night Lighters.
00:20:17
Speaker 2: There are so many unsung classics that this band has, and again from Detroit, Michigan, one of their best songs is It's been a long Time. If you're a fan of Doctor Dre's work with the World Class Record Crew, the first time we heard Doctor Dre's work, at least on a national level a song called turn Off the Lights where he gets Michelle Aid to sing the hook but the music backdrop has been a long time. And yeah, basically that song is an absolute, absolute, absolute must have. Singer Leslee Wilson sings that song like his life depends on it.
00:21:06
Speaker 1: One of the main.
00:21:07
Speaker 2: Regrets I have in life is Leslie just passed away shortly before Christmas of last year.
00:21:14
Speaker 1: I think he died in October.
00:21:17
Speaker 2: But he sings that song like it's just you just want to experience, like what some of the best ad libs singing ever in six minutes of a slow song. It's been a long time that's my number eight choice for new Birth. For number nine, I say it's Love Won't Let Me Wait by Major Harris.
00:21:41
Speaker 1: I remember when the song will come on.
00:21:43
Speaker 2: Major Harris, of course, was a key figure in Philadelphia. He started off as a member of the legendary Delphonics, and when the band sort of went their separate ways, Major Harris into Atlantic Records and release.
00:22:02
Speaker 1: The all time classic love Won't Let Me Wait.
00:22:06
Speaker 2: Many know Luther Vandrosi's cover the song, but for me, the two staples of this song that I feel that are forever lasting in proper slow jam quiet storm songs. First of all, it's kind of the silky tenor saxophone that always sounds like it's someone at a real swinky, French upscale dinner where you have to wear a tuxedo and you ordered the best wine. And you know, like, if you listen to the intro, that song like it has that this is an adult affair kind of feeling to it. And second, and most importantly, this is one of the first songs that I believe.
00:23:06
Speaker 1: Kind of captured the sound of.
00:23:09
Speaker 2: A woman having somewhere between a passionate expression and an orgasm. If you will so, I remember when the song would come on the radio, my parents would always like, just lower the volume when.
00:23:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, they would turn that down.
00:23:31
Speaker 2: So but Love Won't Let Me Wait is a song that any true collection of Quiet Storm music cannot do without. And my last choice for my love songs for love's sake is of course, whenever you hear artists talk about like who their favorite singer is, any soul singer worth their weight and goal will say that Donnie Hathaway is their favorite. However, there's a cover which I believe started with blood, sweat and tears.
00:24:05
Speaker 1: There's a cover.
00:24:06
Speaker 2: Of I Love You more than You Ever Know that he does. That's Live at at the Bitter End. Like I know that this song is on his Extensions of a Man album, but when he did his live record Live at the Bitter End, this was not included on the original Donnie Hathaway Live. However, since his passing, they've released the outtakes of there's several Donnie Hathaway live performances, and not to mention, I believe for that live album they recorded three live shows, so I think there might be two more live captures of him in concert, of which they do a devastating devastating cover of I Love You more than you'll ever know. So those are my heart filled of love, capturing of the perfect curated love songs for your valentine AND's needs. All right, So come back and I will have the antidote of that which is the heartbreak version.
00:25:18
Speaker 1: All right, thank you,
