Thursday (4/19) on the Philly Post online, Victor Fiorillo writes, “Earlier this week, I published part one of my interview with Questlove, whose Roots Picnic is shaping up to be the prime Philadelphia festival event of summer concert season. We talked about the Tupac ‘hologram,’ the future of music (a hologram Led Zeppelin reunion?), and his aversion to public restrooms. I saved his thoughts on fried chicken, the Philadelphia Orchestra bankruptcy and Twitter for part two.’ On generating revenue for the Philadelphia Orchestra (and orchestras in general) Questlove says, ‘What I am slowly discovering is that there’s no middle ground to keep these businesses going and alive, so thus they do need Jay-Z doing Carnegie Hall. … I’m a traditionalist. I’m for the preservation of certain things, but to gain people’s interest, you can’t force them. You have to make it appealing. I got interested through a gateway. … I was listening to R&B records that had classical overtones, and my teacher finally put me on to Debussy and Stravinsky. He was educated enough to make comparisons. He played Rite of Spring and said, ‘This is what Public Enemy would have done back in the day.’ When Stravinsky premiered Rite of Spring, it caused a riot. People called it ‘ugly noise.’ That got me interested. Education is the key.”
Posted April 19, 2012
