Oscar-winning filmmaker Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Thompson is really having a moment and cooking with a lot of cinema at the moment. Thompson, one of the leaders of the hip hop band The Roots and a Best Documentary Academy Award-winner for the music doc, “Summer Of Soul,” has much in the works. Yesterday, it was announced that Thompson would direct a “Saturday Night Live” music documentary for NBC—titled, “Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music,” about all the iconic musical guests and performances that have occurred on the show over the years And today production company Onyx Collective announced a first look and release date of his upcoming documentary, “SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius).”
About musical but notoriously troubled genius Sly Stone, the leader of the trailblazing funk and soul 1970s band Sly And The Family Stone, the doc “Sly Lives!” will premiere Thursday, February 13, on Hulu.
Guests featured in the doc include Andre 3000, D’Angelo, Chaka Khan, Q-Tip, Nile Rogers, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, George Clinton, Ruth Copeland and Clive Davis.
Additional guests include those closest to Sly, including his band members Jerry Martini, Greg Errico, Larry Graham and Cynthia Robinson and family Sylvette Phunne Robinson, Novena Carmel and Sylvester Stewart Jr., who offer the best insights into Sly’s life by sharing anecdotes from their time together.
Tellingly, Sly Stone, aka Sylvester Stewart, is not listed as someone included in the documentary, which stands to reason if you know his reputation as a huge recluse. Stone’s last public interview was with Vanity Fair in 2007, after an already whopping 25-year absence from public life.
Sly And The Family Stone were legendary and deeply influential but were an infamously troubled band, their leader hyper eccentric and when they shot onto the scene with their debut album in 1969, they were basically packing it all in ten years later (there is one final record in 1982, a collaboration between Sly and George Clinton and Funkadelic, but it was abandoned by all parties and then Warner Bros. assigned a producer to salvage it).
Here’s the official synopsis:
“SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)” examines the life and legacy of Sly & The Family Stone, the groundbreaking band led by the charismatic and enigmatic Sly Stone. The film captures the band’s rise, reign and subsequent fadeout while shedding light on the unseen burden that comes with success for Black artists in America.
The film hails from MRC, Network Entertainment Inc., Two One Five Entertainment Inc., RadicalMedia, Stardust Films LLC and ID8 Multimedia, Inc., in association with Sony Music Entertainment. The film is produced by Joseph Patel and Derik Murray (Network Entertainment Inc.) and directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson (Two One Five Entertainment Inc.).
As previously announced, “SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)” has been officially selected to debut its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.
“SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)” premieres Thursday, February 13, on Hulu. Watch the first look teaser below.
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