Drumming prodigy Questlove has been throwing down on the beard AND sound tip for quite some time now. I've been kind of secretly dying to go check out his 4-week DJ Residency at Brooklyn Bowl but sadly did not make it before it ended. Luckily his recent project, a Broadway musical about the legendary Fela Kuti, has him working with Jay-Z among others, when he's not busy on the Jimmy Fallon show. Coupled with his amazing growth of facial stamina, it's captured enough of my interest to warrant a trip to Broadway soon.
Check out a recent snippet of the Broadway play performed on the Jimmy Fallon Show this last month:
From the review in the NYTIMES:
"Early in its run Ahmir (Questlove) Thompson, the drummer for the Roots — the long-running hip-hop group that is now the house band for “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” — saw an early preview that prompted him to write a post for his mailing list and his blog declaring “Fela!” to be “the BEST MUSICAL EVER CREATED.” Celebrities, from Alicia Keys to Susan Sarandon to Stephen Sondheim to Jay-Z, began showing up nightly; word of mouth spread exponentially.
Longtime Broadway producers wanted to sign on, but Mr. Hendel was leery of pressures that they might bring to make the show “more quote Broadway unquote,” he said. Now Jay-Z is among the producers, and Mr. Thompson is an associate producer. A rebellious, police-taunting, raunchy, politically conscious, dope-smoking character like Fela could easily make headway in hip-hop culture — and he has the beats to back him up."
