Look At You Foolin' You: Sly Stone Goes From Pop Star to Parable in New Doc
Questlove's latest music documentary, "Sly Lives (AKA The Burden of Black Genius)," goes beyond mere music examination, discussing the anxiety and side effects of Black exceptionalism in America.
“My time on this earth is to be an example, and it’s a lonely trip sometimes.”
- Sly Stone
Anticipation was high when it was announced that Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s next documentary would be about Sly Stone. After winning an Oscar for his directorial debut, Summer of Soul, it was unlikely that the Roots’ drummer wouldn’t deliver a definitive film about the innovative singer/songwriter’s music and career.
When the trailer for the film dropped, just before premiering at the Sundance Film Festival last month, it became clear that what Questlove delivered was something deeper than a deep dive into Stone’s music and personal life. As evident in the title, Sly Lives (AKA The Burden of Black Genius) implied, and ultimately showcased, an examination of an existential dilemma that plagued Stone during his life. Questlove, and producing partner Joseph Patel, use Stone’s story and the testimony of talking heads like D’Angelo, Chaka Khan, Jam and Lewis, George Clinton, and OutKast’s Andre 3000 to dissect the polarity of Black exceptionalism.
Sly Lives does an expert job of balancing the numerous points of intrigue that come with Stone’s life. Stone, born Sylvester Stewart in Texas and raised in California, we discover that he strived to overcome his father’s anger towards racist whites, recognizing that the bitterness was killing him on the inside. Stone’s mission to befriend and uplift people regardless of race, coupled with his musical incubation in the church, where he learned several instruments, paid dividends in his career.
(L-R, members of Sly and the Family Stone; Rose Stone, Larry Graham, Sly Stone, Freddie Stone, Greg Errico, Jerry Martini (seated) and Cynthia Robinson. Photo Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid acutely observed that during Stone’s days as a record producer, he was able to contribute to R&B records, British Invasion records, and what was to become psychedelia (he produced the first version of Grace Slick composition “Somebody to Love,” later becoming a hit for Jefferson Airplane). As a result, he composed and dictated early Family Stone songs like “Underdog” and “Trip To Your Heart.” And while they didn’t become hits, they laid the foundation for not only the band’s future smashes, but for Miles Davis’ fusion era (Thank you, film, for giving Davis’ wife Betty Mabry the proper credit for introducing him to Stone), but for hip-hop two decades later (LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out” samples “Trip To Your Heart,” and Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” samples “Thank You”).
Sly and The Family Stone was American music history's most progressive musical outfit. Comprised of men and women, whites and Blacks, and three family members (Sly’s brother Fred and sister Rose), the amalgamation of these elements formed something only theoretical physicists could dream up. There’s the gospel influence and familial synergy from his siblings, Larry Graham’s accidentally ingenious bass technique of plucking and thumping, the Black perspective and the white perspective, and the feminine energy. It’s no accident that Prince’s band The Revolution followed Stone’s blueprint of Black and white members with men and women while making music that is futuristic and grounded at the same time.
Stone was keen to have all the “input” that comes with having an integrated band. But even with the contributions of each member, it was Stone’s prodigious musical acumen, derived from his gospel beginnings, his time as a radio DJ, and his years producing other artists that led The Family Stone to make songs that defied convention in the Flower Power era of the 1960s, and thus, defining the future of American pop music.
The intricacies of his creative process notwithstanding, the most intriguing aspect of Sly Lives is Questlove’s determination to uncover the existence of Black genius as well as the burden it carries for those bestowed with Black genius. The interviewees all put their perspectives on the subject itself, while also connecting it to the rise and fall of Stone’s career. The film explains Stone’s habitual lateness and drug addiction, linking it to his lifelong battle with anxiety.
“The same thing that made you great is the same thing that kills you,” Andre 3000 said. Writer and filmmaker Dream Hampton eloquently stated that Black artists’ fear of success is often only exceeded by their fear of success. Indeed, Stone achieved a type of crossover success that few Black artists had during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Unfortunately, the pressure of being a spokesperson for the Black community led him down a path of self-sabotage. D’Angelo candidly spoke of his own experience with success, and the same pressure to live up to the expectations of the audience, both on and off stage. “It’ll turn you into an unwilling participant. And that is the equivalent to Hell,” D’Angelo said.
The film beautifully discussed the band’s string of hit singles and the inspiration behind their conceptions; “Dance to the Music” came from record execs telling Stone he needed his songs to sound simpler to generate hits; “Family Affair” showed Stone’s ingenious method of getting entrancing, adventurous beats from the lifeless, primitive Rhythm King drum machine. But once Stone began to abuse drugs and isolate himself from his band members, the music got moodier, darker, and messier. The brightness of anthems like “Stand,” “Everybody is a Star,” and “Everyday People,” transformed into the tortured, embattled aural autobiographies of “Luv N. Haight,” “Just Like a Baby,” “In Time,” and “If You Want Me To Stay.”
Once the film winds down, going through Stone’s declining record sales, run-ins with the law, estranged relationship with his children, and reclusiveness, Questlove shows how Stone’s story straddles the razor-thin line between being a legend and being a parable. Stone, who is still alive and has repaired his relationship with his children, is a foundation piece to the American music puzzle of the 20th and 21st centuries. He is also a sacrificial icon of Black genius and how the expectations of said genius cripple you artistically and personally.
For decades, we’ve anointed Black artists as geniuses with social deification, from Curtis Mayfield and James Brown to Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar. Because white supremacist society and systemic racism have kept Black people out of so many rooms where crucial decisions are made by few that affect many, Black Americans have had no choice but to look up to the few public figures who can comment about political issues - musicians. As a result, people like Sly Stone are put on pedestals and given the unsolicited responsibility to lead an entire race of people in a similar capacity as a Martin Luther King Jr. or a Malcolm X.
Unfortunately, at the end of the day, the artists pay the price because they can never truly live up to the expectations and demands of the public. Why? Because they are artists; not politicians, not activists, not Black Nationalists. Artists. It’s their job to express and entertain, sometimes in the opposing order. As much as we’ve built artists up, we’ve knocked them down more swiftly once they don’t match our agenda for them. The ideology of Sly Stone - fusing multiple races and genders together to make a beautiful concoction - is to be admired and adopted by those who observe him. But it’s unfair to ask the artist to take bullets for their listeners.
(Sly Stone, founder of Sly and The Family Stone. Photo Credit: Herb Greene)
Since The Family Stone’s heyday, other Black artists began to recognize and repel the burden of Black genius. Marvin Gaye sang, “The artist pays the price so you don’t have to pay,” in “Life is For Learning (1981).” In Michael Jackson’s “Will You Be There (1991),” he sang, “But they told me a man should be faithful, and walk when not able, and fight to the end; but I’m only human.” Kendrick Lamar was more direct when he asked, “When shit hit’s the fan, is you still a fan,” in his “Mortal Man (2015).” The cautionary nature of the second half of Stone’s life served as a roadmap for Black geniuses to navigate life, even if they couldn’t avoid all of the potholes.
Sly Lives is a beautiful, tragic, informative, and redemptive look at arguably the most important Black musician of the 20th century. It shows that we must not only learn from Stone’s mistakes but from our own.
