‘Questlove’ Explores His Austin ‘Happy Places’ With CNN

Roots drummer/Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson appears on CNN’s My Happy Places tonight (May 11) at 10 est/pst to share his favorite Austin, Texas haunts. As he explained to me in an exclusive interview about his appearance on the show, since The Roots first played there 30 years ago the city has felt like home.

We spoke about his top five cities, Prince, Stevie Wonder, the Led Zeppelin reunion show, the relationship between food and music and more.

Steve Baltin: What made you want to do this?

Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson: Because of the tortoise and hare route that The Roots took in our career, most of the time when you get a record deal and you start your career routine usually things are done for you. Like your itinerary is given to you and this person picks you up and this limo or this whatever picks you up. That’s kind of a weird place to be 20 years into it, even now. I know artists who really can’t make a move or anything without the protocol of their staff. And because of the way that The Roots entered the industry, we were fiercely independent. Even to this day, with all my, whatever, celebrity, I do s**t by myself and I will say that Austin, Texas was definitely and is definitely probably one of the first five cities that I would navigate myself almost better than my own neighborhood. I’ll roam every place in Austin, Texas. I’ve been in New York 17 years and maybe once a week, I’ll go down a block and like, “Wait, is this Manhattan?” I’m still discovering, like I just mastered maybe two -thirds of Manhattan. I’ve yet to get Queens and Staten Island, like the other parts of New York. But I don’t know, something about Austin, Texas that seemed [right from]

day one. I think we first played in Austin in 1995, and just everything about it is what I loved about living in the city.

Baltin: I have to ask an obvious question. What are the four other cities?

Thompson: Portland, Oregon is my number one city and Austin is number two. Portland outdoes Austin in one and a half facts. There are definitely more record stores per capita in Portland, and I’ll say that Nike being Portland’s headquarters definitely helps if you’re a sneakerhead. But Portland’s my number one city, Austin is my number two city, Tokyo is my number three city. Number four for me, even though it’s a love/hate relationship, I’m a Philadelphian to the bone. I have too many ghosts in that city to just discard it. So, I’m always going to love my city of Philadelphia. And five for me, I’ll say the UK, that’s where The Roots lived for five to six years when we first started and were creatively exiled out of the country and lived there. But Austin might inch its way up to number one, Portland has not fully recovered from the pandemic yet. But Austin is still going strong as far as everything that comes with it.

Baltin: How much fun is it for you to do this then in that environment where you get to go and show off your favorite places?

Thompson: It’s so effortless that it didn’t really feel like [doing anything]

that special. It’s pretty much what I do, period. Like, I’m always going to go to the movies or drive-in. I’m always going to visit their novelty toy stores. My friendship with CK Chin, who’s one of the food gods of Austin, especially if he’s around. I definitely know I’m going to gain three pounds just based on all the food spots he takes me to. There’s always a level of entertainment that I grew up in an environment in which my mom and dad were nightclub musicians. So, the idea of a band performing in a bar or performing in a nightclub and not DJing like I do today. That culture is still alive down there. So just to see a live band, have food prepared by people that actually love preparing food and it’s not a part time job or like, it’s just something that people give me the impression that they actually love what they do down there. I’m still not ruling out living there eventually.

Baltin: I did an interview with Ravi and Michelle Coltrane on Monday. We were talking about the Carnegie Hall Alice Coltrane show next week, and this fascinates me because I was talking with them about how the relationship with music changes as you get older. You have different experiences that you bring to certain songs, certain albums, and we’re talking about how the relationship with their mom’s music had changed. And they’re like, “To us, it’s just mom.” And I made a joke, I’m like, “Yeah, I guess your mom’s chocolate cookies don’t taste different when you get older.” I started thinking about that. Talk about that as a foodie, because there’s such a similarity between food and music. They both trigger so many things.

Thompson: Oh my God, it’s crazy you mentioned that. Thank you so much, I appreciate it. It’s so funny you mentioned that. I just did a dinner at Eleven Madison [Park] and there was a scientist at the table with me and they were trying to explain to me that throughout time our taste buds subtly change. He gave me an example. He’s like, “Let’s take a random object. Let’s take a banana.” And he says, “If I were to teleport back to 1973, name a food from your childhood that made you happy like a banana.” I always remember the way that my grandma would prepare Corn Flakes for me and put the bananas slices in. He said, if I were to go back and grab that banana from 1973 and to bring it to you right now in 2025, you would throw up your entire insides. even though back in 1973 you consumed it like it was nothing. But it would taste night and day to you right now because, and he explained to me scientifically, trees, the weather, all that stuff determines, like we evolve with the earth, just like the earth evolves. I got in my head to thinking about that, like how things do change and do evolve. However, here’s the weird thing. I went to the Met Gala day before yesterday and I experienced something. This is the second time that I experienced this thing which almost brought me to tears. Stevie Wonder was the music act. And I had this same exact feeling with Elton John when he played SNL maybe three or four weeks ago. And the thing is when I see a legacy artist, and I’ve seen every situation, I’ve seen Guns and Roses, I’ve seen the Led Zeppelin reunion, I’ve seen everything and of course in your mind there’s a way that I would watch a legacy artist where yeah, I’m watching them right now but part of me is also trying to transpose myself to when they were at their peak. Like when Prince was alive. I I’m there for every Prince moment, but did it make me feel electric as the Prince of ‘85 made me feel? Not exactly, but something weird happened this year with both Elton John and Stevie Wonder. I’m so dying to know what made it happen. I’ve seen Stevie Wonder perform many a time in the past 10 -15 years. Stevie Wonder actually did his music as If it were 1973, 1974, 1975, 76 like “Superstition.” I literally felt like he was doing it on Sesame Street when he did it back in 1972, when I first saw Stevie Wonder on Sesame Street in ’72. And it blew my mind because I was ready to just dismiss it like, “Okay, Stevie Wonder’s here and I’ll never know what it is like to hear music in the ’70s when it was this prime live because I wasn’t going to shows like that.” But he did it. I never thought it was possible for music acts to capture lightning in a bottle as they once did. And Stevie Wonder and Elton John proved me wrong this year, that you can still get that electric feeling with that marksman level dart throwing, hit bull’s eye every time. I was with Chris Rock and I was like, “Dude, I need you to understand that this is a rare moment. Do you hear this arrangement? This s**t feels like 1972. He’s literally teleporting us back in time. This might not ever happen. So, let’s enjoy these five minutes as we see him do the song.” I’ve been thinking about that ever since.

Baltin: I have a theory on this. I wonder if it’s expectations are low and then they exceed them because I was at that Zeppelin reunion show and I expected it to be like a thing from the past and it was so good I cried because they took me back to being 14 which I did not expect.

Thompson: Yeah, when they did “In My Time Of Dying.”

Batin: That was it! I texted my wife, “This is so f**king good, it makes me want to cry.”

Thompson: Nailed it!