00:00I will say that probably In Time or Fresh is my favorite Sly song but it's
00:09it's hard to say because he has so many gems.
00:12You know my favorite.
00:13Oh God, why do you like Time for Living?
00:15No, not Time for Living, my favorite favorite is Family Affair.
00:18Oh, okay.
00:19We were editing Summer Soap and Sly and the Family Stone was who we were editing
00:30and in my head I was like wow, Sly doesn't know that ten days from this very performance
00:36his life is going to completely shift upside down and what happens in the next four years
00:43after Woodstock should be one for the history books.
00:47And I was just kind of saying like man, that's the documentary we really should be doing
00:52and literally 24 hours later out of nowhere, of all people Common calls me
00:58and is like yeah, Red and Variety, y'all doing that Black Woodstock film.
01:02Hey, you interested in Sly and the Family Stone?
01:06Because he's in that Woodstock film, right?
01:08And literally I thought like Siri was giving me away or whatever.
01:12I'm like I literally just said this to those guys yesterday that this is what we need to be doing.
01:17So the project found us.
01:20For this one, it's a roller coaster of storytelling as far as emotions are concerned.
01:27I think one of the biggest differences with this film versus Summer of Soul
01:31is it's not a particular time and place.
01:35It's one person's story across 50 years.
01:39And I think one of the hardest things that we had to do was like
01:43how much of the story do we put in the movie?
01:4850 years is a lot to cram into two hours.
01:51And so I think the challenge of making those choices is part of what the fun part was.
01:56Part of that acquiring his rights was his blessing, right?
02:00We couldn't interview him for this film because his health problems prevent him from
02:05and it just wouldn't be good to put him on camera.
02:08And that's kind of how the title came about, right?
02:11It's like whether he's here in physical form or not
02:14because we weren't sure if he would still be alive by the time we finished the movie.
02:18Whether he's here in physical form or not, his music lives on.
02:22His influence lives on.
02:25We showed him the film at the end as a courtesy.
02:28And through his manager and caretaker, she said that he loved it and was very proud.
02:34And then Thursday night we had our premiere here.
02:37And his three kids were here and they were seeing it for the first time.
02:41And that was such a special feeling.
02:43I don't know if you got a chance to talk to Navina after,
02:45but she was like, there's things in there that I didn't know about my father.
02:48For me, the best part of this process
02:51was going through the hundreds and hundreds of hours of reels of music,
02:57listening to alternate takes,
03:01listening to songs morph drastically into what we now know it as
03:08but starting off totally different,
03:11squabbles with the engineer,
03:14sly, playfully chastising band members.
03:19It was like a music freak's ideal fly-on-the-wall situation.
03:29So that said, I mean, that people know.
03:38I will say that probably, in time,
03:42On Fresh is my favorite sly song.
03:46But it's hard to say because he has so many gems.
03:49You know my favorite.
03:51Oh God, why are you like Time for Living?
03:53No, not Time for Living, my favorite favorite is Family Affair.
03:56Oh, okay.
03:57And what's funny is that song is so short.
04:00The version that's out in the world is like three minutes long.
04:03So when we were putting together the soundtrack,
04:06Amir did an edit of that song
04:08that sort of mimics a little bit the original version,
04:11which is like four minutes and 50 seconds.
04:14Almost five minutes.
04:16Yeah, that was pretty cool.
04:18How Amir and I even know each other is,
04:20I was a music journalist,
04:22and in 1996 I got assigned a story on The Roots
04:24that would be my first cover story.
04:26It was also the first time The Roots were on a cover
04:28of an American music magazine.
04:30I got flown to Philadelphia to interview them,
04:33and that's how we met.
04:35And we clicked right away.
04:37Because at his heart, Amir is a fan,
04:40but also I think deep down inside
04:42wanted to be a music journalist.
04:44He knew what pieces I had written,
04:46what reviews I had written,
04:48and for many years after that meeting,
04:50we would argue about rap records.
04:52And it's really kind of incredible
04:55to work with one of your musical heroes,
04:58but it's also really kind of incredible
05:00to see Amir on the other side now,
05:02being the storyteller and getting to sort of fulfill that dream.
05:05So that's a real joy for me.
05:07It's also us being in a place where
05:10we want to be the change that we want to see.
05:14And oftentimes you'll see,
05:17you know, like music documentaries,
05:20not to put anyone that's ever attempted,
05:23because there's some music documentaries
05:25that are life-changing,
05:27but more often than not, it's just, you know,
05:30typical talking head says,
05:32that's incredible, and you just, you know,
05:35teach people why something's incredible,
05:37put it in proper context.
05:39That's the fun part.
05:41I think that's the difference between
05:43our level of storytelling is
05:47you can immediately tell that music is like
05:50our wheelhouse, our passion.
05:52Yeah.
05:53And it shows.
05:54There's a scene in the movie
05:55where we break down dance to the music,
05:57and, you know, I think very intentionally
06:00we wanted to give the viewer and the audience
06:03the tools to see why that was such a,
06:05why it's such a catchy song,
06:07but also why it's very sophisticated
06:09and what Sly did that isn't easy to replicate.
06:13And having Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
06:15and Niall Rogers who, you know,
06:17break down exactly the parts of the song
06:19and why it's catchy,
06:21like that kind of part of the storytelling
06:24is really exciting.
06:26And I think that's the thing,
06:28at least I think Amir would agree,
06:30is we take that technique,
06:33that'll probably be used in future documentaries we do.
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