by Jeroslyn JoVonn
January 27, 2025
André 3000, D’Angelo, Chaka Khan, and extra communicate on the ‘Black genius’ that’s Sly Stone.
Questlove rounded up an A-list group of Black musical expertise to reward Sly Stone in his new Hulu documentary, Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius).
The movie premiered on the 2025 Sundance Movie Competition on Thursday, adopted by the debut of the official trailer, Billboard stories. The 2-minute trailer options music legends, together with André 3000, Chaka Khan, George Clinton, D’Angelo, and Q-Tip, reflecting on Stone’s groundbreaking function as a funk-soul pioneer.
Questlove may be seen asking André 3000 if he believes within the idea of “Black genius” earlier than fast highlights of Stone, who shot to fame in 1968 with the discharge of his band’s first hit, “Dance to the Music.” Energetic dance strikes, flamboyant costumes, outsized sun shades, and a towering afro set the stage for highlights of Stone’s profession, all accompanied by his 1969 No. 1 hit, “On a regular basis Individuals.”
Pictures of the various making of Sly and the Household Stone assist transition the dialog round how “massively in style” the group was with its messages of peace and unity and a string of Billboard Scorching 100 prime 10s, together with “Scorching Enjoyable within the Summertime” and No. 1 smashes “Household Affair” and “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Once more).”
“Sly created this distinctive area,” Q-Tip says.
P-Funk icon Clinton goes on to notice how groundbreaking Sly and the Household Stone have been to have a “blended” line-up of women and men, white and Black, of their band. “They seemed like nothing else,” producer Jimmy Jam says of the group’s uplifting mix of soul, pop, R&B, funk, and gospel.
The band’s songs served as anthems throughout a time when the nation was deeply divided over the Vietnam Warfare. Archival footage within the documentary reveals the heightened consideration Stone acquired throughout the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies earlier than his drug use and erratic habits successfully ended the group by 1975.
“On the time… it was nearly an excessive amount of abruptly,” Stone says within the doc.
With all highs come some low lows, and the trailer highlights how the movie will delve into the “nervousness, the stress, the drug use” that plagued Stone’s profession.
“When you’ve been on this heightened, explosive life…your physique has taken in a lot power, and also you’ve given out a lot power, and also you cease the place’s that power go?” André 3000 asks.
Different icons who lent their time to seem within the documentary embrace Nile Rodgers of Stylish, P-Funk singer Ruth Copeland, music business icon Clive Davis, and Household Stone members Larry Graham Jr., Jerry Martini, and Greg Errico.
Sly Lives will start streaming on Hulu on Feb. 13.
The movie is Questlove’s second documentary following the Oscar-winning 2021 Summer time of Soul concerning the 1969 Harlem Cultural Competition (aka “Black Woodstock”), which featured Sly and the Household Stone.
Subsequent up for Questlove, the director: a documentary on Earth, Wind & Fireplace.
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