In the Oscars' nearly century-long history, the award show has only had five Black musical directors: Quincy Jones, Pharrell Williams, Harold Wheeler, Ricky Minor and now, Questlove.
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The Roots' frontman will serve as musical director for the 93rd Academy Awards and he revealed to Billboard that he "manifested" after the 2012 Oscars when then-musical directors, Pharrell and Hans Zimmer secured the all-star band. Questlove expressed, "I remember watching like, ‘Hey, wait a minute! I want to do that!’" Last year, under Minor's musical direction, he made a "special appearance" during the Best Original Song performances.
In his new position, the GRAMMY winner will "oversee the ceremony’s major musical elements, from the opening music to the show’s presenter and winner bumpers." Questlove explains, "this is not work for me. This is like ‘Wow, all that useless [music] information I had before is going to pay off." One of the first things that went through his mind when he accepted the position was the "wrap up" music for when someone's speech goes a bit too long. He revealed, "I didn't work on anything. I immediately just had dreams of, ‘Man, what creative way can I disrupt someone's overindulgent acceptance speech?’ That's how excited I was."
Jesse Collins, the show's producer alongside Stacey Sher and Steven Soderbergh, expressed that he chose to hire Quest because "with the show, we wanted a DJ experience, and we also wanted a DJ who could create music." Collins continued, "it started out with ‘We just need you to be the music director [and] deejay the Oscars.’ Once he said yes, then we were like, ‘Oh, well we need an opening title sequence! Oh, we need score for this! Oh, well we need this!’ [We’re adding components] every day, but he's still able to do it. You can go to him with Play-Doh, and he will mold it into something that the culture will just respond to as absolute musical brilliance."
When coming up with the score, the music historian will honor iconic film composers. He intends to pay homage "to ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s cinema throughout the evening, while also expecting a hip-hop-tinged twist to those compositions." Overall, Questlove is "eager to 'be the bridge' between film and Hip Hop and to 'plant seeds' of education surrounding where music comes from."
He has previously help musical directing roles for JAY-Z and D'Angelo and currently serves as musical director of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where The Roots are the house band. Check out the full interview here.
WATCH MORE: History being made at the 93rd Academy Awards
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