Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.

PARK CITY, Utah — Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson doesn’t want you to forget. He wants to both educate and re-introduce you to the music legends that were formative for the latter half of the 20th century.

His 2021 Oscar-winning documentary, “Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” reveals the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival to many who otherwise would have only heard of Woodstock.

Performing at that festival in Harlem was a rising band called Sly & the Family Stone, led by singer Sly Stone. Questlove, drummer and joint frontman of The Roots, settled on Stone as the subject of his next feature documentary, “Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius),” which premiered Thursday at the Sundance Film Festival.

The documentary follows the rise-and-fall narrative that’s standard for showing the dangers of superstardom. Although the predictability drags down the experience slightly, Questlove pokes holes in this narrative and uses Stone’s career to tackle various aspects of artistry, identity and how the media frames popular Black singers.

The movie features interviews with Stone’s fellow bandmates and a plethora of legendary artists, including Q Tip of A Tribe Called Quest and André 3000. Before the documentary truly gets underway, Questlove probes singer D’Angelo about what comes with being a Black artist and, as the title suggests, a “Black genius.” As Questlove asks this question, though, D’Angelo is undergoing makeup application from the crew, ironically implying how Black artists always have to keep up appearances.

From there, “Sly Lives!” has a combative energy to it, as it tries to reject the notions of a rise-and-fall narrative. Stone describes his life and career mainly in an interview with a reporter who seems intent on wondering why and how he failed.

Stone sounds as if he’s trying to reclaim his music and himself. We hear major television journalists like Bryant Gumbel and Connie Chung deride and bemoan the seemingly tragic story of Stone. But he still fights back. In one moment, Stone, while high on psychedelics, pushed back against Dick Cavett’s accusations of being unkempt and not being able to write his own songs.

The songs themselves serve as a form of resistance to those who want to squeeze Stone into one box. Stone and his band are so compelling because of how they bounced from genre to genre, blending funk, soul, R&B, rock and psychedelia all at once. He never wanted to be too independent, with hits like “Dance to the Music.” But also, he never wanted to lose sight of himself and who he was as a Black man with the album “There’s a Riot Goin’ On,” which alienated many of his white fans.

The documentary is riveting because it shows just how much of an influence Stone had on Black artists. His tendency to bounce genres left him open to a wide swath of musicians to be a model for, including Miles Davis, Prince, LL Cool J and more.

If there was one flaw in Questlove’s latest film, it comes a tad short of examining the phrase “Black genius.” With much of the documentary taking such a conventional three-act structure, the more powerful themes sometimes get pushed to the side.

Still, this documentary makes a clever use of language that reflects the structure of most musician biopics. The young, creative artist who then spirals out due to drugs or other ills is a frequently pushed media narrative. But these can fall prey to conservative narratives that do more harm than good; Stone’s attempt at a comeback was recontextualized as a cautionary tale in the “Just Say No” era of the 1980s.

For most of the film, members of Sly and The Family Stone, artists and family members talk about Stone in the past tense, as if he’s dead. But one internet search and that conception goes out the window. In the last few minutes of the movie, interview subjects use the present tense to talk about Stone, still alive and well at 81 years old. The change in tense differentiates this documentary from others and makes it more true to Stone’s career.

Like the accomplishments of “Summer of Soul,” “Sly Lives!” serves as an eye-opening experience for those who have been fed what the establishment considers “great” artists of the late 20th century like The Beatles and Prince. Questlove takes you on a thrilling, soulful ride that can sometimes make you imagine Sly Stone as a foregone symbol of some grand idea, though the title of the film assures you that he’s still around.

Published on January 25, 2025 at 8:26 pm

Contact Henry: henrywobrien1123@gmail.com