Questlove‘s directorial debut Summer Of Soul (… Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised) is out now on Hulu — you really should watch it at the first available opportunity — and the drummer-producer-author-historian is on the promo circuit, doing interviews with the likes of Late Night‘s Seth Myers. In the course of last night’s interview, Myers wonders whether the footage for the film, which was unearthed after being passed over for broadcast and sitting in a basement for 40 years, was the “Holy Grail” of concert footage.
Ahmir goes a step further, calling the footage “past the Holy Grail. This is what they call ‘lightning in a bottle.’” He admits to feeling some skepticism about the concert because it had originally escaped his encyclopedic knowledge (he jokes that “there was a period where I was YouTube,” the resource everyone used to confirm archival, historical facts) but that upon seeing it “all my arrogance dissipated and suddenly I became worried about why would they even trust me to tell the story.”
Of course, there’s probably no one better to tell such a mythic story than Questlove, whose behind-the-scenes stories about music icons like Prince have become integral parts of their legends. The film won Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize and has racked up critical acclaim ever since its release.
Watch Questlove’s interview with Seth Myers above.
Summer Of Soul is out now. Stream it on Hulu.