February 25, 2023 6:00 pm
Meany Performing Arts Center
Questlove
Questlove, six-time GRAMMY Award-winning musician, Producer, New York Times Bestselling Author, and Academy Award-Winning Filmmaker, will visit the UW Seattle campus and engage in a moderated conversation with Seattle Central College professor, writer, and historian Daudi Abe.
Registration opens on January 25, 2023 at 8 am PT.
Standby Policy
If an event is sold out, as a courtesy, the Graduate School will offer standby seating. Any remaining unclaimed seats within 15 minutes of lecture start time will be offered to our guests in the standby line on a first-come, first-served basis. Please note there is no guarantee of admission to the public lecture for those in the standby line.
About the speaker
Questlove
Five-time GRAMMY Award-winning musician, Producer, New York Times Bestselling Author, Academy Award-Winning Filmmaker
Academy Award-winning filmmaker, drummer, DJ, producer, director, culinary entrepreneur, New York Times best-selling author, and member of The Roots 鈥� Ahmir 鈥淨uestlove鈥� Thompson, is the unmistakable heartbeat of Philadelphia鈥檚 most influential hip-hop group. He is the Musical Director for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where his beloved Roots crew serves as house band. Beyond that, this 6-time GRAMMY Award winning musician’s indisputable reputation has landed him musical directing positions for everyone from D’Angelo to Jay-Z. Questlove made his directorial debut with the Academy Award winning feature documentary Summer of Soul. The movie broke the record for the highest-selling documentary to come out of Sundance, and it has since gone on to win 鈥淏est Feature Documentary鈥� at the 2022 Academy Awards, 鈥淏est Documentary鈥� at the 2022 British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) and 鈥淏est Music Film鈥� at the 2022 Grammy Awards, as well as a Peabody Award. In addition, Summer of Soul was crowned the 鈥淏est Movie of 2021鈥� by The New York Times and included among the 鈥渂est of the year鈥� by The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, TIME Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, Rolling Stone and more.
Outside of Summer of Soul, Questlove partnered together with Black Thought of The Roots to launch a production company, Two One Five Entertainment. Together, the pair announced a first-look deal with Universal Television to develop scripted and non-scripted programming. In 2022, the company executive produced the acclaimed feature documentary Descendant about the historic discovery of The Clotilda鈥攖he last known slave ship to arrive in America illegally transporting enslaved Africans. The documentary, which made its world premiere at Sundance in 2022, was acquired by Netflix and Higher Ground鈥擯resident Barack Obama and Michelle Obama鈥檚 production company. The film earned an impressive three nominations for 鈥淏est Documentary Feature,鈥� 鈥淏est Director,鈥� and 鈥淏est Historical Documentary鈥� and took home the award for 鈥淏est Historical Documentary鈥� at the 2022 Critics Choice Documentary Awards. It also received a nomination for听鈥淥utstanding Documentary鈥� for the 2023 NAACP Image Awards and was also named one of the 鈥淭op 5 Documentaries鈥� of 2022 by the National Board of Review.
Questlove has written multiple books, including the New York Times bestsellers Mo鈥� Meta Blues, Creative Quest and Music is History, as well as the GRAMMY nominated audio books Music Is History and Creative Quest. He is set to publish his first children鈥檚 book The Rhythm of Time on April 18, 2023.
About the moderator
Daudi Abe
Professor, Writer, and Historian
Daudi Abe is a professor, writer, and historian who has delivered curriculum covering topics such as culture, race, gender, education, hip-hop, and sports spanning four decades. He has taught all levels from kindergarten to graduate school, serving the last twenty years as an instructor and course developer at Seattle Central College.
Dr. Abe is Faculty Coordinator for the Academy for Rising Educators at SCC as well as History of Race & Policing curriculum consultant at the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission. His latest book,听Emerald Street: A History of Hip-Hop in Seattle, was published in 2020 by 天美影视传媒 Press.听
Sponsoring Departments: The Graduate School