About an hour into Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s debut function “Summer season of Soul,” Sylvester Stewart (aka Sly Stone) and his interracial, mixed-gender band takes the stage of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Pageant and proceed to blow the group away. Questlove’s Oscar-winning documentary concerning the competition illustrated how the sonic variety of the lineup was partly a microcosm for the big-tent nature of late-Nineteen Sixties Black consciousness. Gospel, blues, pop, R&B, and rock ‘n’ roll had been all represented on the competition as a result of Black tradition was not, and by no means might be, a monolith. It’s a testomony to Sly and the Household Stone’s musical energy that they managed to face out as a spotlight from a foster full of heavy hitters like Nina Simone and a younger Stevie Surprise. There’s a cause that the movie ends with their stirring efficiency of “I Wish to Take You Greater.”
Together with his new movie “Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)” Questlove expands upon the temporary part devoted to the band from “Summer season of Soul” right into a full function. His motives for the mission are specified by the title’s parenthetical. Sly Stone was a musical prodigy and a visionary frontman whose background as a choir boy, conservatory scholar, and San Francisco DJ made him a novel entity within the cultural panorama. His group’s model of psychedelic soul, itself a melting pot of various sounds percolating within the tradition, generated a novel crossover enchantment whose affect can nonetheless be felt right this moment. However because the group reached their peak, Sly fell prey to private hardship: varied exterior pressures and internecine conflicts throughout the group exacerbated a crippling drug dependancy that ensured the band’s sluggish dissolution.
However as a lot as Questlove probes his many interviewees with questions concerning the expectations and duty that comes with “Black genius,” his movie doesn’t dwell as much as the bold framework he places forth. “Sly Lives!” sadly resembles any of the dime-a-dozen music documentaries that litter varied streaming providers, full with a rapid-fire opening teaser sequence designed to make sure most viewers retention and repetitive insights pitched to fight flagging consideration spans. Compelling material solely goes thus far when offered in such a bland, acquainted method.
As a primer on the band’s profession and aftermath, “Sly Lives!” acquits itself superb. Questlove and editor Joshua L. Pearson visually annotate each main marker of Sly and the Household Stone’s temporary, monumental profession, which was very nicely documented. “Sly Lives!” options loads of archival footage one would count on, together with their look on “The Ed Sullivan Present,” with Sly dancing down the aisles stunning a sea of older white faces, and their legendary efficiency at Woodstock. Within the movie’s second half, which chronicles Sly’s public fall from grace, Questlove will get loads of mileage out of his varied TV appearances, erratic interviews, and his questionable resolution to get married in entrance of a sold-out crowd at Madison Sq. Backyard. Recordings of key interviews and the group diligently laying down tracks within the studio are additionally peppered all through the movie.
As “Sly Lives!” appropriately insists, Sly Stone is a once-in-a-generation expertise, and it’s plainly shifting to look at him and his band at their peak overwhelm a crowd. At a time when the music business was much more segregated than it’s now, the widespread success of a racially- and gender-integrated band, who performed for blended crowds, alongside all-white bands, and recorded quite a few hits, was genuinely unprecedented. Few others had the power to mission such a utopic picture whereas refusing to shrink back from the racial unrest rippling by means of the nation. It’s likewise heartbreaking to see Sly steadily crumble within the public eye.
The issue isn’t the standard of footage, however the lack of a robust curatorial hand. The movie hews so strongly to a rise-and-fall narrative that it finally ends up dictating the fabric’s use from starting to finish. Questlove holds the viewer’s hand so firmly that even these unfamiliar with Sly and the Household Stone or their historical past can predict when and the place occasions will happen. The talking-head commentary ideas the story’s hand so many occasions by means of over-narration that the movie’s worst moments suggests an expensively produced episode of “Behind the Music.” By design, there are not any surprises in “Sly Lives!,” only a movie going by means of the motions.
The highly effective, previously-unseen live performance footage in “Summer season of Soul” was not solely its raison d’être but in addition its structuring drive. That movie suffered from bouts of over-contextualization, with Questlove ceaselessly interrupting the professionally-shot materials with up to date interviews or information footage to continually clarify the second. Although the remembrances may very well be affecting, it was as if Questlove didn’t belief the recording to talk for itself.
However even when “Summer season of Soul” leaned too closely on its social or historic framework, it might at all times return to the live performance as a grounding conceit. With its diffuse focus, “Sly Lives!” doesn’t have that luxurious, and as a substitute the direct-address interviews too usually needlessly explicate info that’s simple to gleam, or worse, describe what we’re already seeing. They’re most perceptive at their most analytical, like when the movie indulges a proper dissection of “Stand!” or when Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam talk about how they zeroed in on the guitar riff in “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Once more)” as the important thing pattern for Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation.” However other than the sporadically attention-grabbing anecdote or statement, a lot of the speaking head dialogue don’t illuminate what isn’t already plain to see.
More often than not, the archival materials in a up to date music documentary determines its general high quality, however since Questlove has an distinctive musical thoughts, the scenes that includes his conversations with artists like Andre 3000, Q-Tip, and D’Angelo convey out “Sly Lives!” at its finest. It’s within the scant moments when these artists converse freely and comfortably when one can see a model of the movie that lives as much as the promise of its parenthetical. (D’Angelo casually remarking how white artists construct generational wealth to allow them to die in outdated age like Don Corleone is very potent.) Questlove opens with asking every interviewee outline “Black genius,” however the idea takes a secondary place to a primary chronicle of Sly’s textured life. The movie doesn’t paint him as a cautionary story, deal with him like a metaphor, or revel within the spectacle of his struggles. Questlove, ever the scholar of musical historical past, takes nice pains to display how Sly was as a lot a sufferer of a preferred tradition unforgiving of Black wrestle as he was his personal demons.
However, the movie doesn’t look at the burden he clearly shouldered as a lot as the way it introduced him to his knees. Sly is undoubtedly a Black genius, one who ensured that his creative descendants might chart their very own path, however “Sly Lives!” by no means actually examines what which means in any significant sense. Possibly solely the music itself can inform that story.
Grade: C+
“Sly Lives!” premiered on the 2025 Sundance Movie Pageant. It’s at the moment searching for U.S. distribution.
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