Academy Award-winning filmmaker, drummer, DJ, producer, director, culinary entrepreneur,
New York Times best-selling author, and member of The Roots--
Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, is the unmistakable heartbeat of Philadelphia's 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 with everyone from D'Angelo to Jay-Z. Questlove recently 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 "Best Feature Documentary" at the 2022 Academy Awards, "Best Documentary" at the 2022 British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) and "Best Music Film" at the 2022 Grammy Awards, as well as a Peabody Award. In addition,
Summer of Soul was named the "Best Movie of 2021" by
The New York Times and was named one of the best of the year 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, in 2020, the pair announced a first-look deal with Universal Television to develop scripted and non-scripted programming. In 2022, Two One Five Entertainment is set to executive produce Sam Pollard's
The League, a documentary centered on the tumultuous journey of Negro league baseball and also produce an upcoming documentary on the legendary Sly Stone, as well as various projects with partners such as Disney Jr. This year the company will executive produce
Descendant, a feature documentary on the historic discovery of
The Clotilda, the 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. Higher Ground, President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama's production company, will present the film, alongside Netflix. Questlove has written multiple books including the
New York Times bestsellers
Mo' Meta Blues and
Creative Quest, the GRAMMY nominated audio book
Creative Quest,
Soul Train: The Music, Dance and Style of a Generation, the James Beard nominated
somethingtofoodabout,
Mixtape Potluck, and the newly released bestseller
Music Is History.
S. A. Cosby is an Anthony Award-winning writer from Southeastern Virginia. He is the author of the
New York Times bestseller
Razorblade Tears and
Blacktop Wasteland, which won the
Los Angeles Times Book Prize, was a
New York Times Notable Book, and was named a best book of the year by
NPR, The Guardian, and
Library Journal, among others.
