About an hour into Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s debut feature “summer of soul,“Sylvester Stewart (aka Sly Stone) and his interracial, mixed-gender band take the stage at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival and continue to blow the crowd away. Questlove’s Oscar-winning documentary about the festival illustrated how the sonic diversity of the lineup was in part a microcosm of the big tent of the late 1960s. Gospel, blues, pop, r&b and rock ‘n’ roll were all represented at the festival because black culture was not, and never will be, a monolith. It’s a testament to Sly and the Family Stones’ musical prowess that they managed to stand out as a highlight from a brood filled with heavy hitters like Nina Simone and a young Stevie Wonder. There is a reason why film ending with them touching “I want to take you higher.”
With his new film “Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)” Questlove expands on the short segment devoted to the band from “Summer of Soul” into a full feature. His motivation for the project is indicated in the parenthetical of the title. Sly Stone was a musical prodigy and visionary frontman whose background as a choir boy, conservatory student and San Francisco DJ made him a unique entity in the cultural landscape. His group’s brand of psychedelic soul, itself a melting pot of diverse sounds percolating through the culture, generated a unique appeal whose influence can still be felt today. But as the group reached its peak, Sly fell prey to personal difficulties: various external pressures and internal conflicts within the group exacerbated a crushing drug addiction that ensured the band’s slow dissolution.
But as much as Questlove probes his many interviewees with questions about the expectations and responsibilities that come with “Black Genius,” his film falls short of the ambitious framework he lays out. “Sly life!“Unfortunately, any of Dime-A-Duzin resemble music documentaries littering various streaming services, complete with a rapid-fire opening teaser sequence designed to ensure maximum audience retention and repetitive insights laid out to combat flagging overview. Compelling topics only go so far when presented in such a bland, familiar way.
As a primer on the band’s career and aftermath, “Sly Lives!” Acquits himself well. Questlove and editor Joshua L. Pearson visually comment on all the major markers of Sly and the family’s short, tremendous career, which was very well documented. “Sly Lives!” Has plenty of stock footage you’d expect, including their appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” with Sly dancing down the aisles shocking a sea of older white faces, and their legendary performance at Woodstock. During the second half of the film, which chronicles Sly’s public fall from Grace, Questlove gets plenty of mileage from his various TV appearances, impromptu interviews, and his questionable decision to get married in front of a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden. Footage of key interviews and the group diligently laying down tracks in the studio are also peppered throughout the film.
Like “Sly Lives!” Correctly insists, Sly Stone is a once-in-a-generation talent, and it’s clearly moving to watch him and his band at their peak wow a crowd. At a time when the music industry was even more segregated than it is now, the widespread success of a racially and gender-integrated band, playing to mixed crowds alongside all-white bands and recording numerous hits, was truly unprecedented. Few others had the ability to project such a utopian image while refusing to stay aloof from the racial unrest rippling through the country. It’s also heartbreaking to see Sly gradually crumble in the public eye.
The problem is not the quality of images, but the lack of a strong curatorial hand. The film hews so strongly to a rise and fall narrative that it ends up dictating the use of the material from start to finish. Questlove holds the viewer’s hand so firmly that even those unfamiliar with Sly and the Family Stone or their history can predict when and where events will occur. The Talking-Head commentary suggests that the story’s hand so many times through overherration that the film’s worst moments suggest an expensively produced episode of “Behind the Music.” By design, there are no surprises in “Sly Lives!”, just a movie that goes through the motions.
The powerful, previously ephemeral concert footage of “Summer of Soul” was not only its raison d’être but also its structuring force. That film suffered from bouts of over-contextualization, with Questlove often interspersing the professionally shot footage with contemporary interviews or news footage to constantly explain the moment. While the reminders could be influential, it was as if Questlove didn’t trust the recording to speak for itself.
But even when “Summer of Soul” leaned too heavily on its social or historical framework, it could always return to the concert as a foundational performance. With its diffuse focus, “Sly Lives!” Don’t have that luxury, and instead the direct-address interviews too often extrapolate information that is easy to glimpse, or worse, describe what we already see. They are most perceptive at their most analytical, as when the film engages in a formal dissection of “Stand!” Or when Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam discuss how they zeroed in on the guitar riff in “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again)” as the key sample for Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation.” But aside from the occasional interesting anecdote or observation, most of the talking head discussion doesn’t illuminate what isn’t already plain to see.
Most of the time, the archival material of a modern music documentary determines its overall quality, but since Questlove has an exceptional musical mind, the scenes of his conversations with artists such as Andre 3000, Q-Tip and D’Angelo bring out “Sly Lives!” at its best. is in the few moments when these artists speak freely and comfortably when one can see a version of the film that lives up to its parenthetical promise.(D’Angelo casually points out how white artists builds generational wealth so they can die of old age as Don Corleone is particularly potent.) Questlove opens by asking each interviewee how to define “black genius,” but the concept takes a secondary position to a Potent Basic chronicle of Sly’s structured life doesn’t paint him as a cautionary tale, treat him as a metaphor, or revel in the spectacle of his struggles.Questlove, ever the student of music history, takes great pains to show how Sly was just as much one victim of a popular culture as unforgiving of black struggle as he was his own demons.
Yet the film doesn’t examine the burden he clearly carried as much as how it brought him to his knees. Sly is undoubtedly a black genius, one who ensured that his artistic descendants could chart their own path, but “Sly Lives!” Never really investigate what it means in any meaningful sense. Perhaps only the music itself can tell that story.
Grade: C+
“Sly Lives!” premiere at 2025 Sundance Film festival. It is currently seeking US distribution.
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