Questlove Pays Tribute to Sly Stone: 'Changes He Sparked While Here Will Echo Forever'
The post Questlove Pays Tribute to Sly Stone: 'Changes He Sparked While Here Will Echo Forever' appeared first on Consequence.
Questlove has paid tribute to late funk pioneer Sly Stone. In an Instagram post, The Roots drummer and music historian reflected on the musician's legacy and vast accomplishments, while also sharing his personal experience working on the original documentary Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius).
'Sly Stone, born Sylvester Stewart, left this earth today, but the changes he sparked while here will echo forever. From the moment his music reached me in the early 1970s, it became a part of my soul,' Questlove wrote. 'Sly was a giant — not just for his groundbreaking work with the Family Stone, but for the radical inclusivity and deep human truths he poured into every note. His songs weren't just about fighting injustice; they were about transforming the self to transform the world. He dared to be simple in the most complex ways — using childlike joy, wordless cries, and nursery rhyme cadences to express adult truths. His work looked straight at the brightest and darkest parts of life and demanded we do the same.'
Questlove continued by acknowledging Stone's addiction battle and disappearance from the spotlight before stating that the artist 'lived long enough to outlast many of his disciples, to feel the ripples of his genius return through hip-hop samples, documentaries, and his memoir.'
'Still, none of that replaces the raw beauty of his original work,' Questlove added. 'As I reflect on his legacy, two lines haunt me: 'We deserve everything we get in this life' — a line from the Sly Lives! documentary that feels like both a warning and a manifestation — and, of course, the eternal cry of 'Everyday People': 'We got to live together!' Once idealistic, now I hear it as a command. Sly's music will likely speak to us even more now than it did then. Thank you, Sly. You will forever live.'
Stone's death at the age of 82 was announced by his family earlier today, June 9th. It followed 'a prolonged battle' with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and 'other underlying health issues.'
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More from Rolling Stone Wayne Lewis, Founding Member of Atlantic Starr, Dead at 68 George Wendt's Cause of Death Revealed Hear Sly and the Family Stone Rock a Small Club in 1967 With Funky 'I Gotta Go Now' The family added that Stone 'recently completed the screenplay for his life story, a project we are eager to share with the world in due course.' At the peak of his success, when hits like 'Dance to the Music' and 'Everyday People' were high on the charts, the wildly inventive musician and singer presented a glowingly optimistic image in step with the times, bringing together Black and white audiences, uplifting crowds with electrifying shows. But the unpredictability that was the core of his genius gave way to a long decline, as his personal demons destroyed what he had once been. Born Sylvester Stewart in Texas in 1943, Stone started making music with his siblings as a child: The Stewart Four (Sylvester, his sisters Rose and Vaetta, and his brother Freddie) made their first single, 'On the Battlefield,' in 1952. He moved to California with his family as a kid, and later became a familiar voice in the Bay Area's music scene. As a staff producer at Autumn Records, he put together hits like Bobby Freeman's 'C'mon and Swim'; he also produced 'Somebody to Love' by Grace Slick's pre-Jefferson Airplane band, the Great Society. He was also a DJ on KSOL and KDIA, and later noted that 'in radio, I found out about a lot of things I don't like. Like, I think there shoudn't be 'Black radio.' Just radio. Everybody be a part of everything.' Stone's own band, Sly & the Family Stone, came together over the course of 1966 and 1967. It really was a family of sorts: Sly and his siblings Rose and Freddie were joined by cousins Greg Errico and Jerry Martini, as well as bassist Larry Graham and trumpeter Cynthia Robinson. The Family Stone's breakthrough hit was 1968's 'Dance to the Music,' in which their voices and instruments, high and low, each took a turn in the spotlight. A racially mixed band with male and female members, playing soul-infused rock together was a rare sight at the time — a utopian vision of what pop music could be. Hits like 'Life,' 'Stand!,' 'Everyday People,' and 'Hot Fun in the Summertime' followed: all anthems of solidarity and joy that acknowledged the pain and frustration of the times and encouraged their audiences to transcend it. Sly & the Family Stone's soaring performance of 'I Want to Take You Higher' at Woodstock in 1969 was a triumph of that era, and the band finished the decade with an enormous hit: 'Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),' whose joyful funk masked the existential horror and lacerating sarcasm of its lyrics. Their next album was supposed to be called The Incredible and Unpredictable Sly & the Family Stone — a sideways reference to Stone's habit of blowing off gigs. He finally released his masterpiece, There's a Riot Goin' On, in late 1971. Recorded with help from Bobby Womack and an early drum machine, it was a bleak, scarred, wobbly vision — the soured remains of the Sixties dream. 'I think that's kind of his like, help the medicine go down approach,' Questlove told Rolling Stone in March. 'He paints a very dark, lyric, paranoia, self-confessional thing almost in every record, but it's so happy-sounding.' The Family Stone disintegrated over the next few years, as Sly sank deep into drug abuse and became even more erratic. He married Kathy Silva on stage in front of a crowd of 20,000 at a sold-out Madison Square Garden show in 1974, but within months, the band had broken up, and the marriage, which produced a son, Sylvester Jr., didn't last much longer. 'He beat me, held me captive, and wanted me to be in ménages à trois,' Silva said years later. 'I didn't want that world of drugs and weirdness.' Sylvia left in 1976. Sly had two more children, Sylvette and Novena Carmel. Sly persevered, making one attempt after another to win back the public: His 1976 album was called Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back, and the one that followed it three years later Back on the Right Track. After 1982's half-finished Ain't But the One Way, he never released another album of new, original material, despite persistent rumors that he was working on the magical record that would get his career back on its feet. He collaborated with George Clinton, on whom he'd been a huge influence; he turned up for guest vocals on records by the Bar-Kays and Earth, Wind and Fire. Stone's personal troubles continued. He was arrested for cocaine possession multiple times in the 1980s, and he served 14 months in a rehab center beginning in 1989. Between Sly & the Family Stone's 1993 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the 2006 tribute to them at the Grammy Awards (for which Sly appeared for a few minutes with an enormous blond mohawk, then wandered off), he all but vanished. Interviewed by Vanity Fair in 2007, he claimed he had 'a library' of new material, 'a hundred and some songs, or maybe 200.' In 2011, the New York Post reported that he was living in a camper van in Los Angeles; that same year, he released I'm Back! Family & Friends, mostly lackluster new rerecordings of his Sixties classics. But the specter of his glory years remained. Stone's great 1960s and early-Seventies records inspired Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock to incorporate electric instruments and funk grooves into jazz; Prince and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Roots have all covered Sly & the Family Stone songs. A little over a year after the release of Stone's autobiography, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin), a documentary, 2025's Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius), reexamined Stone's legacy. The film, directed by Questlove, focused on how Stone's legacy and influence continues to reverberate through popular music along with how Stone carried the weight of that influence personally until it became a burden. 'My intent was always to use Sly Stone to tell our story, my story, D'Angelo's story, Lauryn Hill's story, Frank Ocean's story,' Questlove told Rolling Stone. 'When you're talking about 'blowing it,' a lot of times the fear of failing or the fear of returning to where you came from — which is the very bottom — causes you anxiety about your future, and then causes you to fumble it.' The film featured commentary from George Clinton, Chaka Khan, D'Angelo, Q-Tip, and Family Stone members Larry Graham and Jerry Martini, among several others. 'I feel like a piece of my heart left with Sly. We were best friends for 60 years. He credits me with starting the band, but it was his musical genius that made music history,' Martini said in a statement to Rolling Stone. 'He will always be in my heart and I will continue to celebrate his music with the Family Stone. We extend our sincere love, condolences and prayers to his children and his family. Rest well my dear friend. You will be greatly missed.' Best of Rolling Stone Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked
