Sunday, October 16, 2022

7 p.m. | Osterhout Concert Theater

Special Event

$5 – Binghamton University students

$5 – Binghamton University faculty/staff

$10 – Alumni and non-affiliated

Paid for with funds from the Campus Life Fee. A presentation of the Binghamton University Distinguished Speaker Series Committee. Coordinated by Campus Activities.

Known professionally as Questlove, Ahmir Thompson is an American musician, record producer, disc jockey, filmmaker, music journalist, and actor. He is the drummer and joint frontman (with Black Thought) for the hip-hop band the Roots. The Roots have been serving as the in-house band for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon since 2014, having the same role in Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Questlove is also one of the producers of the cast album of the Broadway musical Hamilton. He is the co-founder of the websites Okayplayer and OkayAfrica. Additionally, he is an adjunct professor at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University.

He also served as the musical director of both the 2020 and 2021 Academy Awards ceremony, in addition to being the show’s in-house DJ.

In 2021, Questlove made his directorial debut with Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), a film about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, which featured performances by Stevie Wonder, Sly and The Family Stone, Nina Simone, Mahalia Jackson, Mavis Staples, B.B. King, and many other top Soul, Jazz, Gospel and Latin artists of the era. Summer of Soul won both the US Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award for documentary at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Disney-owned Searchlight Pictures acquired the film for distribution, setting a new Sundance Film Festival record for documentary film acquisition price.

He won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film in 2021.

As an author, he has written four books: Mo’ Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove; Soul Train: The Music, Dance, and Style of a Generation; Creative Quest; and Music Is History.