Spin Doctors: 8 DJs Who Inspired Questlove

Ahmir Khalib Thompson, known professionally as Questlove or ?uestlove, is a Grammy award-winning musical tastemaker supreme, one of the world’s most beloved DJs, and a leading authority on the soul, funk, hip-hop, and R&B genres.

• Early life: The son of doo-wop crooner Lee Andrews and singer and dancer Jacqui Thompson, Questlove made his music debut at Radio City Music Hall at 12. At the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts, Questlove joined forces with classmate Tariq Trotter (who performs as Black Thought) to form the hip-hop band the Roots, known for their fusion of jazz, hip-hop, and vintage soul.
• The Roots: The Roots’s fourth album, Things Fall Apart, propelled by the single “You Got Me,” was certified platinum and landed a coveted spot on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” list. Around this time, The Roots became a fixture on television, with memorable performances on Dave Chappelle’s classic sketch-comedy series Chappelle’s Show to the late-night talk-show circuit. In 2009, The Roots joined Late Night With Jimmy Fallon as the house band, with Questlove as the bandleader and frontman. When the comedian signed on to host The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon five years later, Questlove was named the show’s musical director.
• Other successes: Questlove’s eclectic career includes more than just performance—for instance, he was an executive producer for the original Broadway cast recording of Hamilton. He’s made tracks for many revered artists, including Al Green, John Legend, Erykah Badu, and Jay-Z, and hosts a weekly iHeartRadio podcast, Questlove Supreme. Questlove has also flexed his acting chops on television and the big screen in Pixar’s Soul (2020), Parks and Recreation, and Saturday Night Live. He currently teaches music courses at New York University.

Questlove has devoted his life to studying the most influential music of the past 70 years, including the work of the most important DJs who have curated and mixed that music. Some of them left a serious impression, broadening his horizons and informing his style:

1. 1. Aba Shanti-i: Aba Shanti-i is a London-born reggae/dub maestro known for his use of delay; his No. 1 weapon, according to Questlove, is silence. Aba Shanti-i also brings a unique approach to echo, reverb, and performing live (he plays with his back to the audience). He’s been a DJ and producer for over three decades.
2. 2. D-Nice: The former Boogie Down Productions member D-Nice solidified his sampling credentials on his 1990 debut, Call Me D-Nice. Since then, he’s spun classic R&B and hip-hop everywhere from Oscar parties to President Obama’s 2012 inaugural ball. In 2020, he won a Webby for his “Club Quarantine” Instagram Live party.
3. 3. DJ Jazzy Jeff: You might know him as half of DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, but DJ Jazzy Jeff is also one of the artists responsible for developing the “Transformer scratch”—the now-foundational move in which the DJ moves a record back and forth across the turntable while toggling the crossfader. He changed hip-hop forever.
4. 4. Cosmo Baker: One of Questlove’s fellow Philly natives, Baker co-hosted the late-1990s Philly party “The Remedy,” a big hit with the neo-soul community—including the Roots and J Dilla. Later, he formed the Rub, a DJ and remix collective specializing in genre-spanning sets—called open-for-mat sets—along with DJ Ayres and DJ Eleven. He continues to spin records professionally all over the world.
5. 5. Dr. Dre: Dr. Dre’s G-funk hip-hop sparked an entire movement in the early 1990s. Before that, he was a DJ at the LA club Eve’s After Dark. Back then, he referred to himself as the Master of Mixology, and for good reason; Questlove admires the way he’d mix old Motown with more modern sounds—the Supremes and Afrika Bambaataa, or the Temptations and Run-DMC—to create something fresh.
6. 6. Larry Levan: “The boldest DJ ever,” according to Questlove, Levan’s decade-long residency at the New York nightclub Paradise Garage during the 1970s and 1980s is now the stuff of legend. His sets mix soul, disco, Italo disco, funk, new wave, dub, electro, punk, hip-hop, and house—which could be challenging, but they were highly influential. “He did not subscribe to the theory that the customer is always right,” Questlove says. “He subscribed to the theory that Larry Levan’s always right.”
7. 7. Skrillex: Skrillex has become synonymous with EDM, but Questlove credits him for being “on the train early” to South African house music and the growing Afrobeat movement we’re witnessing today: “He was collecting and curating those acts back in 2014.”
8. 8. Gilles Peterson: The French-born DJ and radio host Gilles Peterson has been spinning experimental jazz, soul, hip-hop, Latin, tropical, and electronic music for decades. He’s also founded three record labels and helmed more than 100 compilations.

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