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[Sly Stone] Okay, okay. We'll do the whole thing again.

[♪ rhythmic tapping]

That was cooking though, man. That was a good, that was...

- [♪ guitar playing] - Don't worry about it, let's do it again.

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

One. Two.

One, two, three!

[♪ "Sing a Simple Song" by Sly and the Family Stone playing]

♪ Sing a simple song ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

[crowd cheering]

Many people think of him as their hero.

Making music that sounded like no one else's.

The most innovative musician on the rock scene.

- Hit after hit after hit. - The one and only Sly Stone.

♪ You're in trouble when you find it's hard for you to smile ♪

♪ A simple song might make it better for a little ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Sing it with your sister, sing it sing it sista, yah, yah ♪

It can't be overstated how massively popular

Sly and the Family Stone was.

♪

[George Clinton] At that time, a mixed group

of Black and white girls and boys was a new thing.

♪ Hey, music lover ♪

They sounded like nothing else sounds.

- ♪ All I want to do ♪ - They was doing psychedelic.

- R&B, - Pop. Rock.

- [George] Church. - Blues.

- Soul. - Funk.

Sly and the Family Stone was a family.

We were friends.

- But Sly was the creator. - Writer.

- [Jimmy Jam] Producer. - Multi-instrument.

- Player. - Composer.

- Songwriter. - Thinker.

- Poet. - He opened a portal like,

"Oh, yeah, come this way."

♪ Thank you for letting me be myself again ♪

[Greg Errico] He was an innovator.

He was the first artist to use a drum machine in a hit record.

- ♪ It's a family affair ♪ - ♪ It's a family affair ♪

We were all heavily influenced by Sly.

There's no Prince and the Revolution without Sly and the Family Stone.

His songs have been sampled by tons of artists.

♪ Ahh ♪

♪ I'm gonna knock you out ♪

♪ Huh! ♪

The drums reign supreme in this motherfucker.

[laughing] That's how that shit sound.

♪ You can make it if you try ♪

He didn't have just hits. He had culture-changing hits.

♪ I am everyday people ♪

[Novena Carmel] He was the highlight of Woodstock.

- ♪ Want to take you higher ♪ - ♪ Higher ♪

[Vernon Reid] Sly was bringing people together at a time when this country

was tearing itself apart.

We want a fight.

[Jerry Martini] He is a bona fide...

- Groundbreaking. - Brilliant.

...genius.

In the beginning, it was all about the music.

Then it became all about other things.

- Pressure. - [D'Angelo] Fear.

- Guilt. - Love.

- Pain. - Fame.

- Doubt. - Identity.

- Anxiety. - Insecurity.

- Struggle. - Survival.

[crowd screaming and cheering]

[tape glitching]

[buttons clicking]

[crew member] You know, Sly, let me do this.

So, I don't want you to get out of your light.

- Okay. - Does that screw you up?

- No, I'm fine. Yeah. - You can still use that?

Hey, Jimmy, can I have a drink?

- What's this? - Uh, rum or something like that.

- Rum? - Yeah, or something.

- [interviewer] Okay? Okay. - [crew member] We're rolling tape.

- [overlapping chatter] - [interviewer] You have speed?

- [crew member] Yep. - [interviewer] Alright.

Sly, you were born Sylvester Stewart,

and your music career goes all the way back to the age

- of something like four years old. - Right.

You formed Sly and the Family Stone

- in the late '60s. - Yeah.

You've been called by everybody that I've interviewed

and everything that I've read, a musical genius.

You are at the place that every aspiring musician

- in this country wants to be. - Mm-hmm.

There are, uh, guys and girls all over this country

trying to get to the top.

Then you get there, and you blow it.

I didn't say all that.

- No, I'm asking you. - I didn't blow nothing.

- Where'd you hear that? - But were you

consciously trying to do that or...?

No, no.

[Questlove] So, I have a theory that for Black artists in America,

success can be more frightening than failure.

You know, the world's watching you,

analyzing you, projecting stuff onto you.

And I think that Sly was kind of the first Black artist

to go through that so publicly,

at a level where there was a burden

that came with his genius.

So, I want to start there.

Can you tell me what you think Black genius is?

[exhales, chuckles]

Black genius?

- [Questlove] Can you define Black genius? - [chuckles]

Wow. Damn.

[Questlove] What is Black genius?

[laughing]

[laughing] Fuck...

[Questlove] Do you believe in the concept of Black genius?

I love it when it happens.

♪

[narrator] San Francisco is a swinging place.

[trolley bell ringing]

[Greg] Early '60s, it was an amazing time in San Francisco.

It was an international intersection of cultures.

There was music all up and down Broadway Street.

[♪ jazz music playing]

♪ Down here, we're loving life ♪

[Greg] There was a lot of experimentation musically

coming out of the Bay area.

And a lot of diversity.

There was so much possibility, you felt it.

And Sly was in the middle of it.

He had a very popular radio show.

I used to listen to him. Everybody did.

[Sly] [on radio] Sly Stone, KSOL San Francisco.

I definitely want you to be a magnificent stone.

[Larry Graham] Everybody everywhere knew Sly.

He was the most popular DJ in the Bay area.

♪ Sly Stone is my name ♪

♪ Playing records is my game ♪

[Larry] He did things that nobody else was doing.

- [tires screeching] - [Sly] Oh, look what you've done. Oh!

[Joel Selvin] On the radio, Sly was fantastic.

You felt like you were tuning in to a different world.

[Sly] Do you believe in flying saucers? Are we being invaded from outer space?

[Jerry] When Sly was a DJ, I used to go over there

and hang out with him a lot, you know, because he was funny.

[caller] Fifty-six degrees in San Francisco,

and I think it will rain tomorrow.

So, Sly doesn't even know what he's talking about.

[Jerry] But he was serious about music.

I'd write on the radio, that's what I did. I wrote songs.

♪ Now I get up when the sun goes down ♪

♪ I dress real tough, go out on the town ♪

[Jerry] He was playing on Broadway in a lot of bands,

and then he started producing several other bands

with Tom Donahue and Bob Mitchell at Autumn Records.

[Sly] Tom Donahue gave me a break.

Tom gave me a chance to produce Bobby Freeman.

[Bobby Freeman] Okay, baby, let's hear that one time.

- [producer] Swim one, take three. - [Sly] One, two, three, four.

[♪ "C'mon and Swim" by Bobby Freeman playing]

♪ Kinda like the monkey, it's kinda like the twist ♪

♪ Pretend you're in the water and you go like this ♪

♪ Now, baby, swim, a-baby, do the swim ♪

[Jerry] Sly was a natural producer,

and that was Sly's first gold record, and he was only 19.

And then I produced The Beau Brummels, a song called Laugh, Laugh.

♪ I thought I'd die, it seemed so funny to me ♪

♪ Laugh, laugh, you met a guy ♪

[Joel] The Beau Brummels was our version of the British Invasion.

Sly was able to get in the driver's seat with that sound.

[Sly] Come on in and get around the microphone.

[Grace Slick] Sly was the first producer I ever met.

[Sly] Let's do it again.

[Grace] The Great Society was my first band.

We were not great musicians.

We had practiced as best we could with the ability we had.

[laughing] Which was very little.

Sly says, "Okay, you know, play your stuff."

[Sly] Let's hear that up to now.

♪

[Grace] He could have been really mean, but he went to each person

and he said, "Maybe a little bit like this.

How about trying that?"

[Sly] Don't worry about it. Let's do it again. One, two!

♪ Don't you want somebody to love ♪

[Grace] And he plays every instrument beautifully.

I just stood there with my jaw on the ground.

He helped us realize how to make a record.

[Sly] Bud's just mad 'cause he won't be around when it's a hit.

[Sly laughing]

[Joel] He ended up with the original version of Someone to Love,

and this guy that worked for Tom Donahue at Autumn Records

blew everybody away with what a brilliant, incandescent,

and ebullient young man he was.

[Vernon] Sly Stone had a gift.

He had huge ears, and he was taking in input at all times.

He was able to flow between R&B music,

British Invasion music,

and the beginnings of American psychedelia,

and that was totally unprecedented at the time.

[interviewer] Wasn't it pretty unusual for someone, an artist,

who was a DJ and who was also a producer?

Weren't you one of the first to do that?

Probably, but I didn't know it.

I didn't know that I was one of the first.

- [interviewer] Mm. - I had no idea.

[Questlove] When Sly's starting out,

he's pretty much the hardest-working man in San Francisco.

Why do you think he had to do two, three, four times as much

just to make a name for himself?

It doesn't matter whether you're doing music,

sports, or anything that you do.

We as Black folk, we gotta always be three, four,

five steps ahead of everybody else

in order just to break even.

It's just always been that way.

- [Questlove] Why? - Why ask why?

There is no why, Yoda. You know that.

♪

[Jerry] I was in awe of him.

He liked bands that I never thought he would.

I was a white guy trying to be Black,

and he was a Black man being everything.

[interviewer] Were you conscious of people searching for a different type of music?

I was conscious that I was searching for a different type of music.

I just dug Dylan, and Charles, and Aretha Franklin

and the Staple Singers, and the Beatles.

It's all music, and it should all be together somewhere.

And I decided if I'm going to do music, it'll be my music.

Stop the tape, man. Let's do it again.

[slide projector clicks]

[host] Sly Stone, it's so good to have you here.

I've always wondered where it all started,

and where you came from, where your roots are, you know.

[Sly] Yeah, from Denton, Texas.

I was three months when I came to California.

[host] So, Vallejo, California, is where you ended up?

[Sly] Yeah.

[Mark Anthony Neal] Sly's family was part of the Great Migration,

a pivotal moment in American history

and the changing demographics, racial demographics of the country.

Black folks migrated from the Deep South

and moved up north and to the West Coast

to be able to get jobs, and buy homes,

and have the kind of lives that they couldn't have in the Deep South.

But if this moment for Sly's parents was an opportunity,

I think for Sly's generation, it's a different kind of opportunity

to really push the culture and the society forward

in ways that their parents would have never thought of in that period.

- ♪ He's calling me ♪ - ♪ He's calling me ♪

♪ Don't you know he's calling? ♪

[host] You were coming up in the church there?

[Sly] Yeah, I played guitar, and bass, and drums

in church six, seven times a week.

Monday night, we had union meeting.

Tuesday night, we had choir rehearsal.

Wednesday night, we had usher board meeting.

Thursday night, there was prayer and Bible band.

Friday night, there was regular worship service.

Saturday night, there was an inspirational service

with different choirs from around the cities.

And Sunday, three times a day and sometimes five times on Sunday.

[Cynthia Robinson] The first time that I saw him in a youth choir,

when Sly would sing,

it was just on another level that caused joy in your heart.

I never forgot him.

[Mark] He's in the Black sanctified church.

It was a learning lab for him to learn how to run a band,

how to run a choir, how to integrate harmony

with melody and rhythm.

♪ Oh, once, I was a civilian ♪

♪ Ooh ♪

[host] You formed a, a gospel group around that time.

♪ You know that I'm on the battlefield for my Lord ♪

[host] Do you remember the first time that you as a kid

- recognized the power of music? - [Sly] Yeah.

[Sly laughing]

[host] And you've been running ever since?

- ♪ Heavenly angels ♪ - ♪ Angels ♪

[interviewer] So, you w ent through grade school

and then you started a group in high school called The Viscaynes?

Yeah, well, I was in a group. I didn't start it.

- ♪ Angel ♪ - ♪ All the time ♪

[Jerry] I dug watching the Viscaynes on Dick Stewart's Dance Party.

He was interacting with white people like I've never seen a Black person do.

[announcer] Moving ahead with confidence in the future of California

is a goal of junior college.

[interviewer] After you got out of school, you had been a producer and a DJ.

You formed Sly and the Family Stone in the late '60s.

[clearing throat] Jerry Martini is the guy that really started it.

[Jerry] I see the songs he's writing.

I say, "If we do a band, we'll all be famous."

I don't know what to say, I'm a noodge. My mother was a noodge.

My grandmother was a Russian Jew. They were all noodges.

♪

[Sly] This is an original tune.

♪ Nobody ♪

♪ I ain't got nobody ♪

♪ If you need somebody ♪

[host] How did you decide who to have in your group?

[Sly] Well, my brother Freddie plays guitar,

and my sister plays electric piano, her name is Rose.

So, nepotism.

[Freddie Stone] I had a group, Freddie and the Stone Souls.

Sly came to me one day, he says, "Look, get the very best musicians

"that you have out of your group,

and I'll get the very best musicians I know."

I said, "Look, I got the drummer."

I was 17 and a half. I'm still in high school.

[Sly] Cynthia, the trumpet player, I knew in school.

She naturally was the first person I thought of.

[Cynthia] Sly said, "I'm getting a group together,"

and I'm thinking something in my life is gonna be different.

[Sly] Larry Graham played bass.

I had not worked with a drummer in years.

When I was 15, I played with my mother

as a duo, no drums.

That's when I developed the style of thumping the strings

to make up for not having drums.

So, I thought, this is either gonna be a train wreck...

[laughing]

...or something is gonna happen, I don't know.

[Greg] We hit it off, there was chemistry,

and when we started playing, I go, oh yeah, this is different.

♪

[Jerry] Sly already had it in his mind

that we were gonna have a mixed band.

There were guys, and girls, and Black, and white.

So, you get all that input, so you get all that sound.

[Greg] This is December of 1966.

A lot of things going on in the country that didn't necessarily support the idea

that male, and female, and Black, and white

should get together to start a music group.

You've got to keep the white and the Black separate.

- We are not white, we are Black. - [cheering and applause]

We rehearsed every night,

and we started playing six nights a week at Winchester Cathedral.

[♪ band playing "Try a Little Tenderness"]

♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪

[vocalizing and shouting]

[Cynthia] Even though we played cover songs,

Sly would put his original stamp on it.

♪ You got-got-got to... ♪

[♪ vocalizing]

♪ Yeah, whoo, you got to try a little tenderness ♪

♪

♪ Yeah ♪

[David Kapralik] I went to the Winchester Cathedral

and had my mind blown away by this extraordinary talent.

This tour de force. The integration of Afro-Americans

and Caucasians, the girls, the boys.

I just knew in my bones. [laughing]

This was happening music, and I loved it.

- [♪ band playing] - [applause]

[Sly] David Kapralik dug us,

and he signed us up, and we signed him up.

[Clive Davis] David Kapralik brought the group to me,

and I was excited by the music from the very beginning.

In those days, music was very, very segmented.

You had pop.

♪ Falling in love with love ♪

♪ Is falling for make-believe ♪

[Clive] You had R&B.

♪ The love that I have belongs to the woman with soul ♪

[Clive] You had rock.

♪ Girl, I want to be with you ♪

[Clive] But with Sly,

we get this totally unique blurring of genres.

♪ Ahh, ahh ♪

♪ I know, I know you need attention ♪

♪ I got, I got attention for you ♪

♪ I know, I know you need affection ♪

♪ I got, I got affection for you ♪

♪ If somebody told me, if I knew you liked to ♪

[host] You've played in front of a lot of different kinds of audiences.

Is it different playing for an all-Negro as opposed to an all-white audience?

[Sly] Yeah. Sometimes if, uh, we didn't do a tune that was R&B enough,

some Black people had to wait for the next two or three songs

before they decided that they'd stay.

And then, there were some white audiences

that if we didn't get into a jam quick enough, then they would split.

So, you just got to go and play,

and just hope that, uh, most of the people want to stay.

♪ I'm on a trip to your heart ♪

[Clive] I thought, here, you have a creative genius

who was going to make a permanent mark on history.

So, I signed him.

[Jerry] And we did our first album in Los Angeles

at CBS on Sunset and Gower.

[engineer] This is it. Quiet, everybody.

[Sly] Yeah. Are we taking this?

[Clive] Sly's work ethic...

- [Sly] Two, one. - [Clive] ...was intense.

He wanted to work 24/7, seven days a week.

When the rhythm section was laying a part, the horns would be sleeping.

The horns get ready to play their part, then the other people would be sleeping.

We were fanatics.

And that's the way it ought to be, too, by the way.

[Greg] Our first album was totally out of the box,

and we were like an anomaly.

♪ Hey, dig, I know how it feels to expect to get a fair shake ♪

♪ But they won't let you forget that you're the underdog ♪

♪ And you got to be twice as good, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ Even if you're never right, they get uptight ♪

♪ When you get too bright ♪

♪ Or you might start thinking too much, yeah ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah ♪

[Mark] In a broad sense, the band is an underdog,

coming out of the West Coast with this multi-racial, multi-gendered band,

something that we've never seen before.

♪ Say I'm the underdog ♪

[Mark] It's hard not to also think about that song

in the context of the race politics of the moment.

[Vernon] As a Black man in America,

he's taking that persona on of the underdog.

"I got nothing to lose and everything's against me, so let's go."

♪ I know how it feels to get demoted ♪

♪ When it comes time to get promoted ♪

♪ 'Cause you might be moving up too fast ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

[Mark] Sly was still trying to figure out his sound.

Are they gonna be read as a rock group,

or are they gonna always be seen as a Black group?

[Jerry] The first album, I thought it was gonna be a smash hit.

But it was a complete flop. It broke Sly's heart.

[David] The album A Whole New Thing, it was a dud.

Sly came into my office completely dejected.

I heard myself saying to him, do you need a hit single?

[Jerry] Dave Kapralik said he wanted us to sound like the bands

that were out there already.

He said, "I want you guys to play in a nice club and dress nice."

And, and Sly said two words to him, which I'm not gonna repeat.

Hey, get up and dance to the music!

[♪ band playing "Dance to the Music"]

Get on up and dance to the music.

[♪ band vocalizing and harmonizing]

♪ Dance to the music ♪

♪ Dance to the music ♪

♪ Dance to the music ♪

[Larry] Dance to the Music was a hit record.

So, I thought we're gonna be it.

♪ All we need is a drummer ♪

♪ For people who only need a beat, yeah ♪

[♪ drum solo]

♪ I'm gonna add a little guitar ♪

♪ And make it easy to move your feet ♪

[Jimmy] The first time I hear d Dance to the Music,

it was like, oh, my God, it's the greatest thing ever.

It sounded like nothing else on the radio at the time.

♪ I'm gonna add some bottom ♪

♪ So that the dancers just won't hide ♪

♪ You might like to hear my organ ♪

♪ I said ride, Sally, ride now ♪

Writing a hit song is almost impossible,

but Sly had an uncanny ability to make every part of the song hooky.

The rhythm, it's implied four on the floor.

[♪ drumbeat]

It's close to the Motown beat.

♪ Can't help myself ♪

But it ain't.

[Terry Lewis] There's a bass playing one note.

[imitating bass guitar]

You add that to the little licks that come along with it.

[♪ saxophone playing]

Those nice little horn parts.

[♪ horns playing]

Each person gets their moment.

♪ I'm gonna add a little guitar ♪

♪ I'm gonna add some bottom ♪

They have unison vocals.

♪ Dance to the music ♪

They had harmony vocals.

[♪ band singing a cappella harmonies]

He's got some magical way of weaving things together.

♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ Cynthia and Jerry got a message they're saying ♪

♪ Sing, all the squares go home ♪

[Vernon] Sly's inviting you to something extraordinary.

He's learning to be inclusive.

♪ Listen to the voices ♪

[♪ band vocalizing]

[Vernon] And it felt like the carnival has come to town.

♪

That song changed everything. It was a paradigm shift.

The gigs got better.

The first time we played the Fillmore East in New York,

it was Jimi Hendrix Experience,

Sly and the Family Stone, one show, $7.50.

Hello? [chuckles]

- [cheering and applause] - ♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey ♪

[♪ "M'Lady" playing]

♪ M'lady ♪

♪ M'lady ♪

♪ A smile of pleasure, beautiful and kind ♪

[David] They were a smash, they were the hot sensation of New York.

♪ Give her some time, yeah ♪

♪ Time, time ♪

- ♪ Give her some time ♪ - ♪ Time, time ♪

[David] And word spread, and then everything broke open.

Now, here for the youngsters is Sly and the Family Stone.

Don't hate the Black. Don't hate the white.

If you get bitten, just hate the bite.

- ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ - ♪ The music's getting longer ♪

♪ All I want to do, yeah ♪

- ♪ I want to take you higher ♪ - ♪ Higher ♪

I'm 18 years old. I'm thinking, this is where I seen the Beatles.

This is where I seen Elvis Presley.

And I said, here we are. This could be significant.

Tomorrow could be different than today.

- ♪ Wanna take you higher ♪ - ♪ Higher ♪

- ♪ Higher ♪ - ♪ Higher ♪

♪ Up and away, now ♪

♪ Up, up and away ♪

♪

[Larry] For him and Rose to go out into the audience,

who would do that on the Ed Sullivan Show,

go out in the audience, right?

And doing the hambone. [laughing]

Go on, Sly. Yeah!

Work, Sly. Work, Sly.

[audience clapping in rhythm]

[Jerry] And all those people in suits out in the audience

clapping on one and three?

- [crew laughing] - They loved it.

[rhythm clapping and music continues]

And that meant that America loved it.

♪

♪ Hey music lover ♪

[André 3000] To me, one of the greatest things about Sly

is he's letting us peer into something very free.

The appearance, the clothing, even the wigs,

it was from another world.

When they came together as the sound, it was so future.

♪ Higher ♪

♪

[♪ music stops]

Thank you for letting us be ourselves. Thank you.

♪

- [♪ music ends] - [cheering and applause]

[Jerry] I still have dreams about when it was the fun days.

[cheering and applause fades out]

We used to hang together.

We would rent bicycles and ride around bicycles in New York City.

[car horns honking]

[Greg] Being in the group was a musical experience,

but it was also personal friendships.

I think we spent more time together than we spent with our family members,

or their girlfriends, or wives.

We were making a little money, we were able to buy toys.

[engine revving]

Bought motorcycles and went riding together.

We all got dogs together.

- [dogs barking] - I had Egyptian Salukis.

Freddie had an Irish wolfhound. Sly bought a pit bull.

Rose had an Afghan.

Greg and Jerry had Saint Bernard and Great Pyrenees.

[Greg] We'd go to the movies together.

We went to see this movie called 2001: A Space Odyssey

that just came out.

I think we took some mescaline or something like that,

some mushrooms or some psychedelics,

so it was quite-- it was quite the experience.

We were family. Period. Simply.

[Larry] I felt like part of the family.

Sly was like a big brother I never had.

[Jerry] He was a leader.

We all loved Sly, especially Cynthia.

She was in love with Sly.

[Cynthia] He was the first guy that ever treated me with real respect.

He made you want to be there together and to do this together.

[Greg] We were all inspired by Sly.

We were also inspired by what was going on in the country then.

[protesters shouting]

[reporter] Demonstrators in San Francisco

protest the Vietnam War.

[protester] U.S., get out!

America is shocked by the brutal slaying of Doctor Martin Luther King.

[Greg] It was an intense time in '68.

We were on the tour bus one time.

It was the middle of the night and we had to get gas.

We're downtown Detroit.

[Cynthia] Everything was out. The store lights were out.

We were like, what's going on?

[Greg] Then all of a sudden, we're surrounded by jeeps and tanks.

[reporter] The body of Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.,

viewed by mourners and followers this morning.

Detroit tonight is under a curfew

and National Guard troops are on duty there.

The next thing, we're up against a building.

[Jerry] I thought we were gonna die.

Sly was not afraid at all. I was afraid.

But Sly just had the guitar out going like this, you know.

They goes, "Tell that... down there,

tell him to shut up or we'll shoot his ass."

[Cynthia] And then, they took me and Rose, and Sly's girlfriend,

who was Caucasian, and put us in the truck.

And a service guy walked past Anita and said, "nigger lover."

This is a moment in history where you have these assassinations

A stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land.

[staff member] A doctor! We need a doctor right here.

[reporter] Senator Kennedy is shot in the head.

You have an unpopular war.

[gunfire]

[news reporter] Troopers took a lot of casualties.

You have campuses where students are protesting these wars.

[protesters shouting]

You have police brutality against people of color.

And there's always this threat of violence

that's associated with anybody who speaks out in this moment.

[interviewer] Just about everything in this country, late '60s, was in disarray.

Did that make your job as a musician, as a writer,

- more difficult or easier? - Easy.

That-- those are the kind of things that make you feel like, uh, working,

or writing, or playing, or doing what you do.

We're really trying to say something

after playing some other tunes that didn't mean anything.

And with the members of the group, all you got to do

is inspire them in the right way and let 'em go.

[♪ musicians practicing]

In the studio, the spark for the songs would come from Sly.

[Sly] Oh, wait a minute!

[Freddie] Sly is up here at the helm,

and he would give us the skeleton of a song,

and then he would say, "Okay, what do you do with that?"

[Sly] Okay, okay, we'll do the whole thing again.

♪

Songs would develop. The arrangements would develop.

- [♪ band playing] - [band member speaking indistinctly]

[Sly] Come on, I think we got a chance to get something done here.

They would morph, sometimes significantly different

than where it started.

[Sly] Okay, Greg. Okay, this is Some People, 102290, take one.

Sly wasn't cracking the whip.

♪

- [♪ music stops] - [Sly] Let's try it again.

But we did spend long hours,

because if we didn't get it, we'd keep going over it again.

[♪ band playing]

[Sly] One-- one more time.

- [♪ band playing] - No. Take five.

[♪ band playing]

Take six.

- [♪ band playing] - What happened?

You guys aren't together, Cynthia and Jerry.

[♪ trumpet playing]

Rose, play the same thing you're playing now, an octave higher.

[♪ piano and guitar playing]

[Mark] We talk about catching fire in a bottle.

Sly and the Family Stone were in sync

with what was happening culturally, socially, and politically.

[Sly] Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

They're playing the wrong notes.

[chuckles] Let's try again. Take 100.

[♪ "Everyday People" playing]

♪ Sometimes I'm right, and I can be wrong ♪

♪ My own beliefs are in my song ♪

♪ The butcher, the banker, the drummer, and then ♪

♪ Makes no difference what group I'm in ♪

♪ I am everyday people ♪

There's a certain power hearing unison vocals.

♪ There is a blue one ♪

♪ Who can't accept the green one for living ♪

[Jimmy] Everybody singing the same note,

doing the sing-songy, nursery rhyme-ish melodies

made it easy for the listener to sing along with.

♪ And so on and so on and scooby-dooby-doo ♪

[Terry] That unison creates the vibe that pulls everybody in

to that one-minded concept.

♪ We got to live together ♪

♪ I am no better and neither are you ♪

♪ We are the same whatever we do ♪

♪ You love me, you hate me, you know me, and then ♪

But when they sing in harmony, oh, boy, it felt like church.

♪ I am everyday people ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah ♪

♪ There is a long hair ♪

♪ That doesn't like the short hair ♪

♪ For being such a rich one that will not help the poor one ♪

♪ Different strokes ♪

♪ For different folks ♪

♪ And so on and so on... ♪

[Vernon] With Everyday People, Sly came along

as the Black hippie Pied Piper singing,

"We are the same, whatever we do."

♪ We got to live together ♪

[Vernon] That's the first time you hear that sentiment from a Black artist.

♪ Won't accept the Black one that won't accept the red one ♪

[Vernon] There was a utopianism that people were ready to buy into,

that female, and male, and Black, and white can create another world.

Being so tuneful and just being great music, that was the validation.

That was the proof of concept that it was possible.

♪ I am everyday people ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah ♪

♪

[Vernon] But at the same time,

that message could be perceived as problematic,

because, you know, these people, they got their knee on my neck.

They're shooting brothers up.

[overlapping shouting]

[George] The hippies was trying to do love and peace.

You know, we're from the ghetto, we don't believe that.

You got to watch out for your back.

A policeman in a Black community is a licensed killer.

[Mark] In the late 1960s,

the civil rights movement is at a crossroads.

We no longer have with us Martin Luther King.

We've lost something, and we feel it deeply.

[Mark] So, the movement is kind of at a standstill,

except for this radical edge.

We have to got to get...

[crowd] Black Power!

Let Black people defend themselves from racist pig cops,

who shoot up windows and murder Black people in the Black community.

[Mark] Sly is kind of walking the line

between the civil rights world of his parents

and the Black Power world that's emerging.

So, Sly gives a love letter to both sides of this moment--

what happened before, and what's possible in the aftermath.

♪ Stand, in the end, you'll still be you ♪

♪ One that's done all the things you set out to do ♪

♪ Stand, there's a cross for you to bear ♪

♪ Things to go through if you're going anywhere ♪

♪ Ooh ♪

♪ Stand for the things you know are right ♪

♪ It's the truth that the truth makes them so uptight ♪

At 16 years old, I was a sub-section leader

in the Black Panther Party in Lower Manhattan.

When we first heard Stand!, it was so powerful for us,

as activists, as revolutionaries,

listening to Sly talk about the way the world should be.

♪ Stand! ♪

[Niles Rodgers] You were one way before you heard the record.

Then after you sat there for a few hours listening over and over and over again,

that feeling of transformation, it was magical.

♪ Stand, you've been sitting much too long ♪

♪ There's a permanent crease in your right and wrong ♪

♪ Stand ♪

It was one of the only empowering songs that there were,

you know, out there for young people, and we weren't getting a lot of that.

We were getting a lot of "I love you, baby."

♪

- ♪ Stand! ♪ - [Dream Hampton] In Detroit,

that album was like The Chronic, you know, for my parents.

It was like every car on Belle Isle

was riding around playing Stand! as an anthem.

♪ Stand, stand ♪

[Jimmy] Stand! is such an amazing arrangement.

It's the same melody in different registers,

and then it's back to the beginning again.

[♪ singing melody]

It sounds like something's gonna happen, but it doesn't.

It goes right back to... ♪ Stand ♪

So, it teases you like there's gonna be a release.

There's like a tension that happens.

But then, it just-- it doesn't let it go.

♪ Well, at least in your mind if you want to be ♪

[Jimmy] And then, finally, at the end of the song,

you've been waiting, waiting, waiting, anticipating something.

All of a sudden, it goes into a whole different change where it's...

[♪ singing melody]

And it's like a whole 'nother song.

♪ Stand! ♪

♪ Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na, na-na ♪

And it's like, oh, shit! What the-- oh, my God.

It's like a-- it's like a musical orgasm.

- Can I say that on camera? Yeah. - [Questlove laughing]

It's like a-- it's like a musical-- I swear to God.

♪ Na-na-na-na-na, na-na ♪

[George] By the time he got to Stand!,

he knew perfectly what would work on the radio,

in the hood, and in the pop culture.

[Larry] We were all very happy about our success,

but now, we had set the bar

really, really high for our live performances.

So, our next show, we gotta-- we gotta get that high, you know, or higher.

[helicopter whirring]

[announcer] Nearly half a million kids jammed onto a 600-acre dairy farm

near Woodstock, New York, in August '69,

to dance, sing, smoke, and make love.

[interviewer] Do you recall your experience at Woodstock?

At first, I was scared, to tell you the truth.

Well, I usually am, though, before a concert.

I'm always scared before a con-- you know, kind of, um...

I want to hurry and get it on,

'cause I can't wait, you know, that kind of thing.

- [interviewer] Mm-hmm. - And, you know, it kind of wears me out.

But, um, the Woodstock thing, I walked in the audience, I remember that.

There were so many people that I thought, man,

we better not make a mistake.

And then I thought, well, this is no way to walk down that,

- you know, that thing in my stomach. - Mm-hmm.

[crowd shouting]

Right before we went on, Sly, he poured out a pile of blow,

you know, with a pinch of mescaline.

We all got our dollar bills and hit it.

And then it seems like we're on... [snapping]

and we...

we were on, or almost we'd had never gotten off.

That was it.

- ♪ I wanna take you higher ♪ - [crowd] ♪ Higher ♪

- ♪ Wanna take you higher ♪ - ♪ Higher ♪

- ♪ Higher ♪ - ♪ Higher ♪

♪

♪ Higher now ♪

♪ Do it higher, oh yeah ♪

♪ Wanna take you higher ♪

♪ Unh, wanna take you higher ♪

♪ Higher ♪

- ♪ Wanna take you higher ♪ - ♪ Higher ♪

- ♪ Higher ♪ - [inaudible]

♪ Higher ♪

[cheering and applause]

[interviewer] What effect did it have on you?

Wow, it was a little too big.

It was almost too big to happen.

You know, I thought we would happen, but at the time, it was, whew.

Almost too much all at once.

[André 3000] Success can equal certain freedoms.

But I don't think anybody is totally free the whole time.

I think there are moments of-- and I think that's what we're attracted to.

Like when we see what we call a rock star,

it's almost like they are making a sacrifice for us,

and that's why we hail them.

But sometimes, it starts to work against why and what you're doing.

The same thing that made you great becomes the thing that kills you.

♪ Everybody is a star ♪

♪ Who could rain and chase the dust away ♪

♪ Everybody wants to shine ♪

[Joel] After Woodstock, Sly and the Family Stone

was just this explosive monumental event

every time they were on stage.

[Suzanne de Passe] The first time I saw them live was so unbelievable.

No Motown act, no-- nobody had ever rocked me

the way that concert did.

I left there thinking he could run for president and win.

[David] John Lennon is an icon. Elvis Presley is an icon.

Sly Stone became an icon.

[Terry] Sly opened the floodgates for all musicians of color

to just do whatever they felt like,

because at one point, you might have felt like you could only do Motown.

Sly gave everyone this whole psychedelic thing.

Shoot, even The Temptations went psychedelic.

You have so many different groups coming about

that are being more free with the music.

That brand-new 21st-century funk, we got it from Sly.

♪

Miles Davis just absolutely worshiped Sly.

Miles used to follow him around, he used to come to our gigs.

[Vernon] Miles had a young wife, Betty Mabry.

She took her old-ass husband and was like, "You know what?

Pops, check this out. This is what's up."

And he takes it in, and his mind is blown.

I mean, there's no On the Corner without his exposure to Sly Stone.

Fast forward into the '80s.

[♪ "1999" by Prince playing]

Sly's influence on Prince is infinite.

[Jimmy] Prince had a female keyboard player,

eventually a female guitarist.

It was multiracial.

♪ I was dreaming when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray ♪

The vocals in 1999 gave everyone a part.

♪ But when I woke up this morning, could have sworn it was Judgment Day ♪

♪

♪ So tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1999 ♪

Whoo!

[Terry] Prince, being our mentor, used to always say

we should all be trying to make visual records.

Just like how Sly's music took you someplace.

It took you to a place apart from where you were

and dropped you off into a place that you might have dreamed of.

[cheering and applause]

[♪ "Hot Fun in the Summertime" playing]

♪ Them summer days ♪

♪ Those summer days ♪

♪ I cloud nine when I want to ♪

♪ Out of school, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ A county fair in the country sun ♪

♪ And everything is cool ♪

♪ Oh, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ Hot fun in the summertime, oh, yeah ♪

Sly post-Woodstock is the darling of the rock world.

♪ First of the fall and there she goes ♪

[Dream] There was an idea that a big rock band

wasn't necessarily a Black thing.

And Sly comes into that space and owns it.

That's not him crossing over into that sound.

He's crossing other audiences over to him.

[Mark] Little Richard, Chuck Berry, even Ray Charles

never had access to both white mainstream

and the Black audiences the way that Sly does by 1970.

He found himself on the cover of Rolling Stone.

[Larry] By that time, the focus was on Sly,

because he's the up-front person, he's the spokesman.

So, he had a tremendous pressure and weight on his shoulders.

[host] The money must be sort of pouring in on you people at this point.

What is the main thing you're doing now?

[Sly] Doing an album, and we're gonna do concerts.

And we're getting a lot of money, and it's nice to have a lot of money.

But I don't want to turn into the kind of person that, because of an extra dollar,

turned into the kind of person because of an extra dollar.

[Questlove] Oftentimes when Black artists are held in the limelight,

they're automatically expected to represent their people.

Yeah, man, some people do want to put you on that pedestal.

Like you are the spokesperson for all Black people.

They're depending on you, and they're counting on you.

It's enough just, um, navigating and coping

through the change in your life that happens

when you become a celebrity,

or somebody that is, you know, quote-unquote, "famous."

Just that within itself is a huge paradigm shift.

- [chanting indistinctly] - [Al DeMarino] At one point,

the Black Panthers approached Sly for his involvement.

[chanting continues]

They were trying to make us be one of them.

We weren't a political band, but we were singing about racial issues.

So, I can see why people labeled us as a political movement.

♪ Don't call me nigga, whitey ♪

♪ Don't call me whitey, nigga ♪

[Al] With the Panthers, what does involvement mean?

Does it mean contributing to the food pantry?

Does it mean showing up somewhere for a rally?

All power to the people.

[Sly laughing]

[Mark] Sly's getting these pressures from the Black Panther Party,

but he's not a Black nationalist.

He doesn't believe that at face value, right?

So, he presents a song, a sound, right, that just speaks palpably to Blackness.

Sly and the Family Stone.

[cheering and applause]

[♪ "Thank You Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin" playing]

♪ Looking at the devil ♪

♪ Grinning at his gun ♪

♪ Fingers start shaking ♪

[Vernon] Sly is in this incredibly creative space.

Nobody is coming up with funk like this.

♪

That was the first time you would hear the thumping and plucking on the bass.

♪ I begin to stop ♪

I didn't realize the impact that would have on other bass players.

And little by little, more and more bass players are doing it

because folks could physically see what's happening,

'cause by now, we've done a lot of live shows.

We're on television.

Here are Sly and the Family known as Stone.

♪ Thank you falettinme be mice elf agin ♪

♪ Ooh, ooh ♪

♪ Thank you falettinme be mice elf agin, yeah ♪

Thank You felt like it was just moving things forward.

It's just all these intricately beautiful little moments all working together.

♪ Stiff all in the collar ♪

People love riffs, you know.

[♪ singing melody]

People know that.

[Jimmy] In 1989, when we were working

on the song Rhythm Nation with Janet,

we had the concept that Rhythm Nation should be an anthem.

People uniting under the banner of music to heal the world.

We had the concept, but what we didn't have was a track.

[Terry] So, I think Jimmy and Janet went to dinner.

[Jimmy] At a little Italian restaurant in Minneapolis.

And, you know, there's always music playing in the background.

They're in the middle of dinner, and Thank You came on.

[Jimmy] And I think to myself, oh, I love this record.

But then all of a sudden, when the little bridge part comes in.

[♪ Terry and Jimmy singing melody]

- And I just said... - Jimmy said...

"Can I get the check? Can I get the--" I mean, I was out of there.

[Terry] Went back to the studio and he started to sample...

♪

...just that piece of it and cut it up.

♪

And I remember putting it into a little AMS sampler that only--

I think the sampler might have had six seconds

of sampling time.

But it was enough to get in... [♪ singing melody]

And I literally would trigger-- I just triggered it off the drums.

I just would go... [♪ singing melody]

[♪ repeating melody]

♪

- ...over this beat. - [♪ music loop playing]

It was amazing.

Janet walked into the studio and I said, listen to this.

And I just played it.

♪

- And she said... - [both] Is that Rhythm Nation?

And I said, yes. And she said...

[both] Yes. [laughing]

♪ With music by our side to break the color lines ♪

Sly created this musical unity for my generation.

And to be able to sample that, and then create that

for the next generation of listeners is an amazing thing.

It was everything the song needed.

So, thank you... [chuckles] for making that lick.

♪ We are a part of the rhythm nation, whoo! ♪

♪ Mama's so happy ♪

♪ Mama start to cry ♪

At that time, the white world was starting, "You know what?

That Sly Stone is doing something."

But if he was gonna keep the large audience,

he was in a position where he couldn't show any cracks in the media.

♪ Dyin' young is hard to take, sellin' out is harder ♪

[Vernon] As a Black man in America,

when you have the microphone in front of you, what you gonna do?

Are you gonna embarrass us? What do you have to say for yourself?

His appearance on The Dick Cavett Show, it's extraordinary,

because Dick Cavett had this habit of one-upsmanship.

He's gonna be the smartest guy in the room.

Mister S-- Mister-- What do I call you, actually?

Just Misters Misters.

[Dick Cavett] Just, you like the way I did.

[laughter]

There's this whole mind game that's being played.

Sly is high as a Georgia pine.

He's high as a Georgia pine, but his mind is right.

I know you're responsible for all the music that you do

and you-- that you write it, but do you sit down and write it?

- Do you... - Sometimes I stand up.

[laughter and applause]

And in the middle of this thing, Sly says to him,

"You know, I'm not-- I'm not going into a battle of wits with you."

You know that Hemingway wrote on the top of the icebox.

- I'm not trying to match wits. - No, no, I know.

I say there are writers who write standing,

- and there are those who write-- - I write in the mirror.

- [Dick] Meaning? - Looking at a mirror.

[scattered laughter]

[laughter and applause]

- Is there something I don't get about... - [Sly] No, do--

The reason why I do that is because, uh, I can somehow, uh,

uh, be a great critique, you know, for myself.

- [Dick] Yeah. - You know, I can react spontaneously

before I realize that I'm going along with what I'm doing.

- [scattered laughter] - And, uh, dislike it or like it

before I realize that I'm doing it.

[Vernon] Sly, as high as he is, is completely aware

of the game that's being played.

And he's like, uh, "I know what you're trying to say about me,

but, you know, I'm not taking the bait."

This is kind of a serious question, kind of a silly question at the same time.

Could I dress like this and play with your group?

- [Sly] Any way you like. - Wouldn't it look funny, though?

I mean, to see somebody dressed with a tie?

With the people that were judging the way you were dressing.

[Dick] Yeah.

There'd probably be a certain pressure on me, I suppose, to...

- [Sly] There's a pressure on all of us. - Oh, right.

[applause]

[Mark] In America at that time, with Black artists,

no one else has ever been elevated to these heights

as Sly Stone was being elevated,

not just musically, but broadly in American culture.

If you're Sly Stone, there is no blueprint

for what comes next.

There's nobody for you to go talk to, right?

There's never been a Black Elvis, right?

So, you can't go to this mythical Black Elvis

and ask, "What do I do next?"

[Dream] For Black artists, a big part of success is guilt.

The guilt of not just being chosen,

but you're necessarily going to be leaving the hood.

You're gonna be leaving your family.

You're-- you're, you're about to go on this journey.

If you're in a band, maybe some of your bandmates

are gonna come with you, but you're about to go on a journey

that's about to be pretty lonely.

♪

[Greg] Around that period, we were all still living in the Bay area

when Sly announced that he was gonna move to LA.

His rationalization for it made sense.

It was the center of the music business.

Go down there, meet all the right people.

[Stephani Swanigan] When he decided to take up residency in Los Angeles,

we got a big house, Bel Air.

[Jerry] Bel Air. It was amazing.

It was huge, it was six acres.

[Stephani] So, we ended up with people staying for a week,

two weeks, just hangers-on.

Also, Sly brought in friends who came from the streets

that he'd known for a long time that he was loyal to,

and that were loyal to him.

[Bubba Banks] Sly was my friend from way back.

And when I got out of jail, Sly called me.

He said, "Man, why don't you come down here?"

He said, "You can have anything you want."

We get to Los Angeles, man, the house is full.

This is Sly's newfound set.

And I haven't been around no white dudes.

Now, I look like I'm at a Klu Klux Klan meeting,

and I done came in the wrong fucking door.

But somebody say, "Bub!" Me and Sly, we embrace each other.

And he said, "Bub, take over."

I came with a crew, and we did take over.

And from that point, Sly knew he can do whatever the fuck he wanted to.

[Questlove] Is that a form of separation anxiety?

Like being separate from your-- your roots?

Yeah, that-- that is a form of, uh, separation anxiety,

because, especially as Black people, we have this thing

where you always kind of want to be good in your hood.

You know, you kind of always want to be understood,

acc-- accepted in a way.

So, I think that's always on your mind,

and I think sometimes it's detrimental to some artists.

[Freddie] There were a lot of people all the time, always partying,

a lot of drugs.

[Greg] I can remember the rest of us looking at each other

and thinking, this might not be good.

Sly was a vulnerable individual.

He had incredible creative capabilities.

I think to be that capable, you have to be that vulnerable too.

[host] Have you gone through different kinds of changes

- with all the money coming in? - [Sly] Yeah.

[host] How?

[Sly] Well, um, the values change a little bit.

The values change a little bit. Uh, I know...

Ask me that question later, okay?

- [host] Okay. - [Sly] Would you do that?

- [host] Alright. - [Sly] Alright. Okay.

[Greg] Sly still had the pressure of making the next record,

so the label did Greatest Hits.

[Stephani] He started collaborating with different people.

Not much got produced.

They did music and got high at the same time.

[Bobby Womack] Me and Sly, Billy Preston,

Buddy Miles, and Ike Turner, that was the crew.

We'd come in. You know, we can get high.

But we create some shit that we can say, "Okay, let that play."

[Greg] At the same time, the touring got pretty intense.

[interviewer] You were on tour.

You were doing thousands of cities. Every day, you were somewhere different.

Something started to go.

- Mm-hmm. - What went?

Um, uh, being late for concerts.

[crowd shouting and booing]

Uh, where's Sly? [indistinct]

[crowd continues shouting]

[Ruth Copeland] Around that time, I was on tour with Sly and the Family Stone.

My band were the original members of Funkadelic,

Bernie Worrell, Tiki Fulwood, Eddie Hazel, and Billy Bass Nelson.

♪ You had everything, babe, a man could want ♪

Did a gig in Paterson, New Jersey.

We were supposed to go on right before Sly,

and it started to rain, and we had done one set.

And Sly's promoter came over to us and said,

"Sly is in the toilet.

You're gonna have to go on again if you want to do the rest of the tour."

[crowd booing]

That was really scary because the crowd was getting a little upset

and they started to boo.

And I just screamed into the mic out of nowhere, like, "Shut up!"

I was pissed off at Sly.

I said, "Sly has been in the toilet for an hour and a half,

and he's not coming out."

So, we played for another 20 minutes and then we figured we'd hang around

and see how he handles this, Mr. Big Sly.

Sly came out and the crowd was booing.

[Sly] It was my fault that we late.

I am sorry, I apologize. [chuckles]

[Ruth] But he was so sure of himself.

[Jerry] Sly had a special power.

He could control our audience.

[Sly laughing]

[Sly] Yeah. [laughing]

He can make you sit down, he can make you stand up.

[Sly] Stand your booty up. You know what I mean?

He could cause a riot.

The Chicago riot show. [laughing]

I was really too young to be there.

I snuck down there some kind of way, yeah, I worked it out.

[reporter] It was one of a series of free rock concerts

put on by Mayor Daley in the park district.

But all hell broke loose.

[reporter] The crowd surged toward the stage,

angry because the featured group had not yet appeared.

[interviewer] Did you lose the desire to perform?

Was it not as much fun as it had been in the early days?

Well, it's not as much fun if you get, you know,

accused of, uh, doing things like that.

I was there when it was advertised that I wasn't.

And a few of those kind of times can get on your nerves.

[Ruth] After that, the real inclination to be late became a habit.

And of course, then it progressed from there

to where he didn't show up at all.

[Stephani] More than anything, it was anxiety.

He would get nervous. And I'm like, "What is wrong with you?

How can you be nervous and you do this all the time?"

[Greg] He wasn't one to let on to being anxious.

He always seemed to handle it, like, "Okay, I got this," you know?

When the drugs became more dominant, it wasn't the case.

- [band member] I'm relaxing, man. - Okay, what about you?

- [band member indistinct] - Huh?

- [band member] Otto. - Otto?

- Otto... [indistinct] - Otto.

- [band member] Right. - Oh, you came-- you came from Kenya.

[people chattering]

- Are you the boss? - [speaker] I'm the boss.

You ain't no boss.

- [people chattering] - [Sly chuckles]

[Jerry] Sly kind of stayed in his bedroom a lot,

and there were pounds of blow coming in.

[Bubba] But when Sly was on that PCP shit,

that's when it started fucking up.

[announcer] Angel dust, PCP.

There are severe and sometimes lasting reactions.

[Ruth] At that time, I was living with Sly.

He was a really good guy who had a big heart,

and he was generous and kind.

But at that point, he would take barbiturates to go to sleep,

and still do coke.

It was like watching something fall over slowly.

You basically were his mother, watching out for him,

making him eat when he would wake up.

You had to get some food into him, because if he got the coke into him

before the food, he wouldn't eat.

And then, you know, I was like all the other women in his life

who loved him, tried to get him to stop-- to stop the drugs.

I couldn't stop him. I couldn't.

Nothing-- the drugs were more important.

The most important thing in his life.

[Questlove] So, you've had personal experience with this.

Um, why would someone turn to, say cocaine,

as a coping mechanism?

[Chaka Khan] This is the '60s and '70s.

Those were pivotal times in the use of certain drugs.

Um, but, um, to self-medicate,

and to self-soothe,

and to try-- trying to attain a false sense

of everything's okay, when it's not,

you know, um, that's dangerous.

[Greg] With the no-shows and the drugs,

it was just chaos.

The existence of the band was a little bit over five-year period.

In the beginning, it was all about the music, period.

And then, it became all about other things.

Those weren't all good things.

And then, when I felt that I just...

that I couldn't affect that any longer...

I just-- and that, that you know, wasn't comfortable,

and things were-- weren't happening good,

and, um, that's--

so I made my decision to leave, and that's what I did.

Matter of fact, I didn't leave to go do something else.

I took off a year. I was-- I just would-- had to stop.

- [♪ keyboard music playing] - [engine revving]

[Cynthia] Greg leaving, I mean, I got sick to my stomach.

[Jerry] We were all brokenhearted over it.

[Ruth] At that point, Sly was doing a lot of the tracks himself.

He played all the instruments, and he would lay down tracks

upstairs in his studio, which was in the attic,

and then he would bring in some of the guys to put in some extra stuff.

[Sly] Okay, man, you splice the best way you can.

[Jerry] Freddie'd come down there and knock it out.

Larry would fly in, knock it out.

I was already there. I'd go do my horn part.

[Sly] Hey, can we splice something in? Hey, man, play the last thing, okay?

[Ruth] They were demoralized.

They were feeling like they weren't needed.

[Sly] Hey, hey, hey, hey. What are you doing?

After I left, Sly kept calling, and I didn't-- I didn't participate.

So, he started using a drum machine.

- [♪ electronic drumbeat playing] - It was called the Rhythm King.

Drum machines weren't sophisticated like they are today.

It was a pretty simple and uninspiring thing.

It had cha-chas and stuff like that.

It would-- you'd hear it in a lounge in a Holiday Inn.

[Greg] So, Sly took this little rhythm machine,

and he started using it very cleverly, actually.

He took the rhythm, which wasn't anything sophisticated, or funky, or fun,

he turned it around, and he would start the one--

instead of on one, two, three, four,

he'd start the one on two, or on three,

which took the rhythm that it was producing

and turned it inside out.

It made it s-- "Oh, that's interesting now," you know?

And so, he actually created an iconic thing with it.

It became... [chuckles] a game-changer again.

[♪ "Family Affair" playing]

♪ It's a family affair ♪

♪ It's a family affair ♪

♪ It's a family affair ♪

♪ It's a family affair ♪

♪ One child grows up to be ♪

♪ Somebody that just loves to learn ♪

♪ And another child grows up to be ♪

♪ Somebody you'd just love to burn ♪

♪ Mom loves the both of them ♪

♪ You see, it's in the blood ♪

♪ Both kids are good to Mom ♪

♪ Blood's thicker than the mud, it's a family affair ♪

- ♪ It's a family affair ♪ - ♪ It's a family affair ♪

- ♪ It's a family affair ♪ - ♪ Over there ♪

I had always heard Sly on the pop white radio, basically.

But when Family Affair came out, the R&B stations went on it right away.

The Frankie Crockers and the Georgie Woods,

they went on that one right out the box, and it was one of them club records.

You know, you go by the bar any time of day.

♪ Newlywed a year ago ♪

♪ But you're still checking each other out, hey ♪

♪ Nobody ♪

It was like that anthem that everybody would sing,

but lyrically, what he was trying to say is a little sad for me.

[Vernon] He was just laying out the dysfunction of family.

Talking about it's a family affair.

You know, you don't understand it, you don't get it.

That had never been a subject of a popular song before.

♪ You can't cry 'cause you'll look broke down ♪

♪ But you're cryin' anyway 'cause you're all broke down ♪

- ♪ It's a family affair ♪ - ♪ It's a family affair ♪

[David] There's a Riot Goin' On. It took two and a half years

for Sly to produce that album because everything was falling apart.

The record company was on my case, big-time.

So, I created a campaign called "Two and a half years

is a short time to wait for a work of genius."

[David laughing]

♪

[Vernon] With There's a Riot Goin' On, I don't think that Sylvester Stewart

could face doing another Everyday People.

[♪ "Luv N' Haight" playing]

Hippie Nation, they got co-opted.

The civil rights dream, it didn't happen.

♪

The anxiety, the pressure, the drug use

pushed him into this whole other space.

♪ Feel so good inside myself ♪

♪ Don't want to move ♪

♪ Feel so good inside myself, don't need to move ♪

♪ As I go up, I'm going down ♪

♪ And when I'm lost, I know I will be found ♪

- ♪ Feel so good ♪ - ♪ Yeah, yeah ♪

- ♪ Oh, don't want to move ♪ - ♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Feel so good inside myself, don't need to move ♪

Riot is the grime, it's dirt, and it's him grabbing his nuts on it.

The title itself is an answer to Marvin Gaye's What's Going On,

which was so beautifully seductive.

Riot is raw. It's raw as fuck.

♪

I hear a person that is reimagining his own music

at that time to stay interested and try different things.

With Thank You for Talkin' to Me, Africa, he was doing chopped and screwed

before chopped and screwed.

♪ Thank you falettinme be mice elf agin ♪

[Q-Tip] 'Cause he had huge pop success from Woodstock,

I could see Sly wanting to say, "Now, wait a minute now.

"I'm-- I'm still a brother, you know.

"I'm still a nigga, you know what I'm saying?

I'll still fuck y'all niggas up."

I can see Sly being on some shit like that.

[André 3000] There's a Riot Goin' On album cover.

That red, black, and white flag inspired the Stankonia album cover.

To wrap that flag around you is interesting

when you see a Black person do it, because you know our version of America

is-- is different from the rest of the world's view of America.

We're in an America, but then we're in a Black America too.

We're in two different realities.

♪ My only weapon is my pen ♪

♪ And the frame of mind I'm in ♪

With Riot, some people felt fundamentally betrayed, you know?

They said, "Oh, well, we thought you were--

"We thought you were an integrationist. We thought you were an accommoda--

Uh, we thought we were-- we thought we were good, we were cool," right?

And there's some shocking things that critics had to say about him.

♪ Yeah, a poet ♪

The sharpness of those critiques says that he was being punished.

♪ Said the things I flash on every day ♪

Black musicians were still, in the eyes of many, just entertainers.

♪ Reflect on what I say ♪

[Mark] And part of what the critics are saying

in their critique of Riot is, "Just entertain us."

What is this self-indulgent, uppity nigga shit?

[Questlove] Do you think there's a double standard

where some artists are allowed to change, and grow, and evolve,

and then some artists aren't allowed to do that?

Well, if you think about somebody like David Bowie,

he was allowed to have the space and the comfort to be able to go

through his chameleon-like creative and artistic changes.

That space is not the same for Sly.

I think with Black innovation, you're risking people looking at you,

thinking that you're weird and you're odd, and you're on to some other shit.

It may fuck with you.

[Vernon] Sly was starting to sing about unsettling things

in a way that would creep up on you.

♪ Runnin' away to get away ♪

♪ Ha-ha, ha-ha ♪

♪ You're wearin' out your shoes ♪

He's really talking about, "Yo, yo, dude, the walls are closing in on you, ha-ha."

♪ The deeper in debt, the harder you bet ♪

♪ He-he, he-he, you need more room to play ♪

[D'Angelo] "The deeper in debt, the harder you bet."

That in particular always gets to me.

- ♪ Look at you foolin' you ♪ - [D'Angelo] "Look at you foolin' you."

It's like you're speaking to your own subconscious.

[Ruth] I think he had a lot of insecurity, a lot of fear.

He never talked to me about fear, because he was very proud.

But I think his fear started when Greg left the band,

because he never thought anybody in the band would leave.

[Bubba] Paranoia might have set in. You know, people start losing it.

Little petty things start happening.

Anything that's negative. I always have a tendency

to, you know, drift away from that.

[Stephani] I didn't see any issues with Sly and Larry at the beginning,

but there were people around that stirred up stuff.

[Rustee Allen] There was rumors that Larry was afraid for his life,

'cause, you know, Bubba and some-- some other stuff.

[Larry] When you're in a family,

there just comes a point where you leave home.

When it was time to go, I just left.

It wasn't complicated. [laughing]

It's just, I'm gone.

[Questlove] What's your definition of self-sabotage?

There are a million ways to self-sabotage as an artist.

Some of them are self-harming,

you know, through overuse of drugs and alcohol.

Not showing up for shows, not showing up on time.

The biggest way, though, is to ruin relationships,

because most art requires collaboration.

[cheering and applause]

♪

After that, I felt like, what more could happen?

Sly would bring in new members.

Rustee learned all of Larry's parts. He's a hell of a bass player.

♪ Bullets start chasin' ♪

[Jerry] He hired Pat Rizzo. He was a great jazz player.

♪ I begin to stop, ow ♪

Andy Newmark came in. He was a badass drummer.

♪ Thank you falettinme be mice elf agin ♪

[Jerry] We were still a great band.

But the original band could not be duplicated.

All you can do is just make shit work.

♪

[Stephen Paley] Sly didn't need the band. He needed the band to tour

because the audience needed to hear the hits.

But for the music that Sly had in his head,

the band wasn't necessary.

[Vernon] The sense of collectivism had completely vanished,

and he had become the subject of the music.

His self-inflicted wounds, the ways in which he messed up,

the ways in which he could have died of a drug overdose.

♪ Yeah, oh ♪

♪ Sunday morning, I forgot my prayer ♪

♪ I should have been happy, yeah, I still be there ♪

- ♪ Something could have come ♪ - ♪ Thankful ♪

♪ And taken me away ♪

- ♪ But the main man felt ♪ - ♪ Thoughtful ♪

♪ Syl should be here another day ♪

The words and the music are indicative of the life that I live.

So, it's the truth, so-- and you can't really get around the people

when they hear the truth.

If you live long enough, they'll find out

whether you're telling the truth or whether you're jiving.

♪ There's a mickey in the tasting of disaster ♪

- ♪ In time ♪ - ♪ In time ♪

♪ You get faster ♪

[Vernon] Fresh is the last great Sly and the Family Stone record.

♪ As if he has to ♪

In many ways, that's the purest Sly that we hear.

Not driven by the market, looking inward.

♪ Something moving in the brain ♪

[Stephen] But the music was going in a different direction,

and it was not reaching white people anymore.

♪ Feel a little newer ♪

[Vernon] Even with all of his sophistication and his charm,

he was so isolated with his virtuosity.

One, two, three, unh.

[♪ "If You Want Me to Stay" playing]

Faster! Faster! Faster!

[grunting rhythm] Yeah, alright, uh-huh.

♪ If you want me to stay, I'll be around today ♪

♪ To be available for you to see ♪

♪ I'm about to go, and then you'll know ♪

♪ Want me to stay here? I got to be all me ♪

By that time, Sly became a little less relevant.

He had influenced so many different artists,

but new supersedes old, always.

So now, the same musicians influenced by Sly Stone

became his competition.

So, he had to figure out how to stay on the train.

[reporter] Guests were here at Madison Square Garden last night

where 30-year-old Sylvester Stewart,

better known as Sly Stone of Sly and the Family Stone,

was married to his 20-year-old sweetheart, Kathy Silva.

Sly and Kathy already have a nine-month-old son.

[Ruth] As a publicity thing, I thought it was stupid.

In all reality, I don't know if I should even say this on here,

but that's the only way we could still sell out the Garden.

By the power that is invested in me,

I pronounce that they are husband and wife.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

[cheering and applause]

[♪ band playing]

♪ My baby ♪

[Stephen] The wedding was the height of Sly's celebrity,

but his career was on a downward trajectory.

His appearances on talk shows, hosting music awards.

♪

♪ Oh, they still do the polka In Milwaukee ♪

♪ Still do the waltz in Tennessee ♪

All this ridiculous shit that we see him doing.

We're standing here with the table tennis men's doubles champion.

Get him, Sly, get him. Get him, Sly.

It's part of the spectacle of him trying to remain relevant

when the culture has passed him by, musically.

[slapping]

[laughing]

[applause]

[Cynthia] When the band officially broke up?

Probably Radio City Music Hall, New York.

♪

[laughing]

- Okay, come on, man. - Okay, we shooting?

We're gonna-- you're gonna be at the, uh, hall, right?

We're gonna play. We got the best group in the world.

- [chuckles] - [laughing] Okay?

I heard that! [laughing]

Aren't you gonna ask me about Kathy, or the baby, or something?

Exactly. What is happening with the wife and the baby?

They're doing what I tell 'em to do.

'Cause there's rumors that you broke up.

Tell me how you felt when you were at the Garden--

There were rumors that I wasn't gonna be at Radio City Music Hall.

[interviewer laughing]

[sing-songy] ♪ But you got that wrong ♪

[laughing] Okay?

Those performances ended up being pretty disastrous.

- [electrical buzzing] - [Jerry] It was empty.

There was maybe 200 people.

It was the worst show that Sly and the Family Stone,

in my opinion, ever played.

It was a lousy gig. My chops weren't up.

We hadn't been playing.

[Sly laughing]

I went back to my hotel and Sly left, he-- he got out of town.

But I never got paid, and so, uh, I was stuck.

I couldn't pay my hotel bill.

[Cynthia] I didn't think that anybody in this crew

would ever want to not play with each other.

But everybody walked away from it.

[Questlove] As a Black artist, how hard is it

to be vulnerable in front of a world watching you?

It's really hard. It's-- it's the hardest thing to do.

The hang-ups, baggage, guilt,

and the pain and the shame that comes with it, you know?

And if you don't know how to handle it, if you don't...

have your soul centered,

and people around you that you really trust,

and people that really know you and that's really down for you...

Yeah, man, it can be...

could be unbearable, man. Yeah.

You-- It'll make-- it'll turn you into an unwilling participant.

And that's-- that's equivalent to hell.

[reporter] Sly Stone was on the top of the music scene for ten years.

He had eight gold records, toured the world several times,

caused mob scenes wherever he went, sold out concerts,

and packed Madison Square Garden for his wedding.

But for the past few years, Sly has become less than a household word.

Well, whatever happened to Sly Stone?

[Sly] It's nice to be missed.

It makes you feel like you're on the right track

if somebody says, "Well, where is Sly?"

I've been relaxing.

- You mean, you've sort of been on a break? - Yes.

If you were just a disc jockey, say at KSOL still,

and not Sly Stone, rock star, do you think that pressures in the--

in lifestyle would be less, maybe?

I think that I was-- if I were doing anything else, I'd be bored.

So, I just take it-- it all in stride.

You know, I-- I have to do what I do anyway,

'cause that's what I want to do.

[chuckles] So much, you know?

So, it's like, I'm trapped doing what I want to do anyway.

Okay, play it.

[♪ singing melody]

♪

[Stephen] At this point, when Sly would try to recreate

what he did in the past, it was pathetic.

It's like a woman or a man dyeing their hair.

You can't bring it back. I mean, it looks dyed.

♪ Feels like family again ♪

[Vernon] It sounds like Sly's struggling to make optimistic records.

But to make an optimistic record

when you don't feel optimism is the worst.

[Suzanne] Toward the end of the '70s, we almost signed him to Motown.

His gift was abundant,

but he was damaged goods at that point.

[Questlove] How does that make you feel to see other artists become addicts

in order to cope with what they're going through?

If you've been on this heightened, explosive life,

your body has taken in so much energy,

you've given out so much energy, and you stop.

Where does that go? Where's that energy go?

Or what are you feeding from?

What's taking up that space now?

[interviewer] Sly Stone, where have you been the last few years, man?

[laughing]

You haven't been doing much. Are you-- you gonna--

Are you guys gonna be working out together now, or what?

- Really? - Yeah.

[Sly] No.

[George] Me and Sly, we was tight.

So, when it came time for P-Funk to go on tour,

we got Sly to open up for us on the very first Mothership tour.

♪ Time is passing, I grow older, things are happening fast ♪

♪ All I have to hold onto is a simple song at last ♪

- ♪ Well, let me hear you say ♪ - ♪ Ya ♪

- ♪ Ya-ya-ya, ya ♪ - ♪ Yeah, whoo, sing a simple song ♪

[George] We still had fun until we didn't.

But he did his same habits.

If the promoters got him pissed off enough,

you know, he might not come on.

- Yeah, we got... - [George] Sly.

♪ Ya-ya-ya ♪

Hey, Sly, shake what you brought with you.

♪ Ya-ya-ya, ya ♪

- Everybody... - I'll be-- I'll be back.

[George] Yeah, yeah!

Yeah, Sly Stone, y'all!

[Questlove] You and Sly are hanging out a lot in the '70s and '80s.

What was that relationship like?

90% of the time, chasing the drugs.

♪ I know you want to ♪

By then, the crack thing come and Me and Sly,

well, I'll put it like that. We were crackheads.

[reporter] Crack-- the cheap, highly addictive form of cocaine.

[Questlove] What is that feeling like?

Like, what's the-- what's the power you feel, the rush you feel?

Almost like getting a nut.

[Questlove laughing]

[George chuckling]

[George] And the fact is that after that first one,

it don't happen no more like that.

You are hooked at that time.

[Questlove] Would you ever talk to him about like,

"Maybe we should slow down a little bit or..."?

[laughing] Why?

No, no, hell, no. I mean, that was-- that--

I think that might have been our problem.

We was like two kids.

Once we got together, when we got busted together...

[Questlove] You guys got busted together?

[George] Yeah, the police, before they even said anything to us,

"Oh, no, Sly Stone and Dr. Funkenstein. Oh, hell no."

[Vernon] Sly was a master at transmitting parables,

and it had to be incredibly difficult

to find yourself in the middle of a parable yourself.

[Bryant Gumbel] Audiences couldn't get enough of hits like Everyday People,

Dance to the Music, I Want to Take You Higher.

But behind the scenes, Sly was taking himself higher, with drugs.

The effect on his career was devastating.

A story of incredible promise and great success,

leading to a kind of, you know, public tragedy.

Sly Stone of the 1970s rock group Sly and the Family Stone,

who was arrested last summer

for possession of cocaine, pleaded no contest.

[Vernon] He was an eyesore. He was shameful.

This person was a renegade, and America always loves it

when renegades are brought to heel.

[Dream] In the early '80s, we're entering into a conservatism,

not just in the media, but in the general public.

Drugs are menacing our society.

Just say no.

[Dream] So, I'm not surprised that in Sly's case,

the reporting was so joyful and gleeful.

[reporter] He also lost a small fortune, blamed on, depending who you talk to,

high living, bad management, swindling promoters

and record producers, and drugs.

[Vernon] Sly was a great person to be made an example of,

and he did himself no favors.

[Mark] By the 1980s, Sly Stone gets totally divorced

from his contributions to the culture that were so powerful and palpable

in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

- You ready to get real good and serious? - Sure.

- Yeah, I want to get serious. - [guest] Sure, anything.

- Any-- any way you want to go. - [Sly sighs]

- Were you into the drug scene? - Y-- A bit. A bit.

What did you take? What were you into?

I smoked marijuana. I tried angel dust, which is--

- [host whistles] - I wanna do-- I wanna do

a public service spot for everybody.

Do it right here. Do it on this show.

- Well... - Do it right now on angel dust, please.

I didn't smoke a long time, I just tried-- tried the mess.

- Please do it for me-- - It's about nothing.

It's about nothing.

And the worst thing that it could be about if--

when I tried it, is that there are a lot of people

that like to be about somebody that they dig, you know what I mean?

- [guest] Mm-hmm. - And just because maybe my brain

did not collapse, and thank God-- All praise is due to who?

You know what I mean?

It's too-- it's bad for other people that may admire you.

My part on this Earth is to be an example, and it's very hard.

It's a lonely trip sometimes. It is.

[Mark] Mike Douglas is pushing Sly,

"Can you say to the crowd why angel dust is bad,"

but never asking him, "Where were you in your life

that you felt the need to have to take on angel dust?"

There's a desire for Black folks to blow up in public.

And unfortunately, it's not just white folks.

There are Black folks who are complicit in this also,

because it's human nature.

[Q-Tip] The first part of it is jokes.

Then the second thing is usually some sort of just, like, tear-down.

And then, lastly, the finishing blow. [chuckles]

It gets violent, where it's like, "Fuck that motherfucker."

[Greg] He had gone into rehab once.

I remember, um, hearing from a few people I knew that were in there,

"Man, Sly looks great."

And he was doing great. It was really happening.

The place is a, uh, a rehabilitation center.

Uh, you get a chance to, uh...

to, uh, find out about getting up early mornings, doing chores.

You get great therapy.

There's nice counseling to find out things about yourself

that maybe for some reason, you could have forgotten.

And, uh, and I'm straight now.

It lasted for, I don't know, several months, maybe six months.

And then, things went back to the way they were, unfortunately.

♪ I've been so high I touched the sky ♪

♪ And the sky says, Sly, won't you just try hard to get by ♪

[Sylvester Stewart, Jr.] As a kid, hearing about him

being arrested, or, you know, for drugs or whatever...

um, I didn't like it.

I always wanted him to be the person

that I was always told he was when I was a baby.

My parents separated around the time I was two.

They had the divorce a few years later.

He was a rock-and-roller, and she didn't want me

to grow up in that life.

[Phunne Stone] I think that my dad is really actually shy,

and I think drugs helped him be fearless.

My parents are Cynthia Robinson,

the original and only trumpet player of Sly and the Family Stone

and Sylvester Stewart, a.k.a. Sly Stone.

My mom loved him more than any man.

She never dated another man after my dad.

But he wasn't always around.

And when I lived with my mom, I was the only kid around,

just in an adult world, to where I thought I was grown.

One time, I was playing house with my friends,

and my dad had just came by, and every time he would leave,

there'd be about four or five razor blades,

you know, splattered around the house.

So, I went and grabbed me one, and my box of chalk,

and I said, "We gonna do what the grown folks do."

So, I got my chalk, and I chopped up about 37 lines of chalk out there,

got the Monopoly money, rolled it up.

Okay, I had the kids out there. We out there...

[snorting] About 19 lines.

We sneezing and shit, and... [laughing]

My mama came out and was like, "What are you doing?"

We got-- I mean, it's green and pink,

'cause you know, the chalk be different colors.

And I'm talking about, "Nothing!" She beat the brakes off me.

[Novena] I don't know when I became aware

of my dad's issues with the law or with drugs.

I didn't have a lot of interaction with my dad when I was a kid.

My mother and my dad were together till I was only about three years old.

When I was maybe 10 or something, I called his house,

and he was so out of it that he didn't even know who I was,

and it was just like, I didn't like that.

It was not a good feeling, and I wanted-- at that point,

I wanted something better for him.

[♪"Crazay" by Jesse Johnson feat. Sly Stone playing]

♪ Whoo! ♪

In the years that I was with Sly, he always wanted to create new music.

He never focused on his old songs.

♪ I think I wanna feel ya, I just wanna thrill ya ♪

♪ Girl, gotta make you mine ♪

[Arlene Hirschkowitz] He thought in order to make new money, generate new income,

you have to make new music, and to make another hit record.

I needed attention and money, and I-- I needed to do songs.

Yeah. Are you gonna be recording again soon, or are you working--

- I'm gonna make some hit records. - Make some hit records.

Those-- those are the kind to make, by the way.

- Yeah. - [audience laughter]

[Arlene] Business-wise, it was a big mess.

Most of his royalties have been sold off.

And those old songs, he didn't even care about anymore.

They meant nothing to him. He never understood,

and I didn't understand until later, myself,

that those old songs could generate money today,

and they'd play on commercials, or in a movie,

or in a television show, and you can make money

using those songs. Not a clue.

[dog barking]

[♪ music playing faintly in distance]

[emcee] Say what?

I can't hear you. I can't hear you.

[Mark] The crazy way that Black music traditions are passed down,

is that very often, younger folks are gravitating

to the music of older artists,

and older artists are absolutely oblivious to the fact that it's occurring.

[emcee] Sly and the Family Stone in the place to be,

the sixth annual Zulu Nation anniversary.

[Mark] So, there's some irony to the fact that at the same time

Sly Stone is trying to reignite his career,

there are kids in the Bronx listening to hip-hop, making hip-hop,

digging deep in the crates in the archive of the music

that Sly had produced previously.

[♪ "Sing a Simple Song" by Sly and the Family Stone playing]

[Q-Tip] It was so easy for me to sample this.

- Right side is the drums. - [♪ drumbeat playing]

Just the fucking backbone of the whole joint, you know what I mean?

Sing a Simple Song was just the break of all breaks.

[singing] ♪ We did it, we did it, we did it ♪

[♪ singing melody]

That drum pattern... [imitating drumbeat]

like that talk between the kick and the snare,

that pattern was a precursor to hip-hop.

Ba-dum.

For hip-hoppers, Sly set us all up

for what we were supposed to do for the next 40, 50 years, and today.

Sly, man, and Greg, man, it's like...

- [♪ drumbeat playing] - This shit's just stomping.

Like he putting foot on this motherfucker.

♪

♪ Because I got it like that, whoo! ♪

[Vernon] Hip-hop preserves Sly's music because DJs, crate diggers,

producers, they just hearing the grooves.

♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey ♪

♪

- ♪ Riddle me this, my brother ♪ - ♪ Can you handle it? ♪

[Vernon] Hip-hop generation, they're not connected to Sly's history.

They're not thinking about, "Oh, this is a man destroying himself."

They're thinking, "Oh, this is dope."

♪ Ah-ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah-ah ♪

♪ Don't call it a comeback, I've been here for years ♪

♪ I'm rocking my peers, putting suckers in fear, making the tears ♪

[Vernon] It's a remarkable thing when a fragment of music resonates.

not as nostalgia, but maybe somebody will go back

and hear some of these tunes and go, "You know what?

"I-- I've been waiting for somebody to-- to say what that feeling is,

and this person has done it. This band has done it."

[♪ song ends]

[Stephen] In the early '90s, Sly became reclusive.

He's given so much. He's invented an alphabet,

and other people have written books with his alphabet.

How much more can you expect him to do?

Maybe he was just embarrassed that he wasn't up to that kind of creativity.

And maybe if he can't be seen at his best or heard at his best,

he'd rather not be seen or heard at all.

[faint applause slowly increasing]

The one thing I've always wanted to see,

like most people want to see the Beatles back together,

is to see Sly and the Family Stone just standing somewhere in the same room.

- [chuckles] - [cheering and applause]

[indistinct chatter]

January 12th, 1993, Sly and the Family Stone

was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Um, it-- this is really, truly a great honor.

We all gave our little speeches.

I can't believe I'm seeing everybody after all these years and everything.

It was like a happy night.

We became a family, living up to the name.

But Sly wasn't there.

It was really sad that some of the group members

or band members could not be here tonight.

All day long we were sitting up there trying to figure out

whether Sly was coming to the show. Nobody saw him.

As usual, it's just us.

[George] And then, he came out from under the curtain,

and everybody went crazy.

[cheering and applause]

- [band member] Here he is. - [Cynthia] You showed up!

[Rose Stone] Oh, it's this guy here.

[cheering and applause continues]

[♪ funk music playing]

[band members singing] ♪ Thank you falettinme ♪

♪ Be mice elf agin ♪

- [♪ music stops] - Thank you.

[cheering and applause]

I believe everything's been said, probably.

I don't want to forget anybody saying thanks,

and you know, and-- so, uh, thank you all very much.

I love you personally very much, and, uh...

See you soon.

[cheering and applause]

[Greg] It was great.

You know, I remember him saying, "See you all soon."

Like, was his last comment.

And you know, he could have.

It could have happened, but it didn't.

- [♪ drums playing] - [band member laughing]

[Sly] For about-- let's try it about 12 more times.

[producer] Stand!, take one.

[♪ music begins playing]

[Questlove] So, I want to ask you, is there a burden on Black genius?

[D'Angelo] I think so.

I think the burden is that you do have to do it for everyone,

you know, and that your-- everybody else's success

rides on your success,

and that's a lot of pressure to put on one's shoulders.

Um...

Heavy is the head that wears the crown, right?

It's a burden and wings.

I think people have two fears when it comes to, like,

putting art out-- art out into the world, or anyone who's ambitious.

A fear of failure and a fear of success.

And I think that the fear of success should be the greater fear.

When things come in between you and the work,

and they start becoming more prevalent than the work,

the burdens will mount, mount, become monster,

step on you, swallow you.

[Sly] Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Who's playing the wrong notes?

I don't know which one of you guys are playing the wrong note,

but I know that one of you playing the wrong note.

- Let's try it again. - [producer] Rolling on take two.

[Mark] Americans desire spectacle,

and Black artists are treated

as expendable, in this context.

We're just gonna eat you up and we don't care...

what happens to you.

We're just gonna consume what we need to consume from you,

and then we'll move on to consume somebody else.

Sing your song and get out of here.

[laughing] Here's your $20.

And go. Go-- Go home.

When will we ever be allowed to-- to be vulnerable?

To be human?

[Vernon] The one question that confronts Black artists at whatever level,

is who do you think you are?

Who do you think you are?

What you think you doing?

We see the self-inflicted wounds of trauma

being played out on stage again and again.

The fact you are exceptionally gifted, talented,

you can sing a song and play multiple instruments,

none of that protects you.

What a burden for a human being to have to carry.

[Sly] I-- I just can't play it no more.

Let's try it again. Take three.

[Novena] It is hard to see how much genius and beauty

can come out of a person, but they get sidetracked

from drugs or some other distraction,

and-- and we're like, "No, it didn't have to go that way."

But it's also like our projection of what we want from a person

who's been turned into this thing that means so much to people.

[D'Angelo] I hate to say it, but these white rock-and-rollers,

motherfuckers go out in style.

They go out paid. They go out with their kids around 'em

like the fucking Godfather movie.

They died in their tomato garden with their grandson, laughing and shit.

Shit taken care of, generational wealth and shit

passed down to the children.

I mean, that's what we're supposed to be doing.

[Sylvester] I don't have a lot of normal stories with my dad.

I know that he spent a lot of time under a tremendous amount of pressure.

A lot has been taken from him over the years.

But I've always felt like I know where his soul is coming from,

and I know where his heart is coming from.

[Phunne] Missing all that time with him, it was rough.

But we rekindled our relationship,

and when we seen each other, it was just like...

He cried, I cried, everybody around us was crying,

and we was hugging, and shaking, and all that, you know.

These last few years are the most normal times I've had with him.

It was a long journey, but he finally got clean and got off drugs.

[Novena] For his birthday, I asked him what he wanted to eat,

and he requested a big pizza with, like, all of the toppings.

He's also a big fan of westerns and cars.

He's kind of just like a standard old Black man.

[laughing]

[Vernon] We want the best for him.

He's given more to us than we could ever give back to him.

We all have nothing but love for Sly.

Multiple generations of creators have been influenced by Sly Stone,

by his fearlessness, by his insouciance,

by his struggles with himself.

You can look at Sly as a cautionary tale, and I think that that's not it.

Sly...

- Pioneered. - Innovated.

- [Novena] United. - Struggled.

- Inspired. - Survived.

- Transcends. - Lives.

That's a beautiful thing.

♪ Stand, in the end, you'll still be you ♪

♪ One that's done all the things you set out to do ♪

♪ Stand, there's a cross for you to bear ♪

♪ Things to go through if you're going anywhere ♪

[interviewer] Do you think that you were judged too harshly

because you were a trailblazer?

No. Not at all.

I think I-- you deserve everything.

We deserve everything we get in this life.

[♪ "Just Like a Baby" by Sly and the Family Stone playing]

♪

♪ Just like a baby ♪

♪ Sometimes I cry ♪

♪ Just like a baby ♪

♪ I can feel it when you lie to me ♪

- ♪ Hey ♪ - ♪ Ooh ♪

- ♪ Hey ♪ - ♪ Ooh, yeah ♪

♪ Ooh-ah-hee ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪

♪ Hee-hee ♪

♪ Hee-yeah ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Hee-yeah, oh yeah ♪

♪

♪ Just like a baby ♪

♪ Everything is new ♪

♪ New ♪

♪ Just like a baby ♪

♪ Come to find out I'm a whole lot like ♪

♪ You, too ♪

♪ Baby ♪

♪ Just like a baby ♪

♪ See the babies growin' ♪

♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪

♪ Just like a baby ♪

[♪ vocalizing]

♪ Ah, ah, oh yeah ♪

♪ Oh yeah ♪

♪ Oh yeah ♪

♪ Ah, well ♪

♪

[♪ vocalizing]

[♪ song fades out]