Movie Review: SLY LIVES! (aka the Burden of Black Genius)

Amir ‘Questlove’ Thompson is quickly cementing himself as one of the best music documentarians we have working today. Following his Oscar-winning Summer of Soul, Thompson brings us another energetic and insightful music-focused documentary with SLY LIVES! (aka the Burden of Black Genius) which looks at the life and music of Sly Stone.

Unlike another Sundance musical biopic, It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley, where I went in basically blind to knowing any music about the film’s subject, I had heard of Sly and the Family Stone. Their song “Everyday People” is very well known, and I’ve heard a few other songs of theirs, but I couldn’t tell you much more beyond that. Thompson uses this documentary not to look at the band but to look at its leader Sly Stone.

Thompson uses a combination of talking head interviews, archival interviews and concert footage to paint a portrait of a musical genius. Starting his career off as a radio DJ, Stone used this to learn about and understand various genres of music, which helped him create a unique and unforgettable sound when he started his music career. He would mix genres, play every instrument, and produce his tracks, and he was doing all of this in his early 20s. When he created Sly and the Family Stone, it was an integrated band, which was very rare during the 60s when race relations were a hot button issue across America.

Seeing the footage of Sly play and create was amazing to watch. He was a true musical genius. A man who didn’t care about the color of your skin or about established genres of music. He was always open to being a groundbreaker and working with people who were as passionate, creative, and talented as he was. Hearing interviews from his former bandmates and other artists who were influenced by him only emphasizes how talented Sly was. He was unlike anything we have in music today.

Thompson doesn’t shy away from the darker times of Sly’s career. The broken relationships that arose in the band, the infidelity and multiple children from different women, and a terrible drug habit that derailed his career and relationships. Thompson doesn’t focus on this aspect of Sly’s life a lot, but just enough to make sure that we know how it affected his life, career, and people around him while still celebrating arguably one of the greatest musical talents we have ever seen.

Thompson attempted to paint a portrait of Black genius and the burdens that come with it, but never fully gets across his point. He asks the question “What is Black genius?” at the beginning of the film to a few of the interviewees and then again at the end of the film, but never in the middle. By the time the question was asked again at the end of the film, I had forgotten Thompson brought this up in the beginning. While the film touches on what some artists believe to be Black genius and the burden that comes with it, Thompson doesn’t quite hammer home his point, especially when we just watched almost two hours of Sly Stone. This left me wondering if it was even necessary to put into this documentary, and if a Thompson-directed documentary about Black genius with more examples, a conversation about it would have made more sense. This is only a small misstep in an otherwise entertaining and insightful account of an immense musical talent.

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