About two-thirds of the way through Mo’ Meta Blues, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s co-writer, Ben Greenman (a novelist and editor at The New Yorker), worriedly emails his editor: “We don’t want the book to go off the rails. Are there rails?” This chapter, ostensibly outside the memoir, isn’t even the most overt way Mo’ Meta Blues lives up to the “meta” part of its title—the book actually begins with Questlove claiming he wants his memoir “to be different” from everyone else’s book. These winks and nods are fun but ultimately unsuccessful attempts to justify the book’s scattershot treatment of the life of a musical icon.
Read Full Article »
