Oscar-winning filmmaker Ahmir “Questlove” ThompsonN is really taking a moment at the moment and cooking with a lot of cinema. Thompson, one of the leaders of the hip-hop band The Roots and winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Music Documentary: “summer of the soul,“has a lot in the works. Yesterday it was announced that Thompson would direct “Saturday Night LiveMusic documentary for NBC entitled: “Ladies and gentlemen… 50 years of SNL music“about all the legendary musical guests and performances that have appeared on the show over the years and today as a production company Onyx Collective announced a first look and release date of his upcoming documentary: “SMART LIFE! (aka The Burden of Black Genius).”

About musical but notoriously troubled genius Smart stone, the leader of the groundbreaking funk and soul band of the 1970s Sly and the Family Stonethe documentary “Sly Lives!” will premiere on Thursday, February 13th Hulu.

Guests featured in the document include: Andre 3000, D’Angelo, Chaka Khan, Q-Tip, Nile Rogers, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, George Clinton, Ruth Copeland And Clive Davis.

Other guests include those closest to Sly, including his band members Jerry Martini, Greg Errico, Larry Graham and Cynthia Robinson and family Sylvette Phunne Robinson, Novena Carmel And Sylvester Stewart Jr., who offer the best insight into Sly’s life by sharing anecdotes from their time together.

Significantly, Sly Stone, aka Sylvester Stewart, is not listed as someone included in the documentary, which is understandable given his reputation as a great hermit. Stone’s last public interview was with Vanity Fair in 2007, after he had been out of public life for 25 years.

Sly And The Family Stone were legendary and deeply influential, but they were a deeply troubled band, their leader hyper-eccentric, and when they burst onto the scene with their debut album in 1969, they basically had it all figured out ten years later (there are still a final). Record from 1982, a collaboration between Sly and George Clinton and Funkadelic, but it was abandoned by all parties and then Warner Bros. commissioned a producer to rescue him).

Here is the official synopsis:

“SMART LIFE! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) examines the life and legacy of Sly & The Family Stone, the groundbreaking band led by the charismatic and enigmatic Sly Stone. The film captures the band’s rise, reign, and subsequent demise, while also illuminating the invisible burden that success brings on black artists in America.

The film comes from MRC, Network Entertainment Inc., Two One Five Entertainment Inc., RadicalMedia, Stardust Films LLC and ID8 Multimedia, Inc. in association with Sony Music Entertainment. The film is produced by Joseph Patel and Derik Murray (Network Entertainment Inc.) and directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson (Two One Five Entertainment Inc.).

As previously announced: “SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)” has been officially selected to have its world premiere at Sundance Film Festival 2025.

“SMART LIFE! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)” premieres Thursday, February 13th on Hulu. Check out the first teaser below.