Today, something a little different, folks, off the headline politics for a kind of a treat.

On my live show, we're doing a series with all the nominees for an Oscar this year for Best Feature Length Documentary.

So here's our conversation from earlier today with none other than Questlove, who made the nominated film called Summer of Soul when the Revolution could not be televised. Hope you enjoy.

From WNYC Studios, this is Brian Lair, a daily politics podcast. It's Tuesday, March 15.

Summer of Soul.

Next up in our yearly look at feature-length documentaries up for an Oscar in that category.

Summer of Soul is a concert documentary and historical record about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival,

and we are thrilled to be joined by the film's

director, a familiar name to many, musician, songwriter, and founder of the roots, Amir

Questlove. Thompson, Questlove, welcome back to WNYC. We're so honored that you do this with us.

Oh, thank you. I appreciate you for having me.

So when you're chronicling the story of the Harlem Cultural Festival, I can imagine

it might be tempting to just spotlight the music with our comment because it's so good.

So how did you resist that urge and if you agree with that assumption that it is an urge?

And tell our listeners basically what you set out to do with this documentary.

Well, that was actually my initial intent.

The thing is, is because of the sort of weather inconsistencies of the six weeks that this film was documented.

It really wouldn't have looked kind of cohesive, if you will. You know, like it was it was raining doing Stevie Wonder's performance, but, you know, it was a heat wave during

Edwin Hawkins. And the thing is also, you know, I had the footage first before I even had the context.

And kind of the temptation, I think, I'll put it this way.

My process for just finding the perfect 17 songs, that would have been my, my Beatles help

period. However, just, you know, my, my, my, my nerdum kept sneaking out and then somehow this

...