Questlove: Racist Epithets Fired At Me After Bachmann Intro Music On 'Fallon'

Once the world caught on to the sly, musical message that the "Late Show With Jimmy Fallon" backing band the Roots sent to Michele Bachmann during her appearance on the show last week, reaction was swift: some laughed, Bachmann was outraged and NBC apologized.

Now, the band's drummer and leader, Questlove, has revealed that he has been the target of a steady stream of hate speech and racial epithets from Bachmann supporters and tea party members in the wake of his band playing a few notes of "Lyin' Ass B*tch" by Fishbone.

"I've seen some really colorful epithets in the past four days, but 'n*gger f*ckhead ghetto stick' is probably the one that takes the cake. I'm still trying to get my head around that one," the musician told Pitchfork.com. "Blocking 3,500 tea party extremists [on Twitter] in a three day period is no fun, especially when you're a drummer dangerously close to carpal tunnel. In the end, was it worth it? Absolutely not."

Questlove insists that he is sorry over the incident, and didn't realize it would be quite so offensive.

"It deeply offended a lot of women's groups and non-Bachmann supporters, and for that I'm deeply sorry," he said. "I'm not parading like I'm the poster boy for the feminist movement, but those who truly know me know that that's not me. I was really just going with her whole revisionist history angle, I wasn't calling it out on her being a woman."

For more from Questlove on that topic and much more, click over to Pitchfork.

Comments

[Maxwell Silver]

03:42 PM on 01/02/2012

The truth hurts, Bachmann.

[Dee Dee Russell]

09:58 PM on 12/18/2011

He thought that he could dehumanize that woman as he has done with women of a darker hue but alas he got CHECKED and SHUT DOWN. We of the BWE community are laughing when he and others like Kanye West get reality checked: the world ISN'T a hiphop ghetto!

[Minister X]

01:53 AM on 12/06/2011

Can't we all just make up and Party at Ground Zero?

[Blackbettyboop39]

08:34 PM on 12/05/2011

Why apologize for speaking the truth?

[cristoballs]

12:52 PM on 12/05/2011

boo hoo hoo... someone called me names on the internet. i'm so hurt. ah yes... we have to make a victim of the offender so that people forget what he did. typical. quest love is a piece of trash. i don't care what color he is. the same people here complaining about the very small percentage of people, who MIGHT be associated with the tea party, who called quest love the n-word, are the same people who cheered him on for insulting bachmann in front of a national audience. they hypocrisy never ends.

[jasmineflowers]

12:38 PM on 12/05/2011

YIKES, he sure is oogly~

[jasmineflowers]

12:33 PM on 12/05/2011

Hey Questlove, if you can't stand the heat......

[Terris Linenbach]

12:55 AM on 12/05/2011

It's shocking that Tea Baggers suddenly turned racist over this incident.

[ionthegravity]

11:59 PM on 12/04/2011

As a huge Roots fan, you shouldn't have apologized Quest...you should have stuck to your guns. Hell, Black Thought should have sang some of the actual lyrics, that would've been even better.

[Blackbettyboop39]

08:34 PM on 12/05/2011

I agree.

[kings2beat]

10:35 PM on 12/04/2011

This is all too much. And we wonder why Congress is so messed up. They're just a reflection of us. So we can't say that "we the people" aren't represented in DC. WE are every bit as polarized and distracted as THEY. The thousands of comments on here are indicative of that much.

[clifton52]

07:11 PM on 12/04/2011

If you were white you would be out of a job. That is the real racism.

[Jondrea Smith]

12:11 PM on 12/05/2011

Rush still has a show after several much more risque incidents, that whole 'Barack the Magic Negro,' thing.

[jasmineflowers]

12:34 PM on 12/05/2011

Rush didn't make that song up. Try and keep up, would Ya?

[Christopher McAdams]

12:23 PM on 12/15/2011

That was based on a column in the LA times

[DezBriant]

07:03 PM on 12/04/2011

If he doesn't want racial remarks thrown at him, he shoud refrain from making sexist remarks. The two are absolutely equal.

[Dee Dee Russell]

09:59 PM on 12/18/2011

I totally agree. Many of those hip hop guys in reality are wimpy crybabies, think that they can bring their ghetto vulgarities mainstream...NOPE>

[Zaidi]

06:54 PM on 12/04/2011

A real artist speaks truth to power, and Questlove is an artist. He was calling her, Michele Bachman, for what she really is; and if you're about truth, you know what that is.

[gfgarv]

06:22 PM on 12/04/2011

........and if anyone thinks that Michelle Bachman even heard of the band Fishbone then they're dreaming.

[DezBriant]

07:04 PM on 12/04/2011

I'm a conservative, and I know fishbone. Heck, I've PLAYED with Fishbone.

So take your blg0try back home.

[gfgarv]

07:58 PM on 12/04/2011

My only "Blg0try" is toward those who spew hate and deny civil rights to others. I could care less if you played with Fishbone (though I doubt they'd be aware of it).

[John Presler]

06:15 PM on 12/04/2011

I got yer back Questlove... STUPID UNINFORMED NARROW MINDED Lyin Ass B*tch is much more appropriate ...Is there a song for that?

[mikewill45]

06:29 PM on 12/04/2011

Wow, with that kind of mouth you must be one of those t-baggers that Questlove was speaking of.

[DezBriant]

07:07 PM on 12/04/2011

Typical liberal. Makes blatant s3xist remarks while whining about raclst remarks.

[nyr4life99]

07:12 PM on 12/04/2011

shouldnt talk about your mom that way