For anyone lucky enough to get a ticket to Michelle Obama’s forthcoming appearance at the Southbank Centre, there’s another treat to look forward to — Questlove has curated the warm-up playlist.
Obama is currently in the midst of a tour promoting her new memoir, Becoming, and will visit London on December 3.
Fans attending her American shows this month have been enjoying a pre-show playlist that ranges from Aretha Franklin to MF Doom — and now the former First Lady has confirmed that Questlove, hip hop legend and bandleader of The Roots, is the man behind it.
“Like a lot of people, I connect many of my memories with the songs and melodies I was listening to at the time,” Obama told Billboard, namechecking Prince, Beyoncé, Janelle Monáe, and Earth, Wind & Fire as some of the artists who provided “the stirring backbeats” of her tenure in the White House.
She added that music has been a “defining part” of who she’s become as a person, thanking Questlove for curating the playlists and “infusing them with his signature style”.
“Life’s a little better when we live it to Questlove’s beat,” Obama said.
Michelle Obama's BECOMING
The playlist, titled Michelle Obama’s Musiaqualogy, is made up of more than 800 songs and divided into three eras: 1964-1979, 1980-1997 and 1997-2018.
It starts with a Sam Cooke classic, (Ain’t That) Good News, before working its way through the golden years of soul, jazz and funk with the likes of Michael Jackson, Kool & The Gang and Dionne Warwick.
It then moves into more contemporary favourites, dropping hits from Kendrick Lamar, Missy Elliott and Mariah Carey — with no less than 10 songs from Erykah Badu.
Tickets for Obama’s talk at the Southbank Centre sold out within minutes, with more than 60,000 people in the queue to purchase them. If you missed out, the whole playlist is streaming Spotify.
