I enjoyed this book a lot. I started the hard copy version and about halfway through switched to audio, which was much more fun. I don’t know much about hip hop so a lot of the references went over my head. That said, I find other people’s creative processes fascinating. And this book had a lot of voice and character!

Questlove makes so many great points in this book, and it's all the better hearing him tell them himself.

Truly a creative, and innovative mind in any form but especially Hip Hop.

I love this book so much.

A must read for anyone with creative juices flowing through them

I’ve read plenty of books on creativity but nothing has hit so hard in my heart and soul as this book did. I loved the mix of practical advice, stories and autobiographical tidbits. I know I’m going to be giving this book to students and friends for years to come.

I gained some valuable insights and approaches to creativity. I enjoyed the anecdotes about other creatives. I think some sections were a bit repetitive, but overall I enjoyed the book.

3.5 Like a lot books by non-writer celebrities, this one could have used a more forceful editor. Sometimes the freewheeling nature of the book is fun, like just listening to someone talk and tell stories, but other times it's rambling and circular and repetitive. That said, I liked that Questlove took a different approach to talking about creativity than most other works I've seen by writers. Mostly, he takes the reader seriously as a creator, i.e., it's not just a book for adults who feel their office jobs have drummed the creativity out of them , it's applicable to people who seriously practice a creative craft. As a result, the book is short on tired inspirational platitudes and instead peppered with surprisingly practical tips and tricks that pop up in the middle of interesting stories. Beyond that, many of the stories emphasize the everydayness of the creative process even for the most successful artists—it's more about showing up and just doing SOMEthing than conjuring magic sparks. Side note: you don't have to be a musician to get something out of it, but it helps, even just to translate the ideas into your own creative activities.

I just love this man's mind and process. He is clever and a sponge and I'm certain he would make the greatest dinner guest. I learned a great deal reading this book.

The most interesting thing about this book was seeing how Questlove’s mind works. He seems to be a really interesting and eclectic person. I liked a lot of this book. Most of the more philosophical things were okay. However, there was an equal amount of it that bored me. Most of the people he talks about I am not familiar with and didn’t care about in the least. For someone who is a big fan of his and familiar with his contemporaries in his field this might be a better read. For me, since I have only a passing interest in him and was more curious in the creativity part, it dragged a lot in places.

So many asides, stream of consciousness, and redundancies circling the same few central ideas. It could be x or y, or maybe it is both x and y, or neither. Jesus. Exasperating tautology.