Questlove Gets Into Publishing With Some Great Reads Coming

It's always cool to see  a passionate person connect us to stories. With all of his experience in the music and entertainment industry, Questlove wants to highlight diverse voices. It will be interesting to see what kinds of books and authors he chooses to work with, and how AUWA Books will contribute to the literary landscape. AUWA is an imprint of the publisher MCD which is an imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux which is an imprint of Macmillan Children's Publishing Group. What is an imprint? I started reading about a Sly Stone Memoir coming out and that Questlove is publishing the book, and I ended up down a rabbit hole. An imprint is someone publishing under a bigger publishing company. A publishing company can have many imprints and each one could be marketing to different types of people. So now I know.  I always wondered how small publishers could get a break.

The first book to be published is “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" which is about Sly Stone. Sly  Stone have so much great music and much of my favorites are from Sly and the Family Stone. The book comes out October 17, 2023. Sly Stone is writing it with Ben Greenman who is a co-executive publisher of AUWA. According to a Rolling Stone magazine article, Sly says he had to "be in a new frame of mind to become Sylvester Stewart again to tell the true story of Sly Stone." Sly started singing when he was a kid. You can read extensively about Sly Stone on wiki.

A 2nd book “Hip-Hop Is History” will be out in 2024. Questlove co-wrote it with Ben Greenman and it about the first 50 years of hip-hop.

It's great to see new books being published that offer fresh insights and perspectives on music and its history. I'm sure many music fans will be eagerly anticipating the release of these books.

How did Questlove come up with the name AUWA?  He says comes from Prince’s bird type call vocals heard on a lot of Prince's songs including at the beginning of  “Baby I’m a Star” found on Purple Rain.

Questlove says he has been writing books for over 10 years.  It is time to get into publishing.

Rolling Stone created some major buzz today (September 15) with the release of an updated version of their "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list.

The first version of the list was released in 2004, a time when "...the iPod was relatively new, and Billie Eilish was three years old." With that in mind, Rolling Stone reached out to a wide variety of music figures, from artists to industry professionals to journalists, "to give the list a total reboot."

Rolling Stone notes, "Nearly 4,000 songs received votes. Where the 2004 version of the list was dominated by early rock and soul, the new edition contains more hip-hop, modern country, indie rock, Latin pop, reggae, and R&B. More than half the songs here — 254 in all — weren’t present on the old list, including a third of the Top 100. The result is a more expansive, inclusive vision of pop, music that keeps rewriting its history with every beat."

Of course, with that in mind, that means there are many songs from the 2004 version that are no longer on the 2021 version. Which tracks didn't make the cut this time around? Scroll below to view just 30 songs that are no longer on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list and where they ranked on the list in 2004.

Previously ranked #495.

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