Sly Lives! (Aka The Burden of Black Genius) is a finely tuned biographical music documentary of the great—but often forgotten or misremembered—rockstar Sylvester “Sly Stone” Stewart. Directed by longtime musician, producer, Jimmy Fallon bandleader, and actor Ahmir K. “Questlove” Thompson, Sly Lives confronts the concept of its subtitle by analyzing Sly Stone’s life, legacy, and work, from his main fame as founder of Sly and the Family Stone to his songs’ eventual samplings’ in hip hop culture. Focusing on all angles—who Sly was as a person, his dedication to music, his relationships to others as shown in past or present interviews, his drug abuse and current whereabouts—Questlove and crew unwind the many threads interwoven in such stardom both individually and societally, gauging Stone’s experiences as both a racial reflection and tale of overdose on more than just drugs.

Sly Stone’s life is typical amongst pop and rock icons of the ‘50s through the ‘70s: established with his kid siblings by his parents in a family band, Sly’s musical gifts and dedicated nature grew from an early age. He got famous, became irrelevant, got hooked on crack and pills to cope whilst trying to maintain spotlight, and ultimately fell out of view. While he’s still alive, Sly lives a much more ordinary lifestyle than he once did—as the film’s ‘90s-ish opening interviewer makes clear in asking why Sly fell off.

On top of that, he had to contend with his Blackness in a global spotlight. To be a Black rockstar, especially during the Civil Rights clashes of ‘60s America, one would “always gotta be three, four, five steps ahead of everybody else, in order just to break even. It’s just always been that way,” according to interviewed Black singer-songwriter D’Angelo. So Sly dedicates all his time in his early years, despite white interviewers prodding at him and white critics insulting him, forming something of an actual unit with his bandmates: “We were a family. Period. Simply,” one of Sly and the Family Stone’s original bandmates says. Through a mixture of aged photos from the times, interviews, old television clips of live show, and a backdrop of primarily funky Sly Stone records about everyone being the same or loving despite hate made by diverse hands, Questlove effectively illustrates that fam(e)ily dynamic The Family Stone acquired from Sly’s “Black genius,” and how easily it eventually fell apart.

By connecting with old bandmates and, towards Sly Lives!’ end, Sly’s now-adult children, Questlove demonstrates how isolating and destructive such stardom and natural talent can be. Despite the multitude of Stones, Sly was unique in his musical versatility: “He could play any music, at any pitch, in any rhythm,” original band drummer Greg Errico says. Such natural talent, anointed with Sly’s dedicated passion, kept him in another league from others—and drugs became his best friend. “We’d smoke crack; we were crackheads,” Sly’s old friend George Clinton says. Like with so many others, this eventually consumed his life, to the point where his music was entirely made while high: “… The band wasn’t necessary. The sense of collectivism had completely vanished and… the ways in which he could’ve died of a drug overdose [among other grievances]… became the subject of the music.”

Questlove displays the lasting effects his isolation wrought through touching interviews with Sly’s children, who all agree that his most recent years—now drug-clean in his 80s—are their most normal with him. Before, he was “never around,” “always jamming,” and being scolded about behind his back about his deadbeat behavior. Along with his infamous track record for being late– or not showing up at all– to concerts from the ‘70s on, Sly fell down the typical past-your-prime hole—a humiliating period which Questlove unyieldingly but lovingly displays, both humanizing Sly and demonstrating how globally lonely it is to be so well-recognized but barely known. Even as he fell out of view and hip hop discovered his chords for their own experimentation, though, his love of music prevailed, helping define music for Black communities and others for generations to come, as Questlove and interviewers remain insistent on.

Thus, Sly Lives! is a hopeful, loving, and socially poignant tribute to Sly Stone’s musical contributions and how they continue impacting new audiences. Though it’s mightily repetitive editing-wise and still drags at almost two hours, in our current politically charged America, such unifying hopefulness is necessary for those of us striving for equitable change—the only kind of change that should occur. The current U.S. President and administration may think it too woke, but for those with basic empathy-rationale balance, music fans, Sly Stone fans or biographical documentary fans, Sly Lives! is a slyly insightful time.

Streaming on Hulu and Disney+ now