Questlove’s 2-Hour Earth, Wind & Fire Film Solves ‘September’ Mystery, Premiering at Tribeca
Updated
Updated · USA TODAY · Jun 5
Questlove’s 2-Hour Earth, Wind & Fire Film Solves ‘September’ Mystery, Premiering at Tribeca
2 articles · Updated · USA TODAY · Jun 5
Summary
June 3 brought the Tribeca premiere of Questlove’s two-hour Earth, Wind & Fire documentary, which reveals that “the 21st night of September” referred to the expected birth date of Maurice White’s son Kahbran.
The film also explains the hit’s “ba-dee-ya” refrain as a Brazilian scat influence Maurice White and Philip Bailey absorbed from Brasil ’66, rather than a phrase with fixed meaning.
Archival footage and interviews with Barack and Michelle Obama, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie and family members frame the band’s musical legacy while also depicting founder Maurice White as brilliant but often aloof and uncredited.
1983 emerges as a key rupture: White abruptly put the band on hiatus, leaving Bailey to sell property and Johnson to take construction and stereo-shop jobs after the group’s finances were hit.
HBO begins streaming the documentary on June 7, extending a film the surviving core members say tells the band’s history honestly without breaking its unity.