The Truth About Black Responsibility In Hollywood

“Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)” examines the influential Sly and the Family Stone front man. It also probes a question that's even more interesting.

In the last few moments of “Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius),” director Ahmir Thompson, aka Questlove, shows his audience a montage of great Black artists who’ve publicly crashed and burned under the heavy gaze of Black expectation in a white Hollywood. We see images of Prince, Nina Simone, Whitney Houston, Lauryn Hill and Donna Summer. We see Will Smith accepting his Academy Award in 2022 after slapping Chris Rock earlier in the ceremony.

Those photos follow a nearly two-hour examination of the life and meteoric rise of Sly Stone (born Sylvester Stewart), front man of the groundbreakingly diverse rock and roll band Sly and the Family Stone. Throughout the documentary, Questlove poses the same question again and again: Could Stewart’s substance misuse and troubled later years have been brought on by external pressures he felt to represent the Black community in a certain way, and to fulfill a need to be palatable to a white audience?

From what the director shows in “Sly Lives,” which had its world premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and heads to Hulu on Feb. 13, that’s debatable.

Culling an extensive array of interview footage and live performances featuring Stewart, Questlove gives the audience a candid look at what the performer thought of himself at the height of his career — and rarely is there any evidence of self-doubt or frustration. Rather, we mostly see a figure who is assured, astoundingly talented and able to offer a smooth retort to a journalist or anyone else who suggests otherwise.

In his own words in “Sly Lives,” Stewart, now 81, recalls when members of the Black Panthers asked if he would be willing to support them and donate to their cause. “They were trying to make me feel like I needed them to remind me I’m Black,” he says. “And I said, ‘I ain’t got no problem being Black in the first place.’”