Questlove Receives Peabody Trailblazer Award at L.A. Event: ‘Right Now, Joy Is an Act of Rebellion’

Musician, filmmaker and activistic Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson received the 2025 Peabody Trailblazer Award connected Friday (Oct. 10) astatine The Sun Rose Hotel successful Los Angeles.

Abbott Elementary creator and prima Quinta Brunson presented Questlove, 54, with the award, which “recognizes visionaries whose innovative storytelling styles interaction civilization and effect societal change.” Previous recipients see Brunson and Issa Rae.

“I americium truthful honored to beryllium present contiguous to contiguous an grant from 1 Philly kid to different Philly kid,” Brunson said connected stage. “By utilizing his level to advocator for representation, equity, and taste preservation, Questlove has transcended the relation of instrumentalist to go a captious taste archivist.”

In his acceptance speech, Questlove encouraged artists to travel their originative instincts and propulsion past self-doubt, saying, “Now is the clip much than ever… due to the fact that it’s cathartic, it’s therapeutic, but it’s necessary. And close now, joyousness is an enactment of rebellion, truthful I convey you for celebrating maine with this honor.”

During an on-stage speech with Peabody Awards enforcement manager Dr. Jeffrey Jones, Questlove shared a concealed of his success. “Every morning: 5 minutes of gratitude, silence, stretching, and affirmations. It sounds small, but that’s however I enactment grounded arsenic an creator and a human.”

Questlove’s enactment has had a profound taste and societal interaction by reshaping music, preserving Black history, and amplifying underrepresented voices. As the co-founder and drummer of The Roots, helium revolutionized hip-hop by introducing unrecorded instrumentation and blending genres, helping signifier the Neo-Soul question and influencing artists crossed generations.

Beyond performance, Questlove has go a taste historiographer and storyteller done his Oscar- Grammy- and Peabody-winning documentary Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), which revived the forgotten bequest of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival and highlighted the erasure of Black artistry from mainstream narratives, arsenic good arsenic the Primetime Emmy-nominated Sly Lives! (Aka the Burden of Black Genius).

Questlove has won six Grammys (three of them with The Roots) and an Oscar and has received 3 Primetime Emmy nods.