Rashida Jones Says Her Dad Quincy's 'Musical Genius' Stopped ...
August 19, 2024 @ 12:58 PM
Rashida Jones never seriously considered pursuing music professionally, despite “a deep ache” for it, on account of her dad Quincy Jones being a “musical genius.”
The actress told the “Smartless” celebrity-hosted podcast that despite early love for performing and writing music, she didn’t think she’d be able to follow in her legendary father’s footsteps.
“My dad’s a musical genius, that’s like the last thing I want to do, is try my hand at that,” she said. “But I love it. I have a deep ache for music, and I just don’t ever feel like I’m good enough to do it.”
She added that she sings and writes for fun, even performing as a backup singer on a few albums — but that’s as far as it went.
“I love it so much and I kind of sing for fun and I’ve written for fun, and I’ve sung backup on some albums,” Jones said. “I sang backup on the first two Maroon 5’s. I sang for them live.”
Jones’ dad Quincy is a renowned music producer. He’s acclaimed for producing albums such as Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” as well as the “We Are the World” charity all-star single, but on the film and TV side he also produced “The Color Purple” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” He’s been nominated for 80 Grammys and won 28 of them.
“I remember one time, Rashida, coming over to your dad’s house with you and being blown away going downstairs,” podcast cohost Will Arnett said. “You know when you go into somebody’s office and they’ve got like a record, like a platinum record or whatever? You go into Quincy’s and A: it’s a museum, and B: the framed thing for ‘Thriller’ has like 40 platinum records in the frame. Literally 40, it’s like the granddaddy of them all.”
The hosts also touched on Jones directing the 2018 documentary “Quincy” about her father and his legacy. She said that she originally didn’t want to do it, but realized she needed to.
“My dad is so well-documented. There was a doc series on BBC, there was a documentary about him in the ’80s, and I was with Jane Rosenthal – who’s a legend, and she worked with my dad years ago,” Jones said. “She said to me, ‘You have to make a documentary about your dad.’ And I was like, ‘Oh f–k, I do, don’t I?’ I didn’t want to, but she was right.”
You can listen to Rashida Jones’ full interview on the “Smartless” podcast with hosts Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes.
