?uestlove spilled the beans in an interview with Spinner at the Toronto Jazz Festival, where the Roots performed on Tuesday. He said international red tape is the only thing preventing him and Winehouse from jamming together. “[The supergroup is] definitely going to happen — it’s just that we have to work overtime to get her visa situation together,”he promised. “The closest she can come to the States is Jamaica.” He hopes to discuss this face-to-face with Winehouse when the Roots hit France next week. ‘Til then, they plan to continue “Skype-ing the s— out of each other.”
Until that visa issue is resolved, this may be more aspiration than reality. It’s a pretty awesome idea, though. All the drama in Winehouse’s personal life hasn’t made me one bit less eager to hear her follow up 2006′s Back to Black. If anything, sad to say, that kind of hard-lived experience could make her music even more compelling. And ?uestlove would be a brilliant choice to draw that quality out on record. As a drummer and producer, he’s helped coax amazing albums out of complicated personalities like D’Angelo and Al Green.