Why Rashida Jones Did Not Want to Follow Her Father Quincy Jones’ Footsteps
Quincy Jones is a music legend. He began as a jazz musician and became one of the best music producers ever. Naturally, his children might want to follow in his footsteps given that they grew up with a very musical father. Jones has seven children altogether and the most famous is likely actress Rashida Jones, who deliberately chose not to pursue a career in music, despite loving it.
“My dad’s a musical genius,” she explained. “That’s like, the last thing I want to do, is try my hand at that. 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. Like I’ll never be good enough to do it, so I just don’t.”
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Although she never wanted to pursue music as a career, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have fun with it. Rashida actually sang backup on Maroon 5’s first two records. “I love it so much and I kind of like, sing for fun,” she added. “I’ve written for fun, and I’ve sung backup on some albums and things like that… I can write [music], my reading is limited.” However, she did follow in the footsteps of her mother, actress Peggy Lipton. Lipton is best known for Mod Squad and Twin Peaks.
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These days, her dad is enjoying some downtime at 91 years old. Several years ago, Rashida wanted to use her talents to honor her famous dad and wrote and directed a documentary called Quincy. She recently shared about the doc, “He’s so well-documented, he’s so accomplished, that it’s almost impossible to spend any time storytelling who he is as a person. You have to cover so much ground with just what he’s contributed to the world and culture. I wanted to do something that felt like it captured his personality, ‘cause nothing ever has … My dad is a beast, and he has cheated death so many times. Ninety-one and still crushing it.”
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A few years after the documentary came out, Jones decided to share his own message with the world with his book called 12 Notes on Life and Creativity. The book aims to help fans learn to express themselves with creativity and art, including how to set goals and create a creative process. He combined his tips with stories from his own life and career. Get the book here.
