Anyone who has followed the Roots' 20-year career has already soaked up so much of Questlove's writing – in novella-length liner notes, message-board posts and endless tweets – that the drummer-bandleader's new memoir hardly feels like his first book. Thumbing through these pages is more like picking up an ongoing conversation with the smartest, chattiest music nerd you know.

Mo' Meta Blues (co-authored with New Yorker editor Ben Greenman) follows a loose chronological arc, tracing Questlove's path from shy Philly kid to the kind of guy who gets invited to roller-skate with Prince. He's as much cultural critic as memoirist – he can't resist interrogating, debating and riffing on every milestone he achieves.