By: Martin Tucker
Michael Rapaport’s controversial documentary “Beats, Rhymes, and Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest” is finally available to supportive public who couldn’t make it to the Sundance Awards, Art House Theaters, or the Naro.
Released on Oct. 23, this documentary covers the four members Kamaal “Q-Tip” Fareed, Ali Shaheed Muhammed, Malik “Phife Dawg” Taylor and Jarobi White, and the intricate details behind their impressive history as one of the greatest hip-hop groups of all time.
Some of the controversy of this film and story of the film itself seems to be anchored around an apparent never-ending conflict between Q-Tip and Phife Dawg. It falls along the lines of the average conflicts within any fairly successful group, which is jealousy, entitlement and the stress any business relationship can put on a friendship.
Rapaport uses testimonials, on location interviews, borrowed footage and concert footage to paint A Tribe Called Quest as a great hip-hop group garnering unanimous respect from fellow artists and fans alike.
Some drawbacks of this movie are that there’s very little mention of members J. Dilla and Consequence, Beats, Rhymes, and Life aren’t dissected nearly as much as they should be. Rapaport seemed to figure since Tribe fans would already know every detail that there is to know about the albums that it was more important to track their relationships instead.
Rapaport does make good use of testimonials as the documentary features the likes of Common, Pharrell Williams, who is probably Tribe’s biggest Fan, Black Thought of the Roots, Monie Love, DJ Red Alert, ?uestlove, Beastie Boys, De La Soul and many others. They all express funny anecdotes, gratitude, and inspiration.
Rapaport has stated that his purpose in doing this movie was to answer the question, “Will A Tribe Called Quest make more music?” The film ends leaving you to make your own decisions.
This film is more than decent for a hip-hop documentary. It is similar to Tupac’s Resurrection and the unattainable hip-hop documentary perfection, Style Wars.
