Beats, Rhymes and Life — the A Tribe Called Quest documentary Michael Rapaport directed — will be in competition at Sundance this year, and we tentatively hope that it will be great. But Q-Tip’s not feeling so positive about the project: When a trailer was released for the movie in December, he quickly went on a Twitter rant against it. (“The filmmaker should respect the band to the point of honoring the few requests that’s was made abt the piece,†etc.) What exactly was he so upset about? Allow Mr. Rapaport to explain. He tells MTV:
I adore ATCQ and my intention wasn’t to ever make them feel uncomfortable but my intention was never to make a fluff piece so we kind of hit a bump in the road. And we promoted [the film together]. Q-Tip and me were on the radio talking about ‘This is going to be the real story of A Tribe Called Quest.’ When I say ‘the real story’ that doesn’t mean that there’s going to be crazy sh—. I didn’t unveil any secrets. From what I’ve learned Q-Tip and Phife have known each other their whole lives and they are like a family. And like any family, like any group — the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, EPMD, Public Enemy — they’ve had bumps in the road. I just think that because A Tribe Called Quest is so precious to fans, they were concerned about unveiling some of those things.
Michael Rapaport — hard-hitting director! Anyway, this sounds great now.
A Tribe Called Quest Doc Director Michael Rapaport Talks Q-Tip Rift [Rap Fix/MTV]