Explosive accusations! Tears at premieres! Dastardly accidentally sent e-mails! At this rate, the drama swirling around Beats, Rhymes & Life, the A Tribe Called Quest documentary directed by Michael Rapaport, might be more entertaining than the movie itself.
To recap: Things went south as soon as the unofficial trailer for the movie was released. At the time, the clip spurred Q-Tip into a Twitter rant in which he made reasonable suggestions such as, “The filmmaker should respect the band to the point of honoring the few requests that’s was made abt the piece.†Eventually, Rapaport responded, making it sound like the reason Q-Tip was no longer in support of the project was because of the harsh truths uncovered during shooting: “My intention was never to make a fluff piece so we kind of hit a bump in the road.†Things got stranger at the movie’s Sundance premiere, where Phife Dawg showed up in full support of Beats and broke down in tears while discussing Q-Tip’s absence.
That brings us to the above MTV interview, with Q-Tip dramatically unveiling an e-mail he says was accidentally sent to him from the movie’s producers, revealing a plot to purposefully remove the band from the movie’s decision-making process and to drop their producer credits. Your move, Rapaport!