We're deep enough into the hip-hop era when a group can become a hip-hop "oldies act," guys bouncing around the stage "spittin' rhymes" in their 40s. Like any other oldies act, they're up there reliving the days when their songs were hits, and their fans are remembering those days with them.
So it's a good time for the actor and hip-hop fan Michael Rapaport to give us an inside look at the 26-year history of A Tribe Called Quest, New Yorkers who haven't cut a record in this millennium, a group that keeps breaking up and making up, and yet are still legends of the hip-hop game.
The cumbersomely titled "Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest" follows the group on its 2008 farewell tour and captures it in the act of breaking up. Then, using fresh interviews, vintage MTV footage and fan and peer testimonials, Rapaport gets at the dynamics of a group that struggles even now to get along well enough to get paid - again.
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They were born in the boombox era, bubbling up from the still-new hip-hop of the streets of Brooklyn and Queens, where Q-Tip (born Jonathan Davis) met Pfife Dawg (Malik Isaac Taylor) in church, and Jarobi White, and then hooked up with Ali Shaheed Muhammad. They followed the trail blazed by Run-DMC and LL Cool J., developed their talent and networked their way into a record deal.
They broke out with "Black Is Black," thanks to the Jungle Brothers, and became among the most popular and critically acclaimed acts of the '90s - creative in their beats and samples, playful and "Afro-Centric" in their approach.
But even then, Q-Tip was front and center, and Pfife Dawg was chafing at that.
Rapaport - off camera for the most part (He is glimpsed once or twice) and only heard in the occasional shouted question - gets close to the tale's two protagonists - close to Pfife, anyway. He doesn't dig deep into discovering where "Bonita Applebaum" or "I Left My Wallet in El Segundo" (a "Sanford & Son" joke) came from, or the musical background of the guys. The film is all about the friction, and there's plenty of that.
When Pfife riffs on how Q-Tip thinks "He's Dianna Ross" and "that makes me Florence Ballard," or that Q-Tip figures he's running this Jackson Five "and I'm Tito, no disrespect to Tito," he cracks us up. But he's serious. The film only touches on the source of their animus, catching a backstage snit fit in 2008 and onstage rap-bickering on the same tour.
The testimonials - from record producers, DJs and peers like Common and Prince Paul - come fast and furious. And there's a big chunk of screen time devoted to Pfife's diabetes - which he revealed in a song early on in their career.
The best hip-hop documentaries - and historical films such as "Rhyme & Reason" started popping up in the mid-'90s - invite you in and teach the non-fan why this or that became a big deal.
The musical formula is decoded; the ritualized tropes of the medium, from the clothing to the stage demeanor to the phrasing, become clear.
But for all its winning and revealing moments, "Beats, Rhymes & Life" is far more inside baseball, a sometimes funny, sometimes revealing fan film for fans only. The non-fan may find himself scratching his head, staring at his watch or counting the hundreds and hundreds of times these obviously clever fellows fall back on "Y'know what I'm sayin', " as an annoying vocal crutch.
Review
Beats, Rhymes & Life, The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest
***
• Rated: R for language.
• Director: Michael Rapaport.
• Cast: Q-Tip, Pfife Dawg, Ali Shaeed Muhammad, Jacori White, Common, many others.
• Running time: 95 minutes.
