On Wednesday I went to see “Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest” — the Michael Rapaport-produced documentary on my FAVORITE hip hop group of all time. It was playing at the indie movie theatre in DC and I’d heard so many great things about it from my friends in NYC that I couldn’t wait. It followed the guys for approximately two years from the time they reunited in 2008 to some time in 2010. I bought my best friend Rock The Bells tour tickets for her birthday in ’08 the year they reunited and joined that tour. We went to the Jones Beach show, and put in over 12 hours that day but had to leave before Tribe… I KNOW. I don’t even wanna talk about it. Damn day jobs… Anyway, there were tons of hip hop and radio greats featured in the film — faces and voices I haven’t seen or heard much since I left Jersey (and more importantly, NYC radio). I’d read several articles about how some group members (Q-Tip) weren’t happy about how they were portrayed, but you get that with any “reality” project. Plus from what I know about those guys from following them on wax, in print and digitally for over two decades, I think it was pretty true to who they are.

Sidebar, what ever happened to the other Leaders of the New School? My cousin suggested Busta ate them. But I told her that was mean… after I caught my breath.

If/when this movie comes to your town, please support it. Whomever profits from this film deserves your dollars — even if it’s that annoying ass Michael Rapaport. If you grew up in the 80’s and 90’s and you had a radio, chances are you loved Native Tongues and ATCQ in particular. This is what hip hop was… Is. It doesn’t get much better than this:

 

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