Watch: A Tribe Called Quest Documentary Trailer

Tweet

Actor Michael Rapaport has been working on a documentary about legendary hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest for years — and now a new trailer offers a tantalizing look at what's in store. The film, Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest , features extensive interviews with members Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Jarobi, and details the quartet's pioneering career during the 1990s, the issues that initially split them up (and flared up again during a recent reunion tour) and Phife's ongoing diabetes-related health problems.

(The group's fractious relations are referenced in an apparently joking title shown at the end of the trailer: Beats, Rhymes & Fights.)

Photos: Random Notes

The doc features appearances from Kanye West, Nas, Mos Def, the Roots and many others who testify to the group's resounding influence, which includes humorous lyrics, previously unplumbed jazz samples, a mellow swagger and, as the Roots' ?uestlove puts it, the fact that the group "managed to rewrite the song structure for hip-hop."

The film is scheduled for release next year.

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
• 
  MOVIES The 10 Best Zombie Movie Scenes
• 
  TV The Most WTF? Moments of 'Mad Men'
• 
  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“He Will Break Your Heart”

Jerry Butler | 1960

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter