Q&A: Talking beats, rhymes and life with director Michael Rapaport

This week, it's not Michael Rapaport's voice or acting skills that's being celebrated. It is his sometimes contentiously incendiary and always glorious directorial debut - a documentary, Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest

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Q&A: Talking beats, rhymes and life with director Michael Rapaport

POSTED: Friday, July 22, 2011, 3:00 PM

Filed Under: Movies

Q-Tip, Phife Dawg and Ali Shaheed Muhammad were and still are (for all practical purposes despite having broken up in 1998 and again in 2008) A Tribe Called Quest, the legendary Queens hip-hop collective on the Native Tongues tip. Their sound was jazzy, literate and holy.

Michael Rapaport is a New York City native who has famously acted in Zebrahead, Higher Learning, Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite and the Fox series Accidentally on Purpose. His sound is rapier fast and heavily accented. This week, though, it is not his voice or acting skills that is being celebrated. It is his sometimes contentiously incendiary and always glorious directorial debut — a documentary, Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest (read Drew Lazor's review).

Though it’s received accolades along the fest circuit (Sundance in particular, the Audience Award at the very recent L.A. Film Festival) it is the innovative hip-hop act who have been weird regarding the true raw nature of the film with Q in particular at odds with the tense portrayal of the band’s bad brotherly interaction. They fight in the movie. They split apart. They’re like any other act that grew up together. Phife likes the film. Ali goes every which way. But Q and his crew have written Rapaport angry tweets and emails and threatened to sue to bar the film’s release. Sounds like a movie.

We caught up with Rapaport during a round-table chat (other journo's questions are mixed in) at the Four Seasons. The director had just read my Gamble & Huff cover story and expressed interest in my tale before the interviewed started. We went from there.

Question: We were talking about this Sound of Philly story and what your connection was.

Michael Rapaport: I pitched that idea — about doing a documentary — on the Sound of Philly and Gamble & Huff around, to (producer) Tracy Edmonds in particular. It was probably smart to have not indulged that idea because at that time, I probably wasn’t ready to do it, what like 11, 12 years ago. You mentioned that there is no Scorsese-worthy documentary on those guys. Now, I’m no Scorsese but their story is one I could tell. I was curious about them in the same way that I was about Tribe.

Q: Because they are both underdogs in a way.

MR: Yes. Plus access. You have some access and that’s a start. The curiosity to know more is what made me want to go further. Going back to what you said earlier, Gamble & Huff are so Philadelphia. I always loved this city. I got introduced to it when I was seven years old because of Rocky. That movie changed me, the first film that made an impression on me. And there was your city. I always had an affinity for it. I fell in love with the 6ers because of Dr. J. and the Broad Street Bullies because of Bobby Clarke but Rocky was my main thing. It may be my favorite movie of all time. It left images of Philly that are still in my head.

Q: What then coming up a kid was a New Yorkers impression of Philly hip-hop?

MR: The first impression I had was, maybe summer of '85 or '86, listening to a rare live show on either Mr. Magic or DJ Red Alert’s radio show from a Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince gig. I don’t know — should I call him Fresh Prince or Will Smith? Anyway, it wasn’t the way that he rapped, it was the way that he spoke — he sounded like a white dude. One guy’s beat boxing and the Prince is rhyming really fast. You couldn’t see him, you just heard it. It was crazy shit from Union Square. And Jazzy Jeff? That’s when the DJ was so important to rap, crucial to the group. Now its non-existent. That was my first impression.

Q: What was the biggest surprise about doing the Tribe film?

MR: There were lots of them. The biggest one was the depth of Phife’s health problems. I didn’t know. I’m a fan who had the inside scoop because I knew Q but I didn’t know Phife or that the deterioration of his health was so extreme. The happenstance was that he was willing to do this movie before he was given his kidney transplant. If you met him, you’d know that Phife is way more open now than he was in the past. I think doing the movie has helped him be more candid about it. He’s a low-key guy. I didn’t expect him to tell me about all that he is suffering with. The first time he discussed the diabetes he’s had for the last eight to ten years was on camera. We knew it was a problem, just not as much as it was in reality. It was sad. We had to take it down a lot: the scars, the catheters. He was fucked up. When you’re shooting a documentary and you don't know what to expect … wow. I have a lot of respect for Phife: his disposition, his personality. His voice is boisterous, high pitched with a childlike quality. He’s little. But he’s strong, you know. Its breathtaking … the whole diabetes section is daunting. We had to walk through that part really carefully. The interpersonal nature of the film —in this moment they were so open.

Q: Were you daunted by the prospect of filming your heroes?

MR: Knowing that I was going to document them as musicians was something. I was tongue-tied thinking about it, talking about this or that song. I never expected them to be superheroes outside of Tribe. As performers — yes. They are like Fresh Prince, Big Daddy Kane, Grandmaster Flash, Eric B and Rakim. Q Tip, The Abstract. Phife Dawg the Five Foot Assassin. I had an adoration of them but I was surprised how much. I mean, I have been around celebrity. You know the difference. But when they’re talking about music it’s a whole other level. When Q breaks down the whole “Can I Kick It” beat — which wasn’t planned or contrived — that was pure. Then there were the more emotional moments like when Phife talks diabetes. As a filmmaker and a fan, those things are like holy shit. Q Tip talks about music in such a passionate easygoing way. He is like Phife talking about sports. Knowing, you know? The dichotomy between their passions and how they do what they do ... their personalities their voices. This is what made Tribe so different. I didn’t touch them as people. I am in no position to judge. I have had my share of dysfunctional relationships, including mine with the group. There was magic there — the history of the records. The film moves differently at first. Then the animation cuts off as the magic was depleting as the relationships went south. That’s when I went to a more cinema-verite style. The idea behind the film was "will Tribe ever make music again" and "why did they break up in the first place." Now, I have a better idea as to why they broke up in the first place. Q and Phife knew each other since ages two and three. Now it’s no crime to want to do a solo album. It’s no crime to not want to do the thing you’ve been doing for a decade anymore. It’s no crime for Lebron James to leave Cleveland. It’s just the way it happened. Tribe just outgrew each other. Q Tip is an artist who is continuing to grow, an instinct to push forward and not look backwards. And I think that the relationships that they had as friends changed drastically during their biggest success. And that had nothing to do with the group’s music. That was symmetry. Perfection. But in 94 or'95 minutes you can’t go into every detail. You can just give impressions, show the vibe.

Q: You just happened to start filming them when Phife got sick and they went back on tour for Rock the Bells.

MR: That’s the straw that broke the camel’s back for the second time That’s how it is. They have a tense relationship. They have that brotherly relationship and a sibling rivalry.

Q: There’s that scene where the guys from De La Soul say they hoped that tour (2008) was the last time that Tribe got together. That was shocking.

MR: Yup. That scene was in every cut. I wanted this film to be for everybody. For the Tribe-centric fans, there’s some shorthand but no too much to scare off people who don’t know. It ‘s like when I watch the Metallica documentary (Some Kind of Monster). I love it but in some cases I don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. No clue. But the fans do. I wanted some of that in here. You can’t spell everything out. We established that De La came up with Tribe, that they’re close. So when the guys from De La say they hope this is the last time Tribe tours, it’s big. Shut it down. If you can’t figure a way to do it — don’t do it.

Q: Was it hard being on that tour with them with all the tension?

MR: It was incredible being on tour on stage, shooting it. I held the camera. I was the fan, you know. But before the show in that back room — if you want to reference where, just check out the jersey Phife was wearing — they weren’t seething but there was a distance. Their friendship had changed. It’s uncomfortable to see people you admire at odds, at that distance. It was hard to be around. We even interjected that their beefs, they were ones that they never talked about amongst themselves. “Did you ever talk to each other about it?” The answer was no, nine out of ten times. I remember one night with Q and Ali in my apartment watching a rough cut of the film and they began having a sidebar conversation about what was going on in the film. That was intense. Heated. Like “why is he saying that?” Then I’d say, “talk to him about it. Call him now. Don’t get angry at me." They had a break up talking about the break up. Luckily they agreed to disagree. That’s what made the discourse about Q Tip not liking the movie but Phife liking it so much a part of the bigger story — this perceived thing that I’m the bad guy. It ain’t me. Watch the movie. That’s the nature of these guys. They don’t move as a group; they move as individuals under the auspices of A Tribe Called Quest. “Mike’s an asshole.” I heard that all the time. I financed this movie as a fan out of my own pocket. The end result is fantastic but the process in the last eight months — that should be a documentary. All the shit that followed it would be better than the movie. The tension made the movie. The Native Tongues movement. Living in the neighborhood Run DMC started in — that was the start of the movie. The inspiration. The logistics of history. That would’ve made a prestigious DVD release at best. I’m glad that’s not the movie we made. That wouldn’t have made it to Sony Classics. It’s only right that this is the way it turned out, that it is so emotionally charged. The group and music is so timeless and emotionally charged. So it ignited — like Picasso and Tupac and Woody Allen and Allen Iverson. When you give a piece of yourself. That’s what’s what happens. The film was emotion and the aftermath was emotion-al. Man, the tweeting has been emotional.

Q: It’s a wonder the film came out at all.

MR: The closest they came to pulling the plug was trying to put a cease and desist order and an injunction against me going to Sundance. I told them that you could cease and desist the motherfucker. I’ll take a work print. I’m showing the fucking movie. They called me crazy but I was showing my movie at that festival. It was an honest film. And I told them if you think you look like an asshole in the movie wait till you see what you look like when no one sees the movie because you went out of your way to stop me. That’s hysteria. The movie speaks for itself. All this bullshit only made people more curious about the movie. This is dignified. There is an undignified version of this movie that’s sitting in a vault in LA. No one will ever see that. They didn’t see that. I just wanted them to look as dignified as possible. And as an artist and filmmaker I had to look inside myself. If I let this go away and be compromised, I wouldn’t be able to look at myself.

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