S. Samuel
Director Michael Rapaport's much-talked about A Tribe Called Quest Beats, Rhymes & Life documentary will invade theaters this summer despite a war of words from its group members.
The film will premiere on July 8th in New York City and run through early August.
“I’ll be all over the place wherever they want to send me,” says Rapaport, a first-time director with more than 20 years of acting credits, among them True Romance, Mighty Aphrodite, and the TV series “Prison Break”. The film, a Sony Pictures Classics release, will play another 32 cities as it is released to a handful of theaters at a time. “Beats, Rhymes & Life” will play San Francisco, Chicago and Washington, D.C., on its second week, San Diego, Boston, Philadelphia, Minneapolis and Atlanta beginning July 22. The current run ends Aug. 12 when it premieres in 10 cities, among them New Orleans, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh. The film will be screened Wednesday (Apr. 27) at the Tribeca Film Festival. (Billboard)
In early March, the documentary was officially acquired by Sony Pictures Classics.
“I couldn’t be more excited and proud that BEATS, RHYMES & LIFE: THE TRAVELS OF A TRIBE CALLED QUEST is being distributed by Sony Pictures Classics. As a first time filmmaker to have the support of SPC is like being signed by the NY Yankees. Telling this story was not only a labor of love, but also the most fulfilling accomplishment of my career,” states Michael Rapaport. (Indie Wire)
A few weeks ago, Tribe’s Q-Tip detailed his internal ssues with the film.
According to Q-Tip, on December 17, 2010, a couple of weeks after he initially expressed concern about the film, an e-mail was accidently sent to him by one of the producers that read as follows: “First off let’s close the Billing Block and put it on the poster so they can’t get on that. Then we’ll f— them on everything else.” Seated next to Ali in our newsroom, Q-Tip contended that the e-mail conversation clearly stemmed from the group’s early concern about not being credited as producers on the film. (MTV)
In January, Rapaport spoke about initially having Q-Tip’s suppot for the film.
As Rapaport explained to us the next day while watching the Packers game with Phife, he’d shown the movie to Q-Tip multiple times. “From what he told me, he loves the movie. He thinks it’s going to be hugely successful, critically acclaimed. You can quote that … And one day he just decided he didn’t like it. I don’t know. I’m not sure what happened.” And since then, the two of them have only communicated through the media and Twitter. Even so, Rapaport bought Q-Tip and Jarobi White, who also didn’t show, two first-class tickets each to come to Park City and booked them hotel rooms. (The fourth member, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, had a prior engagement in Europe, but both Rapaport and Phife think he would have come.) And he was still hopeful they might come, until they didn’t. As Rapaport explained, “A Tribe Called Quest has been broken up. I deal with them individually. I’ve never been in a room with all four of them. I think they’re all grown men They’re all adults. They all make decisions on their own. So why Phife came here, he wanted to be here. And why the other guys didn’t come here, they didn’t want to be here.” (New York Mag)
Check out a review of the film down below:
