Beats, Rhymes & Life (2011) - by Font Leroy

Saw "Beats, Rhymes, and Life"* last night (the documentary directed by Michael Rapaport about A Tribe Called Quest). Was struck by the way Q-Tip comes across - over time as the group's career waxes, wanes, and then revives (although the motives for the latter seem nothing but pecuniary, even if driven initially by Phife's need to pay his medical bills) - as the lonely, egotistical genius of the group. Unlike the others, he seems to have no interest in regular human feeling or experience outside either excelling in the substantive craft of making incontrovertibly good music, or making savvy business moves (the exception that proves the rule in this movie are the hints of emotion regarding his father's having passed too early to witness his success and artistic splendor).

I was telling C how this felt like such a familiar narrative arc in group creative efforts -- you cling to your bandmates/fellow actors/whatever early on when your main challenge is the societal transgression of actually making a go at being an artist, at taking on the immense risk that might lead to renown and/or fortune and/or at least psyche-sustaining respect for your authenticity but involves deviating from the secure path of a steady paycheck as an honorable but undistinguished part of the middle-class column. But if success does come, different forces start to work -- outsiders hoping to gain themselves on your group's good fortune start to pick you apart, set you against each other, tell you you don't need to keep carrying the dead weight of your childhood friend -- that YOU'RE the real talent and you really got to get rid of Andy -- he's really just holding you back, etc.

The way this dynamic emerged with Q-Tip against Phife felt so familiar, and recently so -- I couldn't quite put my finger on what the comparator was, though. (I thought Lennon & McCartney -- Q-Tip is Paul, in this analogy, btw, which is the approach the NYT took in its review, but that didn't seem to fit very well -- I know some people suggest that Paul was the "leader" of the Beatles, especially later on, but John always seemed to me to have more executive charm than that, even if it wasn't applied towards keeping the band together from 1967 on. I digress.)

Then tonight it hit me -- what this movie reminded me of exactly was the Sorkin-soaked fraternal betrayal in the Social Network -- Phife is Eduardo -- all heart, sincerity, good faith commitment -- and Q-Tip is Zuckerberg -- ruthless and disturbingly unaffected, especially to those who thought they were close to him, but ultimately right on the merits of the enterprise. I guess this aligns with the uncomfortable proposition that history is made by the assholes -- the immortal Seamen's furniture reference aside, while it's difficult but not impossible to imagine A Tribe Called Quest earning the significance it has without Phife, you cannot say the same about Q-Tip.



*not entirely certain whether the Oxford comma is in the original.