Q-Tip Talks Documentary Beef with MTV News

Although fans around the globe are highly anticipating Michael Rappaport’s directorial debut Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest, two-thirds of the group are not feeling the project due to dubious crediting issues. Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad now sat down with MTV’s Sway and broke down the touchy details behind this conflict revealing that it all started with one specific email.

“Their whole comeback to that was, ‘Oh, he’s just frustrated, everybody’s frustrated,’ ” Tip said. But he countered, “When you’re frustrated you say, ‘Yo, I’mma kick his ass. He’s an a–hole, I can’t stand him, I’mma f— him up. I can’t f— with him again.’ Those are things you say out of frustration. But when you say, ‘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,’ that’s strategy.

“That’s premeditated, first. And second, you feel comfortable to say it to the rest of your team. That means that if the environment is conducive for you to have that kind of banter and that kind of language, God knows what else they’ve been saying amongst themselves. So how can we trust them?”

Sony Pictures Classics has reportedly acquired the rights to distribute the piece.