Last week’s news of an upcoming A Tribe Called Quest documentary generated a lot of hype amongst fans eager to get a look at the inner workings and history of the seminal rap outfit. It also generated a negative reaction from Q-Tip, the group’s most prominent member. While originally confined to the 141 characters available in Twitter, Tip recently appeared on SIRIUS’ Shade 45 (via RapRadar and Billboard) to talk about his frustrations over the Michael Rapaport-led project.
According to the Q-Tip, his gripe has little do with the actual subject material or how the band is portrayed; instead, it’s from what he perceives as a rush to get the project released. “I’m a producer on the film, Tribe is a producer on the film. I’m speaking for the whole group…,” the rapper said. “Different things need to be done edit-wise. The sentiment of the film is there, 80% is there, it’s just not done.”
Despite the objections, Q-Tip is sympathetic toward Rapaport, saying, “It’s tough when you are an up-and-coming director and you’re working on something out of your pocket, you kinda wanna see it… and you start speeding a little.” The “out of pocket” bit happens to explain a lot.
Make sure to check out the entire interview (once again, here) for more of Q-Tip’s thoughts. In other news news, the MC also revealed the name of his upcoming fourth LP, The Last Zulu, which will combine boom-bap and world music to make what Q-Tip is saying is “probably going to be the hardest shit I ever did.” No word on a release date, so stay tuned for that and more.
