Hearing the music and seeing the videos in this documentary instantly transported me to a familiar and beloved time and place. ATCQ was one of those defining groups of the 90's. To this day "Scenario" is my favorite collaborative rap song.

"Beats, Rhyme & Life" chronicles ATCQ's formation through to their disbanding. Sadder than their disbanding was the beef between Q-Tip and Fife Dawg. As a fan you never want to hear that there are problems in paradise. You want all of your favorite groups to love each other as much as you love them and never separate, but the truth is that families have fights and sometimes never speak again. It was definitely the more difficult part of the documentary to watch.

All in all though, I loved the documentary. ATCQ is one of my favorite groups and you don't really see rap groups anymore. They came up in an era when groups were common, and now the only rap group I know is Migos. Things have certainly changed, so I was glad to see this documentary to remind me of how things used to be.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Acclaimed director and massive ATCQ fan Michael Rapaport delves into the origins and history of A Tribe Called Quest, one of the most pioneering, influential hip hop groups to emerge since rap burst onto the mainstream with Rapper's Delight in the late 70s/early 80s. Rapaport charts how the groups evolvement started when they met up as friends, to mix beats in their spare time, and how they tried to just be simple entertainment, in contrast to some of the more inflamatory, anti-authoritarian hip hop groups that went before them (as well as explaining the origins of their odd name) before catching up with them on their 2008 reunion tour, where member Phife Dawg has made a comeback after treatment for diabetes.

There doesn't seem to be an awful lot of variety in music these days, with everything pretty interchangeable from everything else, and a lot of new stuff not having the confidence to break away from what went before it and trying to branch out on it's own. So it's a shame that a lot of this samey music does contain a strong hip hop flavour to it, since we have a film here that tries to tell the story of a group from a time when rap was coming into it's own as an art form and spreading it's wings and flying in the charts. There was a genuine, truthful message either way to it, whether they be ardent political statements or just spreading a message of chilling out and getting down.

It's clear Rapaport's a fan, and there is a genuine air of passion and depth about his subjects. But, as is clear in any group of friends, they were obviously some conflicting personalities and, while they managed to work together as a group, tensions could and did inevitably combust back stage. While neither Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Muhammed or Jarobi White exactly gave off a Tupac Shakur vibe about them, it's clear their 'street attitude' was still there and they weren't afraid to throw the f word around liberally. Still, ATCQ were hardly a group that especially glamourized the nastier things in life, while not exactly spreading a message of peace, just distracting the youth from getting into trouble with their funky, jammy beats.

As a suburban white kid (but quite a big fan) there are some aspects of the culture groups like ATCQ represented that will probably always be anathema to me, but that's not to say it's hard to see why groups like them became as successful as they did or grew the fan base they did. ****

You're going to wet your pants watching this if you're a huge Tribe fan. If you're just like me a regular hip-hop fan, it's eight, it's fun. You get a playful, frank, intimate look at their origins, their rise and fall, and the relationships between the members and, in particular, the tension between the brilliant, messianic, somewhat oblivious Q-Tip and the headstrong, straightforward, more humane and related Phife Dawg, whose close childhood friendship and complementary talents generate much of the band's energy and atmosphere, but w