According to Ali Shaheed Muhammad, A Tribe Called Quest and the parties behind their Beats Rhymes & Life documentary have come to an understanding of sorts. Both Muhammad and Phife Dawg appeared at the film’s premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. “Just because Q-Tip is not here does not mean he’s not in support of the film,” Ali told Rolling Stone. “I’m here, and I’m representing Q-Tip. We’re happy with the finished version. If none of us were fine with this, no one would be seeing the film.”
There were reportedly initial conflicts over film’s title, which was initially advertised as Beats, Rhymes and Fights in an early trailer. Q-Tip then posted a message via Twitter stating that certain requests weren’t being honored. Things came to a head in March, when MTV’s Sway Calloway interviewed Q-Tip and Ali. The two Tribe members presented an e-mail from an unnamed producer of the film allegedly threatening to remove their co-production credits from any advertising of the film.
But Thursday, both Phife and Ali threw their full support behind the film, saying that the full four-man collective of A Tribe Called Quest was happy with the final edits. Phife Dawg also shot down any rumors of the group doing a soundtrack to fulfill any lingering contractual obligations with Jive Records. “Doing a soundtrack for the movie wouldn’t count [towards the contract],” Phife explained. “And even if it did, we’d be killing our fans. They already know those songs. I would want new music out there, wouldn’t you?”
