....and the first thought I have is Q-Tip is buggin. The documentary does NOT paint him in a bad light.
The only gripes that Phife had with him is that Tip was a control freak who wanted to control all aspects of the group.
Now, that would seem wrong unless you pay attention to the first 45 minutes of the documentary. In it, Phife and Q-Tip both admit that initially, Phife was hard to get into the studio and was more concerned with hanging out and being reckless. Meanwhile, Q-Tip was busy making ALL of the beats and rhyming on every song for the first album.
Low End Theory comes around and Phife finally gets the idea that maybe he should spend more time in the studio, and goes on to have some of the most memorable verses on that album. While his presence was greater on that album, Tip was still the one crafting the album from finding samples, creating beats, writing his rhymes, and basically putting the album together.
All Phife had to do was write his rhymes and be in shape to perform and what does he do? He continually went on sugar binges, not taking care of himself, knowing that he's a diabetic, which led to him missing important performances.
I'm not going to go into too much detail out of respect for those that haven't watched the film, but most people in Tip's postion would have given up on Phife WAY before he did.
But the last thing I want to add is, Phife had a few rants in the film where he claimed Tip was selfish and pretty much treated the group as Q-Tip feat. A Tribe Called Quest. That is false and Phife should be ashamed of himself. I'm a diehard ATCQ fan, and I had no idea that Tip did almost all of the production on the first 3 albums until about 3 years ago. I didn't know because the credits always read: Produced by A Tribe Called Quest. Meaning that even though he did do ALL of the music, they were able to share in the production credit/money equally.
I understand why Tip is mad because a lot of the documentary does focus on Phife's struggles with diabetes, and to a person not really paying attention, they may feel sorry for him and think Tip is a horrible person. But, when you watch the movie and pay attention from beginning to end, any sensible person will understand that Tip is not a bad guy, he just wanted the hard work that he put in to ATCQ to be fully realized and appreciated. Not for himself, but for the group.
The only gripes that Phife had with him is that Tip was a control freak who wanted to control all aspects of the group.
Now, that would seem wrong unless you pay attention to the first 45 minutes of the documentary. In it, Phife and Q-Tip both admit that initially, Phife was hard to get into the studio and was more concerned with hanging out and being reckless. Meanwhile, Q-Tip was busy making ALL of the beats and rhyming on every song for the first album.
Low End Theory comes around and Phife finally gets the idea that maybe he should spend more time in the studio, and goes on to have some of the most memorable verses on that album. While his presence was greater on that album, Tip was still the one crafting the album from finding samples, creating beats, writing his rhymes, and basically putting the album together.
All Phife had to do was write his rhymes and be in shape to perform and what does he do? He continually went on sugar binges, not taking care of himself, knowing that he's a diabetic, which led to him missing important performances.
I'm not going to go into too much detail out of respect for those that haven't watched the film, but most people in Tip's postion would have given up on Phife WAY before he did.
But the last thing I want to add is, Phife had a few rants in the film where he claimed Tip was selfish and pretty much treated the group as Q-Tip feat. A Tribe Called Quest. That is false and Phife should be ashamed of himself. I'm a diehard ATCQ fan, and I had no idea that Tip did almost all of the production on the first 3 albums until about 3 years ago. I didn't know because the credits always read: Produced by A Tribe Called Quest. Meaning that even though he did do ALL of the music, they were able to share in the production credit/money equally.
I understand why Tip is mad because a lot of the documentary does focus on Phife's struggles with diabetes, and to a person not really paying attention, they may feel sorry for him and think Tip is a horrible person. But, when you watch the movie and pay attention from beginning to end, any sensible person will understand that Tip is not a bad guy, he just wanted the hard work that he put in to ATCQ to be fully realized and appreciated. Not for himself, but for the group.
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Big Boi was/is hard. 
