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Q-tip pretty much admitted partially, in retrospect, that he shouldn't of been on him about exercising and getting right like he did once he learned Phife had diabetes. He stated he should of handled that differently, but that wasn't the entire point. The whole problem was that Q-tip was so focused on making music that he overlooked or bypassed his homie's health as such a serious life-threatening ordeal. He assumed that many people deal with diabetes so it's not such a big deal, and treated Phife like it wasn't.
And that's what really fucked it up in Phife's point of view. He's going through on a daily basis a way of life that one wrong move will be detrimental, and his oldest friend in the world isn't reaching out for that kind of support.
What made this glaringly apparent to me is Phife's relationship with Jarobi. That scene in which Jarobi was in literal TEARS because of what Phife is going through is something that you would of NEVER get from Q-tip. Jarobi got it. He understood what his partner was going through, and did everything he could to help him in that regard, including assisting him while they are all performing which is ALSO the reason why Phife blew up on Q-tip. Tip was oblivious to the fact that Phife was hurting, and assume that Phife should of told him that he was. No he did not. If that was your partner, your right-hand man, you should do everything possible to help him would without question.
Phife was, and probably still is, very insecure about his health situation and like his wife stated, needs therapy. He needed support and felt left out by Q-tip. And this was something that continued to grow inside, and like I said, Q-tip failed to see the root of the problem. Then Phife moved to Atlanta, and during that time Q-tip decided to add more pieces to the group with Dilla and Consequence, which we all know the greatness of Dilla, but that pretty much destroyed whatever chemistry ATCQ had left. And through all of that, Phife soldiered on being part of the team UNTIL Q-tip decided to close it all without his say of the matter. Regardless of how it may of been the best at the time, regardless to how Ali Shaheed felt, that was fucked up. The reason why it was fucked up was because it was all too selfish on Q-tip's part without even checking on how his homie would feel about it. And Phife stated he never finished school, didn't have anything to fall back on and Tip left him hanging by saying the group is done. He pretty much just cut Phife's lively hood out altogether just to go solo. That's how I saw it.
As for Ali Shaheed Muhammad, his ass needed to get punched in the mouth for not even attempting to be the moderator between the two arguing men. He wouldn't speak out for SHIT when it's clear someone needed to put both of them in check. His bitch ass always just went through the motions as if he wasn't there. It's a damn shame that Jarobi, the least seen and active member of the group, is more caring about the inner beef within the group than Ali's punk-ass was. I know it sounds harsh, but I am calling it how I seen it.
Phife DID overreact on the things Q-tip was doing, but I understood that was anger and stress speaking due to the fact he was going through a life or death kind of situation at the time. Therefore, just the littlest thing was going to set him off, and Q-tip kept on doing little things that simply annoyed Phife, regardless if all of them were unintentional. I believe had Q-tip truly was that concern like Jarobi was, we STILL would be getting great NEW music from Quest!
BTW, this is exactly why I respect De La Soul so much, I do n ot recall EVER hearing an inner-beef within that group. EVER. And they still doing their thing after 20-plus years!
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