"Comparing Tribe Called Quest's doc with Pearl Jams"
After watching Pearl Jam's Twenty I see why Tip was mad about what Rapaort ended up with. Cameron Crowe nailed it. I don't know what Rapaort's goal was? The focus should have been on the music. I know Pearl Jam has more albums and has a lot more footage still, Rapaport didn't go all out to me. I would love to see someone else do a documentary on Tribe or, to see a hiphop doc done as good as the Pearl Jam doc would be good.
1. "Not that the fighting shouldn't be addressed but it was 1/2 the film" In response to Reply # 0
I mean he did a great job of exploring the beginning to MM (Could of been more but still like him explaining putting the beat together was good), then spent maybe 3 minutes of the rest of the albums. Would have been more interesting to dig deeper into The Ummah (Or really at all), the label problems and definitely talk about the break up of the Native Tongues
2. "The PJ doc wasn't good though." In response to Reply # 0
It was hagiography. It was the documentary that Eddie Vedder's best bud would make, which is what Cameron Crowe is. It was uncritical and worshipping: "look how freakin' wonderful these guys are!" for 90+ minutes.
Rapaport went too far in focusing on Tribe's internal problems, sure, but at least it was real, not just glorification.
3. "one point it stoped being about music for hella long that wasnt cool" In response to Reply # 2
It't sad that Phife needs a kidney and all that but i'm here for the music. He went too far into things like that instead of the albums. I'd rather have some go in to full detail about how great things were than to half ass some shit.
13. "That's pretty much what all music docs do" In response to Reply # 3
It would be incomplete to not discuss Phife's sickness especially since you could argue it directly affected the group and touring. You can't just skip over that essential story and "just make it about music" because if it were just about music then that would be a concert film and not a documentary. By nature a music doc is supposed to dig deeper than just the songs.
16. "RE: one point it stoped being about music for hella long that wasnt cool" In response to Reply # 3
>It't sad that Phife needs a kidney and all that but i'm here >for the music. He went too far into things like that instead >of the albums. I'd rather have some go in to full detail about >how great things were than to half ass some shit.
Actually, that's what makes music documentaries worth watching...Yeah, I want to know how the music was made...
But I also want to know how their personal battles influenced the group...
The movies' personal elements and inner beef was never my beef with that Tribe movie....
GOAT of his era......long live Prince.....God is alive....
4. "I hated that Tribe documentary" In response to Reply # 0
mainly because Rappaport tried to do too much with it.
had I done it, I would've focused on the reunion tour (and not just the infighting) and found the stories that needed to be told within that tour and worked in the group's history as a means of explaining, i guess, what was going on now rather than doing a "we did this, and then we did that, and then we did this, and then we broke up, then we got back together for some shows, we fight, and phife's sick."
I would've approached it in a similar way to Metallica's "Some Kind Of Monster," and not just because of the infighting that went on in that film. "Some Kind Of Monster" didn't try to give you the entire history of Metallica, it told the story about the group at one specific period of time... The band's history did come into play, but it was only brought up by the filmmakers as needed to help move things along or explain certain things.
Another great one was "Anvil! The Story of Anvil." It didn't spend half of it's runtime giving the history of a band no one had heard of. It quickly established the group's history and the influence they had and then went on to tell the story about how the band (particularly its leader) struggled in the present day.
I haven't seen this Pearl Jam documentary, but is it some career retrospective thing, or is it telling a single story?
5. "I actually liked all of them." In response to Reply # 4
I liked "BR&L" and "Some Kind..."
>Another great one was "Anvil! The Story of Anvil." It didn't >spend half of it's runtime giving the history of a band no one >had heard of. It quickly established the group's history and >the influence they had and then went on to tell the story >about how the band (particularly its leader) struggled in the >present day.
Haven't seen this one yet, but I keep hearing about it. It's in my Netflix.
> > >I haven't seen this Pearl Jam documentary, but is it some >career retrospective thing, or is it telling a single story?
it's kind of a picture book of their first 20 years. They go from the "before they blew up" shit to the "biggest Rock Band in the world" shit, to "Rich as hell and hate it" phase.
It kinda explains why Eddie's so bizarre these days.
I liked it, but unlike most, ( around here anyway ), I'm a Pearl Jam fan.
at what point does a filmmaker have an obligation to tell the story no matter how ugly it gets?
meaning, a part of me wanted them to shut the cameras off when Q-Tip and Phife got into a physical altercation. But at the same time, if you're making a documentary, does that part of the story *need* to be told? Are there rules that go into it, and a director can decide that there are things the audience doesn't need to see?
7. "In my opinion there's no obligation to anything" In response to Reply # 6
Unless of course something is agreed upon before (With the subjects, producers, etc.). The documentarian (pretentious but necessary to say lol) just tries to tell the best story possible, whether it's true or not it doesn't matter (Most documentaries are biased and/or skewed, editing in it's self is skewing it). Somethings don't need to be put in documentaries but there's no obligation to anyone, it's just bad creative choices.
8. "that's what I'm asking." In response to Reply # 7
>Unless of course something is agreed upon before (With the >subjects, producers, etc.).
nobody can agree before hand not to record if there's a fistfight.
The documentarian (pretentious but >necessary to say lol) just tries to tell the best story >possible, whether it's true or not it doesn't matter (Most >documentaries are biased and/or skewed, editing in it's self >is skewing it). Somethings don't need to be put in >documentaries but there's no obligation to anyone, it's just >bad creative choices.
ennh.
Here's what I'm saying. Remember that scene when Rapaport asked Dave and Pos if they thought it was Tribe's last show, and Dave replied: "I hope so", and then went on to explain that he wouldn't want them going through the motions of being a group and pretending all the other shit hadn't happened. As a fan of the group, it would've been REALLY hard for me to film that fight and then pick up the camera later on and ask them what it was like hearing their shit on the radio for the first time. You see what I'm saying? I like documentaries, but sometimes I think they show fans a bit too much.
I'm pretty sure that Q-Tip has taken a lot of shit based on how he was presented in the movie. and all we saw was what happened during the 2 or 3 years when the doc was being made. We never saw the good shit.
10. "oh fuck that, I'm leaving the camera on for ALL that. I wish we had" In response to Reply # 6
a camera present for the time Charlie Watts punched Mick Jagger in the face, dropping him & said 'dont ever call me *your fucking drummer* again' or was on in the dressing-room when Rick James grabbed Prince by the back of the head & forcefed him cognac.
I wish Tip had pulled that crybaby Phife's shirt over his head & then pushed him into a corner so he kept bouncing around like a little human eight ball.
But that's me, I want the good & nasty shit.
There's some scraps I had as a kid where I wish a camera had been there & I'd have the thing set to music on youtube forwarding it to friends......other assbeatings that I'm glad were left on the less-documented cutting-room-floor of life in the 1990s.
So goes it, if you're there, you're obligated to keep that light on. If they don't like it, don't agree to it.
11. "I think 'reality' TV has fucked everybody up." In response to Reply # 10
I'm not saying that some stories don't need to be told, but do we REALLY need to see everybody at their worst? We're to the point now where people think they need to be exposed to entertainers' lives 24 hours a day, and that aren't allowed to have bad days, etc. It's almost like we root AGAINST our favorite entertainers.
Take your Charlie Watts example. From *hearing* that story, we can safely assume that Charlie didn't take any shit from Mick, and demonstrated what would happen if Mick stepped outta line. So why do we need to *see* it?
15. "problem with the focus on the Tribe fighting was it's not interesting" In response to Reply # 6
the music/discussion of the music (or the focus on their shared childhood) moved the moments that did work.
Shit, delving into the women Tip has fucked would have been more interesting than the beefing subplot.
The Tribe doc essentially wasted half a film about an iconic hip-hop group to focus on an ungrateful, bitchy little baby in a Cookie Monster shirt who eats too much candy and is mad at the dude most responsible for everything he has in life.
Now if that's Charlie Watts punching Mick Jagger in the face to knock him off a boat in the middle of the ocean for calling him 'my drummer', Bob Marley staying at the Four Seasons Hotel in Philly and bringing a live goat to his suite to slaughter in the bathtub, Nikki Sixx's OD story, etc.....sure, those types of things might be worth putting the music to the side for a bit to hear the insanity.
14. "what *didn't* you like about it?" In response to Reply # 9
as many of us have said, by documentary standards, it was a bit uneven, but that doesn't make it a 'bad' documentary. I think Rapaport was learning on the fly, and that might've hurt the overall project, but I still enjoyed watching it.
17. "Yeah, I didn't like this doc..." In response to Reply # 0 Wed Oct-16-13 02:08 PM by Jakob Hellberg
They showed it on swedish TV this summer. Too much harping on Phife's health-problems, too little about the music and the records and the songs.
I don't think a music-documentary *have* to focus purely on the music even if that's honestly what I prefer; I understand the viewers like the drama and shit like that and I really dug the Ramones-documentary that focused a lot on the relationships within the band but it was a continuous narrative that spanned two decades and was intervowen with the story of the band and their music. Here meanwhile, it became too much about Phife and Q-tip going on about their beef that to a large extent seemed to be based on one particualr incident if I remember correctly. For a band with as short career as Tribe (well, like ten years but still), you can not spend the entire second half or so of the movie just going on about the health-issues and Tip's lack of understanding/sympathy; shit gets redundant and repetetive not to mention that the time devoted to this in the movie could have been spent on something better...
20. "Yeah, there is nerdy hipsterism, and then this" In response to Reply # 19
>smh @ the bitching about it. > >Shit was about as perfect as a doc could be on the subject. > >Not Rappaport's fault Q-Tip didn't want anything to do with >it.
I think nerds have reached a new low
The documentary was amazing, point blank period
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O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"
27. "own it, its cool, it ain't The Last Waltz or Fade to Black" In response to Reply # 21
but I was happy to take my then-girl to the theater to a feature film on Tribe who her being born in '82 really didn't know too deeply growing up and both enjoyed it.
But I do think the way they belabored the little beef bits while still trying to do a linear/chorological doc left it with a sorta uneven feel if we're being real.
22. "for me it proved the truth of "don't ever meet your idols"" In response to Reply # 0
We all heard the stories over the years about the fights and drama but to see it play out on the screen was 10x worse than what I expected same thing with Gang Starr I read in the source how they had fistfights when recording step in the arena for me that's good enough, just to know it happened. Don't need to see it. grown men gonna do grown men things somebody gets on your last nerve, you gonna react someway. Would we also punch a motherfucker in the face for getting out of line? that's on you I'm conflicted about the tribe doc cuz it showed that yeah they made incredible music together but at the end of the day some cats need to get dealt with. Even if that someone is a dude you grew up listening to.
23. "Your post proved that you are 14 years old." In response to Reply # 22
Because the most awesome thing about maturing is learning how the coolest part of great ideas/people/institutions is in how they balance/manage/overcome their flaws/insecurities/ fucked-uped-ness.
I was a much bigger fan of Tribe after watching the doc than I was before it, and I didn't think that was possible.
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O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"
29. "I didn't care for it." In response to Reply # 0
I think straying away from the music was an attempt to bring in a wider audience. People that had never heard of Tribe and couldn't connect with the music would at the least find the story of a band breaking up entertaining. At least that's how I saw it.
I was hoping to see "Beats, Rhymes & Life" as told to Wax Poetics. I didn't get that. I shouldn't have gone in looking for that though. Unfortunately, that film wouldn't have made any money either so...*shrug*
31. "Too bad Spike didn't make this cause Bad 25 was way better." In response to Reply # 0
And that's only about one album and he got two hours of material. Spike Jonez would have did a good job too. There's still time I hope some one else tells Tribes story.
39. "RE: Tip an egomaniac tho..I wanted to hear what Ali had to say " In response to Reply # 38
Ali seems to be too classy to speak on that shit. I remember the Red Bull interview with Bob Power and he mentioned mixing a song Ali had produced. Guess we will never know the truth.
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41. "Tip don't take credit for shit he didn't do. In fact he takes less" In response to Reply # 38
which is why we're having this conversation & why all of "A Tribe Called Quest" gets royalty checks off some shit that in a lot of cases they had next to nothing to do with if Phife wasn't rapping on it.
Bob Power isn't talking about spending endless time in the studio with Ali, Jarobi or Dynomutt.
Tip was the one who did that shit because he had that drive/determination/ability.
He 'never asked to be the Ginsu Master of this shit'.
Phife just likes candy & crying more than working while Ali is a DJ far more than a true 'producer', as his lack of major work outside that has shown.
I mean I used to assume Ali was doing beats, did the same with Lucy Pearl but nah, that was Tip & then Saadiq.
You don't think Mike Rapp woulda made an issue out of Ali & Tip disagreeing on who produced their first three albums?
37. "The early 90s had the MC/DJ combination." In response to Reply # 33
So early on, Ali was the DJ. Same for Maseo of De La. Jazzy Jeff, Eric B, and so forth. I think for a while we assumed all the beats were made by the respective DJ's. But in 7th/8th grade, I began to question what Prince Paul was doing with De La if Maseo was the DJ. Then of course I asked the same question with Ali with Tribe. Especially later on when I realized that was Tip production on the early albums.
But then, if you hear Ali production on his own (D'Angelo's Brown Sugar, Jon B.'s Cool Relax), it sounds Tribe-like. So...
40. "RE: based on interviews etc it sounds like tip clearly did the most" In response to Reply # 33
but the others gave their input in the studio and their points were taken (or not taken) into consideration. but tip found the samples, had the initial concepts etc
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