“Beats, Rhymes, & Life: The Travels of A Tribe called Quest” is a documentary directed by actor Michael Rapoport. The documentary chronicles how four New York City natives (Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, Ali, and Jarobi) started working together in 1985 to form the historical hip-hop group known as A Tribe called Quest. Everything is showcased on this documentary from their rise to fame to their disbanding in 1998 to their reunion tour in 2008.

“Beats, Rhymes, & Life: The Travels of A Tribe called Quest” felt a lot like Vh1’s show, “Behind the Music,” but it had a lot more raw emotion, extras galore, great music, and better visuals. This documentary gave you a realistic and unbiased view of each group member and how the group functioned. You get to see each person’s history, their role in the group, and their quirks. By the end of the documentary, I had a better understanding of the group’s dynamics, their contribution to hip-hop, and could see what caused all the tension and drama.

For this Blu-ray, the picture was very sharp and crisp and was loaded with extras. Besides director commentary, there was also a featurette about the director’s journey while filming the documentary. They also included deleted and extended scenes featuring several legends in hip-hop such as Common, De La Soul, and the Jungle Brothers. Lastly, they gave footage of the red carpet premiere, which I thought was cool. This was more than enough to please any fan of the group and the documentary.

Being a fan of A Tribe called Quest, I loved the soundtrack to the documentary and the visuals. They played all of their classic hits like “Can I kick it?” in the intro to parts of “Bonita Applebaum.” It was great to hear all those songs again and reminded me that I needed to add them to my Ipod. Besides the actual camera footage caught by Michael Rapoport, the documentary also had these colorful and psychedelic visuals in between the sections that fit the group’s story and personas perfectly. Everything was well put together and not only was this a great story about A Tribe called Quest, but it was also a very emotional documentary about the group and hip-hop. I loved everything about it and highly recommend this Blu-ray to all hip-hop fans. For those reasons, I am giving this Blu-ray an “A.”