Nickelodeon Theatre hosted a talkback session after Tuesday night’s 5:30 screening of “Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest.”
“Hip-hop was born out of competition,” Sherard “Shekeese” Duvall said, starting the talkback session. “Hip-hop is supposed to be brash, it’s supposed to be competitive. ‘Our’ hip hop started as your crew versus my crew.”
It was that sentiment that seemed to drive the conversation, not only in content but in structure.
The film documents the dissipation of the hip-hop group through use of interviews and on the road footage as well as footage culled from music videos.
While it seemed clear to some that director Michael Rapaport wanted to present the film in an objective manner, Duvall disagreed.
“I really feel like they played Q-Tip to the left in the film,” he said. “I feel like Phife [Dawg] used his condition as a crutch. Coming from being in a group, I know how people can do that.”
While Preach Jacobs of Sounds Familiar Records was hesitant to make as definitive a statement, he did voice his opinion as well.
“We don’t know all that was happening in the group, but I do know that ‘Tip is the [leader] of the group,” Jacobs said.
For a majority of the talkback, Duvall and Jacobs mirrored the back and forth of Q-Tip and Phife’s relationship on screen, each vying for their points to be heard and respected, and yet each saying very slight variations of the same thing. They themselves seemed to engage in a bit of the “highlander mentality” of “there can be only one” that they accused the industry of harboring.
If Duvall and Jacobs played Q-Tip and Phife, then Patrick Wall, Free Times music editor, played Jarobi White by way of his silence, until the conversation moved from the actual documentary, to hip-hop in general and then the music industry in Columbia more specifically.
After explaining the impact that Quest had on the genre, inspiring artists like Erykah Badu, Kanye West, Common, Talib Kweli and Pharrell Williams — some of whom make appearances in the film — the panel discussed the similarities of hip-hop to other genres.
“Hip-hop is so like punk, because it’s like, ‘This is me. What?’” Duvall said, with his statement then echoed by both Jacobs and Wall.
After briefly discussing the 20-year swing where artists find themselves influenced by the music of their parents and in turn create music for the next generation, the discussion moved to the Columbia music scene.
Jacobs and Duvall stated that venues won’t book local hip-hop acts, and Wall agreed.
“They know it’s a hit; they know people want it, but they won’t give [it] the respect it deserves,” Duvall said.
Wall said the problem ran deeper than that, enumerating only three types of styles that are accepted in the Columbia music scene for bookers. He then cut to the quick of the issue.
“Columbia wants to have its cake and eat it too,” he said, explaining that, while desiring the cosmopolitan feel of a big city, Columbia wants to retain its small town vibe.