I'm a sucker for pretty much any music doco, and having missed a lot of the hip hop movement in my teens I was looking forward to discovering more about one of the key players of the time. I was most interested in the early years; the people they were in contact with, how they came to making albums, the transition into relative fame and success... and in this part it delivered. The last two albums were given a fairly cursory look, and toward the end it maybe dwelled a little too much on Phife, his illness, and the falling out between he and Q-Tip. You can't ignore tensions that exist in a group like this — and I wouldn't have wanted Rapaport to do so — but with no redemptive high point to work towards in the end it feels like perhaps this section could have been edited down a little to make it slightly more concise.

One of my favourite aspects of the fantastic Blur doco No Distance Left to Run was the triumphant feel of the comeback — playing to a packed Hyde Park will do that, but it really felt like the members had overcome their differences enough to come together for one last fling, enjoying the moment with the fans that had been with them through the years. The reunions of Tribe, however, had no such feeling about them. I guess in all these things you root for the heroes of the story, and I couldn't help but hope for a happier ending... but of course the actual events didn't happen that way, and in reality the ending was kind of a fizzer — a group just going through the motions to make some cash.

Definitely worth a watch — particularly if you are interested in hip hop at all — even for just the first half alone.