Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on October 2012

Actor Michael Rapaport, clearly a fan of the title hip-hop band, chronicles the influential group’s formation and, as these things usually go, its dissolution. It centers on the power dynamic between the group’s yin-and-yang leaders, the authoritarian, controlling Q-Tip and the vulnerable, sweet-natured Phife Dawg, and the way they grafted Afrocentric jazz riffs onto the styles of pioneers LL Cool J and Run-DMC for what they considered a smoother, more sophisticated sound that raised hip-hop to an art form. Complex, poignant, dramatic and evenhanded, this is no mere fanboy love letter.