New Article: Michael Rapaport Done "Completely Done Appeasing" Q-Tip After Rapper Disses Documentary

As far as Michael Rapaport is concerned, Q-Tip can stick it in his ear. The actor and filmmaker tells us he's given up trying to get the cotton-swab cognomen-ed leader of A Tribe Called Quest on board for the hotly anticipated documentary he's made about the seminal hip-hop group.

Rapaport's film, "Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest," opens here and in Los Angeles on July 8, but you won't see Q-Tip promoting the picture.

The highly respected rapper, producer and NYC deejay (real name: Kamaal Ibn John Fareed) is the only member of Tribe not to endorse the film. Though speculation persists that he'll eventually relent, Rapaport says he's "completely done" trying to reason with the rapper.

"I'm not reaching out to him anymore about this," Rapaport says.

The Grammy-nominated Q-Tip, who a spokesman described as "tense about the documentary," has snubbed the film because of creative differences that arose between him and Rapaport.

Things became so contentious during production that Rapaport says the group threatened him with legal action.

"The movie version Q-Tip thinks should be coming out would be going straight to DVD," Rapaport says.

"Spike Lee would have told A Tribe Called Quest to kiss his f-ing ass and take a f-ing walk," the filmmaker adds. "I appeased them, worked with them, tried to hear their point of view on things."

Not that it made a difference. Although the group's three other members – Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Jarobi White – have gotten behind the film and appeared together at the L.A. Film Festival, where the picture won the Audience Award for Best Documentary, Q-Tip stayed home.

Rapaport also claims Q-Tip tried to defame him and his producers after the rapper insisted this past winter that certain scenes be removed from the film before it debuted at the Sundance Film Festival.

The director says he refused to capitulate. "You're not Jay-Z, you're not Kanye West," Rapaport says.

The filmmaker says he now has no relationship with Q-Tip and is bothered by the controversy, but refuses to apologize for anything.

"I intended to make an independently produced documentary about my favorite group, and that's what I did," Rapaport said. "The reason I made the movie was out of a good place. And I was fair."

Q-Tip declined repeated requests for comment.

STORY BY: NY DAILY NEWS / GATECEASHER
Frank DiGiacomo: fdigiacomo@nydailynews.com
Carson Griffith: cgriffith@nydailynews.com
Adam Caparell: acaparell@nydailynews.com