Available on DVD: “Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest”

(L-R) Phife Dawg, Q-Tip and Jarobi White of A Tribe Called Quest

A Tribe Called Quest may be the first band ever fractured in part by a member with a sugar addiction.

That would be Phife Dawg, one of four members of the pioneering hip-hop group documented with tough love in Michael Rapaport’s Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest.

Phife suffers from diabetes. Fellow rapper Q-Tip is a visionary but a control freak. Jarobi White would rather be in culinary school. Ali Shaheed Muhammad is caught in the middle. And yet through all their struggles — maybe because of them — the group created one classic album (The Low End Theory) and two great ones between 1990 and 1993, before settling into a life of dysfunction.

Veteran actor Rapaport, deftly directing his first feature, splits the movie into two parts — following the group’s beginnings, and then charting the implosion. Tribe superfan Rapaport doesn’t fawn, but he juggles too much, and the ending feels pat. It’s still an outstanding effort, and one of the more honest band biopics in recent years.