Q-Tip is collaborating with actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill in a drama television series inspired by his life during the Native Tongues era, according to Deadline. Though there is no writer yet, they will reportedly shop the show around to networks as soon as next week.
Queens-born Q-Tip (Kamaal Ibn John Fareed) is known as a rapper, record producer and founding member of A Tribe Called Quest. Back in 1985, Q-Tip started the hip hop group with Phife Dawg (aka Phife Diggy or Malik Taylor), Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Jarobi White, his friends from high school. White left the band in 1991 but continued to contribute here and there, and joined the 2006 reunion.
Q-Tip is also a long-time friend of DiCaprio, which helps explain how this team came to be formed to begin with. DiCaprio recently filmed Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street with Jonah Hill, a movie nominated for best film (comedy or musical) at this Sunday's Golden Globes.
During the late 1980s, A Tribe Called Quest was a member of the Native Tongues collective, which Jungle Brothers and De La Soul also took part in. These artists performed Afrocentric hip-hop, made in a spirit of positivity. A Tribe Called Quest signed to Geffen Records in 1989.
The show is said to show how this kind of music affected the culture back then, and has changed the face of music today. Though the series isn't a retelling of Q-Tip's life, it will take from his experiences -- the friendships he formed and his music development with the Native Tongues in the late '80s and early '90s.
