Hip Hop from its conception has been about the battle. Whether on or off the stage, the battle represents two (at least) entities going at it hard for the respect of the streets. Some of the battles are legendary and made the state of Hip Hop today and that’s where Beef comes in.

Beef, narrated by actor Ving Rhames and executive produced by Quincy “QD3” Jones, III breaks down some of the legendary battles like MC Shan vs. KRS One, Kool Moe Dee vs. Busy Bee, Ice Cube vs. N.W.A. as well as 50 Cent vs. Ja Rule and The Bad Boy/Death Row fiasco.

This documentary gives you interviews with the stars and the observers and helps the bystander understand what really jumped off.

You get to hear about a rather unheard of New York crew that had beef with Prodigy and the rest of The Infamous Mobb.

Remember Common vs. Ice Cube?

Biggie and Tupac?

The graphics are great on this film you can tell Clay Lipsky is really talented as the graphics transport you to the different battles.

The 15 chapter DVD is 103 minutes and also features The Uncut Nate Dogg Golf Club incident, Damon Dash and the French Pimps incident, MC Supernatural freestylin' on Beef, A Beef 2 Trailer and other QD3 Entertainment trailers.

The film does shed light on the earlier battles and does have some footage of the people involved and around although a good portion of it is from footage not made for the film specifically. Also this film doesn’t really get into the more recent battles like Jay vs. Nas that in depth. I think that’s because they are trying to cover so much time.

The film is good if you’re a novice in Hip Hop but not if you are on a higher level. At the end you will feel like something was missing.

Overall this film score is 3 globes. I encourage people to see it if you only know of the last seven years of Hip Hop/Rap because it does give history but I think the history of beef should have been a 3 disk set for the nineties alone. This movie just doesn’t give you that complete feeling after it. It feels thrown together.