“I like ‘em brown, yellow, Puerto Rican or Haitain / Name is Phife Dawg from the Zulu Nation.”
At 5’3” tall, Malik Izaak Taylor always found a way to make a big impact on a record. The contributions of Phife Dawg though are far greater than a couple intros and a few witty one-liners. He had a career in hip-hop spanning over 30 years. Had three platinum albums, two gold albums and one #1 album in the country. “Dyno-mutt” also boasts a résumé of collaborators that reads like a hip-hop hall of fame induction class (Q-Tip, Busta Rhymes, J. Dilla, Redman, Mos Def, DJ Red Alert, Common, The Fugees…) With this week’s passing of one of the cornerstone members of A Tribe Called Quest, we will think back to the good times. Whether we were rocking out to “Scenario” (remix) on Yo! MTV Raps or decompressing while listening to “Stressed Out”, Phife always had some rhymes to contribute without overpowering the track. Sadly, despite this wave a love and support for “The Five-Footer”, it simply isn’t enough for what Tribe and Phife brought to the game.
Emerging after the funk-a-delic space suits and leather action hero costumes of early 80’s groups like Afrika Bambaataa’s Zulu nation and Grandmaster Flash’s Furious Five, and before the rise of the West Coast, ATCQ was one of the first groups to carve a lane for “regular guy rap”. Along with their Native Tongues collective (De La Soul, Queen Latifah, The Pharcyde etc.) Tribe spoke about a level of black consciousness that created a balance in the music we were being fed through the media that is sorely missed today. More specifically, Phife took things a step further by continuously sprinkling references throughout his music of his Trinidadian heritage and upbringing, which had not been done as significantly on record up to that point (B.I.G., Foxy Brown, Wyclef Jean, Pitbull, Nicki Minaj and Trinidad James, among others, would all rep their island flavor later). The Tribe tree of influence is a rather impressive one. Kanye West, Pharrell, Little Brother, Logic, J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar and a host of others have cited the trio as inspiration for them to pick up a microphone.
As if he wasn’t cool enough already, Phife was a sports nut. Another reason why we love him here at HHSR!
Despite all of these accolades and accomplishments, there was an undercurrent of resentment and frustration that seemed to flow through the group. Whether it was drummed up through fan discussion, propagated through the media or perpetuated by the labels themselves, it became widely accepted that Q-Tip was the “star” or the group and it’s creative driving force. This was underscored in Michael Rapaport’s Tribe documentary, Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest (2011) as the band’s in-fighting was laid out for the world to see.
As discussed on the The Hip-Hop Sports Report Podcast a few weeks back, hip-hop groups appear to be going the way of the dinosaur. Splitting paychecks, creative differences and simply growing apart can all factor into a group’s ability (or inability) to stay together. But there has to be something said for living in a situation where you grew up with your elementary school friend rapping in basements and cyphers together, then you are good enough to collectively get a record deal, only to suddenly have the media and tastemakers lauding your partner as being the “creative genius” and de-facto leader of the group. After the crew disbanded following the release of The Love Movement in 1998, Q-Tip’s career took off with the release of Amplified and the hit single “Vivrant Thing”. Despite the short-lived windfall of solo success, Q The Abstract, much like his partners Ali Shaheed and Phife Dawg achieved his greatest artistic success while working in unison.
Phife seemingly spent his life on a quest for respect. He was one of the great global ambassadors for hip-hop, helping to introduce the burgeoning art form to all corners of the world. He took pride in repping his borough of Queens, New York and was outspoken about his personal battles with diabetes, even going so far as to crown himself with the moniker of the “funky diabetic” on Midnight Maurauders. The Five-Footer embraced his truth at all turns of life. His honesty in his music stood in defiance of the machismo facade that seemed to consume the hip-hop industry for much of its existence. Though the cliche “There will never be another….” Gets used ad nauseam in this era, Phife Dawg is a unique figure in the pantheon of hip-hop music, and in death, is only starting to get some of the credit his lyricism and authenticity long deserved.
“Your whole appearance is a lie and it could never be true…
And if you really loved yourself, then you would try and be you.” – Malik “Phife Dawg” Taylor