Phife Dawg

Within the pioneering rap group A Tribe Called Goal and their prolonged Local Tongues family, Phife Dawg helped usher in a complete new design of smart hip-hop. Blessed Malik Taylor, Phife was raised in Queens, NY, where he spent his youth writing poetry and finally rapping at college and in his community whenever the chance was obtainable. Along with high-school classmates Q-Tip (Jonathan Davis) and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Phife founded ATCQ, whose renowned decade-long career finished in 1998 using the Appreciate Movement. Phife started flexing his brand-new independence in 1999 with “Flex Ova,” the initial one for his brand-new U.K.-structured label, Groove Attack. A full-length entitled Venting: Da LP premiered the following calendar year, including performances from Pete Rock and roll, Hi-Tek, Supa Dave from De La Spirit, and Phife’s alter ego, Mutty Rates. It had been his just LP, although he was component of several ATCQ reunions through the 2000s and in addition recorded tracks to get a solo follow-up, to become titled Tracks in the main element of Phife: Vol. 1 (Cheryl’s Big Boy). Experiencing diabetes as soon as 1990, when he was diagnosed, he was presented with a liver organ transplant in 2008, but passed away at age 45 in March 2016.