…….For hip-hop fans who enjoyed a more cerebral and copasetic approach, A Tribe Called Quest represented a breath of fresh air amongst the more agressive of their ilk. Introduced to the public as an offshoot of the Native Tongues movement (which included The Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, Monie Love and Quee Latifah, to name a few), Phife Dawg was the fiery counterpart to cooler rhymes delivered by his childhood friend Johnathan Davis, AKA Q-Tip. With Jarobi and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, ATCQ carved a space for themselves among the crowd of rap groups with their jazz-heavy and witty 1989 debut, People’s Instinctive Travels and Paths of Rhythm.

In the span of just nine years, ATCQ created five gold and platinum-selling CDs, creating hits that are largely regarded as some of the most influential and inspiring in the history of hip-hop (esp. those from The Low End Theory and Midnight Marauders). According to the Grammy-Award winning documentary “Beats, Rhymes and Life,” which was named after a Tribe LP and followed up with the group after their dissolution in 1998, his trademark exchange with Q-Tip that surfaced in many of their rhymes —-“You on point Phife? Once again Tip!”—-arose from his constant tardiness to the studio early in their budding careers.

As each LP dropped and Phife Dawg came into his own as an MC…..(click here to read the full tribute at soultracks.com)