Malik "Phife Dawg" Taylor of A Tribe Called Quest dead at 45

[MuttLikeMe]

[link:http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/a-tribe-called-quests-phife-dawg-dead-at-45-20160323|

Please don't come in here saying negative things about rap/hip hop if you've never listened to the genre. This is a thread to pay tribute to the late rapper who along with his mates in A Tribe Called Quest changed the sound of rap forever. Thank you for your cooperation.

Now, onto the tribute. RIP Phife Dawg.

[shenmue]

1. Oh no!

Very young. Rest in peace.

[Initech]

2. I shall leave my wallet in El Segundo in his honor.

[MuttLikeMe]

3. The Low End Theory

[MuttLikeMe]

4. NY Times Obituary:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/24/arts/music/malik-taylor-phife-dawg-of-a-tribe-called-quest-dies-at-45.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0


Malik Taylor, the wry and agile rapper known as Phife Dawg, who as a member of A Tribe Called Quest brought left-of-center hip-hop to the masses, died on Tuesday at his home in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was 45.

Mr. Taylor’s family and his manager, Dion Liverpool, confirmed the death and said the cause was complications of diabetes.

Mr. Taylor learned he had diabetes in 1990 — “When was the last time you heard a funky diabetic?” he once rapped — and received a kidney transplant in 2008. His health problems and self-proclaimed sugar addiction were a point of tension in the 2011 documentary “Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest,” which followed the group during a reunion tour.

A Tribe Called Quest formed in New York in 1985, when Mr. Taylor was 15 years old, and went on to release five albums, including the jazz-sampling rap classics “The Low End Theory” and “Midnight Marauders.”

With hits like “Scenario,” “Can I Kick It?” and “Bonita Applebum,” the group sold millions of albums while also serving as a more socially conscious and overtly political alternative to the gangster rap and pop rhymers of the day.

The group disbanded for the first time in 1998.

On recordings, the proudly diminutive Phife Dawg played a more frenetic and high-pitched counterpart to his childhood friend Q-Tip (born Jonathan Davis), A Tribe Called Quest’s lead M.C. The group also included the D.J. and producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad and occasionally the rapper Jarobi White.