MUSIC: Rest In Peace Phife Dawg (Malik Taylor)

It's really hard to underestimate the influence A Tribe Called Quest has not only on hip-hop but popular music as a whole. Without their first three groundbreaking records it's not hard to make the argument that genre's like Neo-Soul, acts like Outkast, megastars like Kanye West would not exist in the way we know them today. A big reason for their success was Phife Dawg. While Q-Tip did much of the heavy lifting for the band early on as far as production and vocals were concerned over time his MC partner, Phife Dawg, caught up and some would argue even eclipsed the MC. Funny, confident, and a unique personality even in the potpourri that can be hip-hop you can still hear a few Phife Dawg bars re-appropriated even in 2016 (How many flips of "I like 'em brown, yellow, Puerto Rican or Haitian" has there been over the decades?).
A Tribe Called Quest managed to bring a sense of fun and whimsy during a creatively hot, but dark, time in Hip-hop. The best way to remember him is probably engaging in some of that very sense of good times he tried to convey in his music. Watch below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6TLWqn82J4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHRnvjCkTsw