Phife Dawg dies

Why it matters

Phife Dawg's death on March 22, 2016, from complications of diabetes, broke up A Tribe Called Quest as a recording entity. Phife had been working with Q-Tip, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Jarobi White on what would become the group's final album, We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service, when he died. The album was completed using his existing vocals and released eight months later. The friendship-and-creative chemistry between Phife and Q-Tip had been one of the most distinctive MC pairings in rap. They had grown up together in Queens. They had been writing together since they were kids. The chemistry on the Tribe albums is the kind that, once one half of the pairing is gone, cannot be reconstructed. Q-Tip, in his SNL performance of "We the People..." in November 2016 (four days after the presidential election), pointed to where Phife should have been standing. The gesture was unmistakable. Phife was 45. Tribe has not recorded again. You can hear what was lost on every Phife verse in the Tribe catalog. The verses are the part.