Q-Tip’s Brilliant Phife Diggy Tribute On Beats Radio 1

While Q-Tip did not appear on last night’s edition of his Abstract Radio show on Beats 1, he dedicated the entire episode to his fallen A Tribe Called Quest brother, Phife Dawg, and celebrated him with a 2-hour mix of live and rare Tribe recordings, from Tip’s personal archives. During the show, several noteworthy figures called in to share their reflections on what Phife meant to them, including Outkast, Public Enemy’s Chuck D, Kendrick Lamar and Run The Jewels’ El-P.

Starting at the 32-minute mark, Andre 3000 says “A Tribe Called Quest is everything to me. There would not be no Outkast without…well, if there was an Outkast, it would be something completely different.” He goes on to speak in-depth about how ATCQ specifically influenced Outkast’s sound “we actually pulled out an A Tribe Called Quest instrumental cassette and it as the Scenario. I can’t remember if it was the original or the remix. Big Boi probably would remember. And, that’s what we used to rhyme over. So, when we met Organized Noize, that was our first demo…It’s just so crazy that Tribe was so integral in what we do and what we are, and everything that we ever wanted to be.”