excitement at a potential track.
“Yo, make sure you send me that beat. I’ve got to put some verses to it. That beat is fire!” Q-Tip recalled Phife saying, mere hours before his death. The Five Foot Assassin passed away from complications due to diabetes in March.
“It’s so hard for me to sit in there and hear his voice,” he added. “Sometimes I just have to like take a break and walk away. It gets heavy. It doesn’t necessarily get sad, it just gets heavy. I literally feel the energy from him when I hear his voice.
In addition to recently releasing Tribe’s last album, hosting a hit podcast show, “Abstract Radio” on Beats 1 Radio, Q-Tip has also become the Kennedy Center’s first artistic director of hip-hop culture. According to a press release, “Q-Tip will establish a dynamic, new program that will stretch across all disciplines, bringing the historic roots, contemporary expressions, and transformative power of Hip Hop to the [Kennedy] Center and local and national audiences.”
Happy birthday to hip-hop!