The Funky Diabetic Mixtape

I woke up this morning to 30+ texts so I knew from the door something had to be wrong....and it was. Scrolling through all these texts I kept seeing Phife's name so I was hoping it was something like Phife was in the hospital or Phife needed another kidney transplant but it wasn't. All of these texts were from my peoples telling me that the 5 foot assassin with the rough neck business had passed away. Now, the crazy thing about Phife is a lot folk have this crazy (and it's VERY crazy) misconception that I didn't like dude and NOTHING could be further from the truth. I think a lot of folk got that idea from the Writer's Bench episode about who's the dopest MC in the crew and how adamant I was that Tip was better then Phife. And guess what? I still feel that way. But that doesn't mean that I didn't like Phife or thought he was wack! Now I will admit that when "People's..." dropped, I had no idea why money was even in the group cause it seemed like Tip did all of the rhyming. But when the video for the Spirit Remix for Can I Kick It dropped...that's when I started rocking with Phife. Yeah, yeah I know he spit the same verse he did on the original but it was just something about that Baby Huey break that made me hear that song and Phife in a whole new light. And for me the funniest thing about that video is I would watch it over and over again trying to pause it right when Phife takes off his hood and puts on his hat to see if he was rocking dreads. See, for a sec I was trying to grow dreads but I was crazy paranoid that I wouldn't be able to still rock my fitteds but I figured if Phife had locks and was rocking a fitted, then I was good money.

Now, I REALLY started rocking with Phife the second I heard "Check the Rhyme" cause now I realized why money was part of the group. "Check the Rhyme" was SO dope that you'd be hard to find a hip hop head who didn't go back and forth with one of their peoples with the "you on point Phife? All the Time Tip" line. And of course once "Low End" dropped it was a wrap cause dude went off multiple times from "Buggin' Out" ("microphone check one, two what is this") and "Scenario" to one of my all time Tribe favorites, Phife's solo jawn "Butter." And it's not like he slowed down at all with "Midnight Marauders" with "8 Million Stories" ("and to top it off Starks got ejected") and his verses on "Award Tour" ("I never let a statue tell me how nice I am"), "Electric Relaxation" (I like 'em brown, yellow, puerto rican or haitian") and on "God Lives Through" where dude just lost his damn mind. All of that to say, that I REALLY hopes this clears up any twisted misconceptions that I didn't rock with Phife cause I definitely was a big fan of money. Hell, I even brought that first Fu Schnickens album strictly off the fact I saw that he was on one of their songs "La Schmoove." And I know 90% of ya'll ain't cop that album, so ya'll can't tell me nuthin' about how much love I had for the funky diabetic. All of that to say that I've got nuthin' but prayers going up for his soul, his family, loved one and the entire hip hop community cause we mos def lost one of the great ones today. Salute!

#RIPPhifeDawg

Tracklisting:
Scenario (Remix)
Hot Sex
Flawless
Electric Relaxation
Award Tour
Check The Rhyme
Buggin Out
Oh My God
The Jam
Stressed Out (Remix)
Melody Adonis
8 Million Stories
Find A Way
Word Play
1nce Again
Lemme Find Out
Jazz (We've Got)
Vibes & Stuff
Butter
Alphabet Soup
D.R.U.G.S.