A week after A Tribe Called Quest poignantly honored founding member Phife Dawg — who died earlier this year at the age of 45 — on Saturday Night Live with two performances, the late rapper was given another high honor, albeit one a bit more geographical. Per Pitchfork, a street corner in the St. Albans neighborhood of Queens was renamed “Malik ‘Phife Dawg’ Taylor Way” in an unveiling ceremony Saturday afternoon, which was attended by his family and fellow bandmates Q-Tip and Jarobi White. (Precisely, it’s on the corner of Linden Boulevard and 192nd Street.) “I see some of my dudes who I’ve actually logged mad hours with on this corner, in front of this store. It’s a dope thing,” Jarobi said in a speech. “Like people get murals and tributes to them all over the place, but to have a mural on the very block, the very street that we walked every day? Wrote rhymes up and down this block, battle people, have people come from other neighborhoods to battle me and Phife — you know, all kinds of stuff.” Phife, who was a Queens native, now joins the Ramones as a fellow street-name honoree in the borough.
