Last night, the crowd at the U.K.’s Bestival bore witness to an historic performance by hip hop royalty A Tribe Called Quest: Their “last show ever.” Since the sudden passing of founding MC Phife Dawg last year and the subsequent release of the appropriately reverent LP we got it from here…, the seminal 90’s crew has been open about their intentions to close the book on Tribe.
According to NME, during their headlining festival set last night, MC Q-Tip confirmed the news, announcing to the crowd that this would, indeed, be their last show. Stopping during “Whateva Will Be” roughly halfway into their set, Q-Tip spoke about the end of the road.“A Tribe Called Quest, we suffered a blow,” he told the crowd, “We lost our boy Phife Dawg. This is gonna be our last show as A Tribe Called Quest, ever.” He then quoted lines from Phife Dawg’s verse on the track: ‘Say am I ‘posed to be dead or doin’ life in prison?/Just another dummy caught up in the system/Unruly hooligan who belongs in Spofford/Verse getting that degree at Stanford or Harvard.’
Check out some clips from the set via Instagram below:
Since Phife’s death, the remaining members have been touring throughout the world for their last go-around, but have been facing various problems as of late that make this announcement less surprising than it may appear. This summer, they were forced to cancel tour dates dates due to a shoulder injury to Q-Tip and Cancelled, Rescheduled, Then Re-Cancelled their scheduled headlining set at Outside Lands Music Festival due to a “wave of grief” for Phife Dawg.
While the era of A Tribe Called Quest may be over, we know the creative minds of Q-Tip, Al Saheed Muhammad, and Jarobi White won’t stay dormant for long. And to Phife–Rest in peace, Dawg.
[h/t – Pitchfork]
[Cover photo via Instagram user @ryandfenton]