Here are all of Phife Dawg’s sports references – Sporting News

Phife Dawg died on Wednesday. It was horrible news to wake up to for a lot of people; A Tribe Called Quest isn’t just one of the most important acts in the history of hip-hop — they were one of the best. Now, that’s past tense.

The hope was always that the three of them would eventually figure stuff out enough to record more, and that Phife would be healthy enough to be a part of it. The closest anyone got was the 2011 documentary “Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest,” some festival dates and a Jimmy Fallon appearance. Now, Phife, or Malik Taylor, is gone at 45. He was diagnosed with diabetes before the release of Tribe’s second album, and it followed him for the rest of his life.

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Without getting too far into it — because there are better places for that — part of what made Tribe work so well was the counterbalance Q-Tip and Phife managed to strike. Q-Tip was spacier, more abstract and maybe a little less relatable. That was part of what made him great. Phife, though … we’re going to take the leap and say more people related to him.

Example A: He was a huge sports fan. Phife referenced athletes and teams and games a ton, and he was known for it; a great example came in February, when Taylor Rooks of the Big Ten Network tweeted this:

What are your favorite rap lyrics with sports references? This is tough. Too many to choose from.

— Taylor Rooks (@TaylorRooks) March 1, 2016

Check the responses; they’re flooded with Phife lyrics.

So, it made sense for Sporting News’ Nick Birdsong and I to go back through the Tribe discography on Wednesday morning — not that we needed an excuse — and pull out Phife’s sports references. We counted 27, and this is all of them. There are annotations, but only where we thought it’d be necessary. The last one is perfect.

The Low End Theory

1. Loungin’ with the Tipster, Coolin’ with Sha/Scopin’ out the honeys — they know who they are/I was the b-ball-playin, fly-rhyme-sayin’/Fly-girl-gettin’ but never was I sweatin’/Cause when it came to honeys I would go on a stroll/ Until I met my match, her name was Flo — “Butter”

2. I’m prompt with my business and I do things on the double/Yo, I’m out like Buster Douglas, I say peace to MC Trouble — “Vibes and Stuff”
— “TLE” was released in 1991, the year after Buster Douglas’ brief run as heavyweight champ. Douglas knocked out Mike Tyson, and Evander Holyfield knocked out Douglas.

3-5. Runnin’ mad games as if your name was Scott Skiles/Or better yet Magic or even Karl Malone — “The Infamous Date Rape”

6. Beeper’s goin off like Don Trump gets checks/Keep my bases loaded like the New York Mets — “Skypager”

7-8. Ayo Bo knows this (what?) and Bo knows that (what?)/But Bo don’t know jack, cause Bo can’t rap … Brothers front, they say the Tribe can’t flow/But we’ve been known to do the impossible like Broadway Joe, so… — “Scenario”
— “Bo Knows” was a Nike campaign starring Bo Jackson. “Broadway Joe” is a reference to Joe Namath, who guaranteed a Jets victory in Super Bowl III.

Midnight Marauders

9-11. Hip-hop scholars since being knee-high to a duck/The height of Muggsy Bogues, complexion of a hockey puck … Dont get me wrong, violence is not our forte/I just like to rhyme, kick the lyric skills like Pele — “Steve Biko (Stir it Up)”
—  Phife, at 5’3, was the same height as the notoriously short then-Hornets guard Muggsy Bogues. He was also dark-skinned, though not quite hockey-puck-dark.

12. Comin’ with more hits than the Braves and the Yankees/Livin’ mad phat like an oversized Bamb-bi. — “Award Tour”

13-14. I got the tickets to the Knicks, and she cold stood me up … With all these trials and tribulations, yo, I’ve been effected/And to top it off, Starks got ejected — “8 Million Stories”
— Insult to injury. John Starks was one of the best players on the early-90s Knicks.

15 You got BBD all your bedroom wall/But I’m above the rim and this is how I ball — “Electric Relaxation”

16. I skate on your crew/like Mario Lemieux — “Keep it Rollin”

17. Your styles are incomplete, same as Vinny Testaverde — “The Chase Pt. II”
— Ironically, five years after Midnight Marauders, Testaverde had turned into a pretty good quarterback and signed with the Jets. 

18. Today’s a hip-hop draft. Will I be top-seeded? …. I’m Jordan with the mic, huh, wanna gamble — “Lyrics to Go”
— Jordan is a legendary gambler, and there’s always been a rumor that fact made his first retirement was closer to a forced break.

Beats, Rhyme and Life

19. I’m wilder then the cats from Arizona/Villanova, Kentucky/Who’s the next MC stepping up to try and bust me/ Bring him here and boy, will I ever let him have it” — “Phony Rappers”

20. Shaheed Muhammad’s on the Gemini mixer/Peace to Derrick Coleman, Mad Max and the Sixers — “Mind Power”
— Derrick Coleman and Vernon Maxwell were both on the 76ers in 1995-96.

21. Now that I got that out my system/Watch me stab up the track as if my name was O.J. Simpson — “The Hop”

22-23. Kid, you know my flava, tear this whole jam apart/F— around and have your heart, like Jordan had Starks‘/ While you playin hokey pokey, there’s no time to be dokey/Cuz I come out to play every night like Charles Oakley … My style is, everyday all day, similar to water/Crushin MCs as if my name was Sargent Slaughter — “Baby Phife’s Return”
— Phife was a Knicks fan, and that wasn’t going to stop him from admitting that Jordan owned them.

The Love Movement

24. This girl from my past/had ridiculous ass/She attended UMass, and she passed every class/Walked down the hall with her stuffed-up sass/Told the basketball players she liked how they passed — “Hot 4 U”
 
25. Rub your back/Run you fingers on the logo of my baseball hat. — “Against the World”
 
26-27. Rude bwoy, official comin’ with the ill grammar/Comin’ back on kids like Joey Montana … Money on my mind, so never mind a trick/New York is the town and the team is the Knicks — “One Two S***”