A Tribe Called Quest announced Sunday that its concert at Panorama Festival would be its last “ever” in New York City.
Q-Tip made the announcement to the crowd mid-set, stopping the music and giving a tribute to Phife Dawg, the Tribe Called Quest member who died of complications from diabetes last year.
Q-Tip announced that Phife Dawg’s parents were in the audience and then led the crowd in a chant thanking Phife Dawg.
An image of the deceased rapper with his hands in prayer against a backdrop of the sky was shown during the tribute and at numerous times throughout the show.
Q-Tip ended the tribute by playing Phife Dawg’s verse, without music, from the song “Butter” off the 1991 album “The Low-End Theory.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbaxyC4-b4o
The New York hip-hop group played a wide-ranging set that pulled from 2016's "We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service" as well as fan favorites such as "Bonita Applebum."
Throughout the set, DJ Ali Shaheed Muhammad let Phife Dawg's verses and rhymes play, while the video screen focused on an empty microphone at the center of the stage. Q-Tip and Tribe member Jarobi White often played off the microphone, trading verses with their absent member.
Case in point:
http://instagr.am/p/BXMjaBOh0lB
Phife Dawg had health issues for years, Rolling Stone reported last year. He received a kidney transplant in 2008 amid a long battle with Type 1 diabetes.
Toward the end of the set, Q-Tip thanked the crowd for supporting the group since its inception in the 1980s. Q-Tip and Phife Dawg were childhood friends who originally performed as solo acts in the early '80s before forming Tribe with Muhammad and White.
Phife Dawg appeared on all of Tribe's albums, serving as a vocal counterpoint to Q-Tip.
Here's another one of the Phife images the group played on the screens:
http://instagr.am/p/BXMiN79B8wD
And a clip from "Bonita Applebum" for good measure:
http://instagr.am/p/BXMgL7JDwR7
Though the group broke up after 1998's "The Love Movement," it has occasionally reunited throughout years. Following the release of 2016's "We Got It From Here... " the group announced that it would perform a final world tour in 2017.
The group, which remains one of the most important acts in hip-hop history, is set to play at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado and at Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco next month.