Tell your mother, tell your father, send an e-telegram: rap fans have started up a petition to honour the late Phife Dawg by renaming a New York City street after his group, A Tribe Called Quest.
A Change.org petition is currently rallying behind the cause, which suggests co-naming the stretch of Queens' Linden Boulevard between 192 Street and 193 Street to "A Tribe Called Quest Boulevard."
Beyond the group having grown up in the area, the street was referenced in key Tribe track "Check the Rhime," with both Q-Tip and Phife starting off verses with the line "Back in the days on the Boulevard of Linden / We used to kick routines and the presences was fittin'."
So far, more than 3,400 people have signed the online petition. If it reaches its goal of 5,000 signees, the proposed name change will go before New York Council member I. Deneek Miller and speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who will make the final decision.
You can learn more about the petition and sign it here.
Posthumous, hip-hop-related street name changes have been proposed in New York before. A bid to turn a Lower East Side street corner into "Beastie Boys Square," in honour of the rap trio's Adam "MCA" Yauch, was denied in 2014, while a similar proposal to name a Brooklyn street corner "Christopher Wallace Way," after the late Notorious B.I.G., had also been rejected.
As previously reported, Malik "Phife Dawg" Isaac Taylor died last week following complications from a long battle with diabetes. He was 45 years old.
A Change.org petition is currently rallying behind the cause, which suggests co-naming the stretch of Queens' Linden Boulevard between 192 Street and 193 Street to "A Tribe Called Quest Boulevard."
Beyond the group having grown up in the area, the street was referenced in key Tribe track "Check the Rhime," with both Q-Tip and Phife starting off verses with the line "Back in the days on the Boulevard of Linden / We used to kick routines and the presences was fittin'."
So far, more than 3,400 people have signed the online petition. If it reaches its goal of 5,000 signees, the proposed name change will go before New York Council member I. Deneek Miller and speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who will make the final decision.
You can learn more about the petition and sign it here.
Posthumous, hip-hop-related street name changes have been proposed in New York before. A bid to turn a Lower East Side street corner into "Beastie Boys Square," in honour of the rap trio's Adam "MCA" Yauch, was denied in 2014, while a similar proposal to name a Brooklyn street corner "Christopher Wallace Way," after the late Notorious B.I.G., had also been rejected.
As previously reported, Malik "Phife Dawg" Isaac Taylor died last week following complications from a long battle with diabetes. He was 45 years old.