Interview: Phife Dawg For Okayplayer.com

It's been a hot minute since my favorite MC out of ATCQ dropped us a proverbial and literal line, but now thanks to Okayplayer.com we're finally getting a glimpse into what Phife's been up to and actually, what he's beaten to be here.

Answering questions about his former (thankfully) dire health situation, The new Tribe Documentary being produced by Michael Rapaport, the possibility of a new ATCQ album Phife, new media and clothing ventures and his coaching ambitions, Phife Diggy gives us the skinny on his latest moves. Q&A conducted by Sidik Fofana.

-BIG D O

OKP: When is Songs in the Key of Phife coming out?

Phife: I’m not sure because I been out of the game for at least eight, nine years now. I wanted to record the whole album and then go shop it. I wanna go in there with at least five full songs and maybe five snippets. I’m still in the process of recording right now. I got like at least forty, fifty songs but now I just want to pick the top fifteen and throw in three bonus cuts. In a perfect world like Keri Hilson would say, I wouldn’t mind it coming out sometime between August and November.

OKP: Who’s doing the production for the most part?

Phife: Well I have my production company. It’s called Riddim Kids. It’s myself, it’s DJ Rasta Roots and it’s my man Stat Box. He’s about to be 22 tomorrow. He’s from out here in San Jose, California, and he’s a beast on the beats. I’m not just talking Hip-Hop. I’m talking alternative. He can do a beat for Lady Ga-Ga, a beat for Pink, and then come back and bless Ghostface and myself with a track. He’s well rounded, he’s young, he’s hungry, and I’m letting him get his grind on so he can learn his business. So he did about six, seven tracks. My man in Toronto, he did about six tracks. I did about three. I got a track from this kid named Oh No, banging track. Ali Shaheed gave me one and my man Illmind gave me one. So far we doing it big.

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