''Forever'' is the posthumous second studio album by American rapper

Phife Dawg Malik Izaak Taylor (November 20, 1970March 22, 2016), known professionally as Phife Dawg (or simply Phife), was an American rapper and a member of the group A Tribe Called Quest with Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad (and for a short time Jarobi W ...

. It was released on March 22, 2022, the sixth anniversary of his death, by Smokin' Needles Records and

AWAL AWAL (an initialism of Artists Without a Label) is a British music distribution company owned by Sony Music Entertainment. The company serves as an alternative to the traditional music label deal, offering deal structures to artists and independ ...

. It features

guest appearance In show business, a guest appearance is the participation of an outsider performer (such as a musician or actor) in an event such as a music record or concert, show, etc., when the performer does not belong to the regular band, cast, or other p ...

s by his bandmate Q-Tip,

Busta Rhymes Trevor George Smith Jr. (born May 20, 1972), known professionally as Busta Rhymes, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer and actor. Chuck D of Public Enemy gave him the moniker Busta Rhymes, after NFL and CFL wide receiver ...

Maseo Vincent Lamont Mason Jr. (born March 24, 1970) is an American rapper, producer and DJ who is one third of the hip hop group De La Soul. Mason is also known as Maseo, P.A. Pasemaster Mase and Plug Three. Early life Mason graduated from Amit ...

and

Posdnuos Kelvin Mercer (born August 17, 1969), also known by his stage name Posdnuos and occasionally Pos, is an American rapper and producer from East Massapequa, New York best known for his work as one-third of the hip hop trio De La Soul. Through ...

De La Soul De La Soul () is an American hip hop trio formed in 1988 in the Amityville area of Long Island, New York. They are best known for their eclectic sampling, quirky lyrics, and their contributions to the evolution of the jazz rap and alternative ...

Dwele Andwele Gardner (born February 14, 1978), better known by his stage name Dwele, is an American R&B singer, rapper, songwriter and record producer from Detroit, Michigan. Biography Gardner was raised on the west side of Detroit in a musical fam ...

Angela Winbush Angela Lisa Winbush (born January 18, 1955) is an American R&B/soul singer-songwriter, musician and record producer who rose to fame first in the 1980s R&B duo René & Angela, also scoring hits as a solo artist. To date, Winbush has sold over ...

, Redman,

Illa J John Derek Yancey (born October 13, 1986), better known by his stage name Illa J, is an American rapper, singer, producer and songwriter. from Detroit, Michigan who has released two albums on Delicious Vinyl Records. He is the younger brother ...

, and Little Brother, among others. The album was mostly complete at the time of Phife Dawg's death, and was later completed by his business partner and collaborator, DJ Rasta Root. ''Forever'' was met with generally positive reviews. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 77, based on seven reviews.

Background

Before his death on March 22, 2016, Phife Dawg had spent roughly a decade recording tracks for his second album, originally titled ''Songs in the Key of Phife: Volume 1 (Cheryl's Big Son)''. According to DJ Rasta Root, two-thirds of the album was recorded before he stepped in to complete it. For the final third of the album, he used "a lot of blueprints and clues" that Phife Dawg had left behind, in the form of rap notebooks that detailed producers, featured guests, and liner notes that he wanted for the album. DJ Rasta Root noted, "Down to the mix engineer ob Power the photographers, everybody involved had some connection with Phife." His bandmate

Ali Shaheed Muhammad Ali Shaheed Muhammad (born August 11, 1970) is an American hip hop DJ, record producer, and rapper, best known as a member of A Tribe Called Quest. With Q-Tip and Phife Dawg (and sometimes Jarobi White), the group released five studio albums ...

mixed two tracks, "Nutshell Pt. 2" and "French Kiss Trois".

Promotion

''Forever'' was promoted with three singles, "Nutshell Pt. 2", "French Kiss Trois", and the title track "Forever". Music videos were released for "Nutshell Pt. 2" on March 22, 2021, "French Kiss Trois" on September 3, 2021, and "Forever" on March 31, 2022.

Track listing

Credits are adapted from

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. Sample credits * "2 Live Forever" contains a sample of "On Love", performed by

David T. Walker David T. Walker (born June 25, 1941) is an American guitarist, born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In addition to numerous session musician duties since the early 1970s, Walker has issued fifteen albums in his own name. Career David T. Walker was born to ...

. * "Forever" contains samples of "

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", performed by

Wu-Tang Clan Wu-Tang Clan is an American hip hop group formed in Staten Island, New York City, in 1992. Its original members include RZA, GZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God, and Masta Killa. Close affili ...

and "

Ms. Jackson "Ms. Jackson" is a song by American alternative hip hop duo Outkast, consisting of André 3000 and Big Boi. It was released on October 24, 2000, as the second single from Outkast's fourth album, ''Stankonia''. It topped the US ''Billboard (magaz ...

", performed by Outkast.

References

{{A Tribe Called Quest 2022 albums AWAL albums Albums produced by 9th Wonder Albums produced by Angela Winbush Albums produced by J Dilla Albums produced by Khrysis Albums produced by Nottz Albums published posthumously Phife Dawg albums