Malik Izaak Taylor (November 20, 1970 – March 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 White). He was also known as the "Five-Foot Assassin" and "the Five-Footer", because he stood at 5 feet 3 inches (1.60 m).
Phife Dawg was born Malik Izaak Taylor on November 20, 1970, in Queens, New York City, the son of Trinidadian immigrant parents Cheryl Boyce-Taylor, a poet, and Walt Taylor. Born prematurely, his twin brother Mikal died shortly after birth. His mother settled in the St. Albans neighborhood of Queens, where Phife Dawg was raised, when she was 13 years old. He was a cousin of writer Zinzi Clemmons.
He first met his friend Q-Tip at the age of two, and at nine years old, Phife Dawg suggested that they should rap, after hearing "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang for the first time. He attended Pine Forge Academy, a Seventh-day Adventist boarding school near Philadelphia, for his freshman year of high school, later transferring to Springfield Gardens High School in Queens.

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