A fitting tribute for your early morning commute. Traffic reporter Mark Arum paid Phife Dawg, one of music’s greatest icons, some proper respect in an unexpected way on Wednesday, March 23 — he integrated some of the Tribe Called Quest founder’s most famous lyrics into his traffic report.
In addition to dropping the lines, he also perfectly executed a back-and-forth with anchor Fred Blankenship.
“You on point, Mark?” Blankenship asks during one segment, riffing off A Tribe Called Quest’s hit “Check the Rhime.”
“Oh, we’re on point, Mark,” Arum shoots back.
Other great lines that Arum fired off included:
— “Are things ludicrously speedy or infectious with the slo mo?” — asking reporter Mark McKay how the traffic was looking that morning. (The answer: “infection with the slo mo.”)
— “Mark McKay, do that, do that, do, do, that, that, that” — quoting “Award Tour”
— “Tell your mother, tell your father, send a telegram” — quoting “Check the Rhime”
Arum posted about how upset he was by the news of Phife’s death on Facebook earlier in the day, but by the time he went in to work, it was clear he let the shock turn into flow.
“I am stunned. And shook,” he wrote. “Most times I have to do a mic check I quote my man Phife: ‘Microphone Check, 1, 2, what is this? The 5-foot assassin with the roughneck business!’”
Phife passed away at the age of 45 on Tuesday, March 22, Rolling Stone confirmed early Wednesday morning. He had been suffering from type 1 diabetes and underwent a kidney transplant in 2008.
