After A Tribe Called Quest broke up in 1998, the great Phife Dawg only released one solo album, 2000’s Ventilation: Da LP. Phife died in 2016 while A Tribe Called Quest were working on their great reunion album We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service, and that LP came out a few months after his death. This worked as a great final statement from a rapper who’s not with us anymore, and it also worked as a great tribute from Phife’s old friends, peers, and admirers. But Phife was also working on more solo music at the time, of his death, and his long-promised posthumous album Forever finally arrives today.

As far as the Forever album release goes, this is not a random Tuesday; it’s the sixth anniversary of Phife’s passing. On first listen, Forever sounds less like a patched-together collection of old odds and ends and more like an aging rapper making a calm, wise, relaxed statement of a record. Phife’s charm and personality definitely show through on these tracks, and it’s fun to hear him talking his shit again.

Forever features appearances from tons of rap heavyweights, many of whom have long histories with Phife. The LP features contributions from Busta Rhymes, Redman, Rapsody, De La Soul’s Posdnous and Maseo, Little Brother, Dwele, and Illa J, among others. The album also has Phife and Q-Tip reuniting on “Dear Dilla,” a song addressed to another departed great. We’ve already posted the early tracks “Nutshell Pt. 2,” “French Kiss Trois,” and the title track. Right now, you can stream the whole album below.

Forever is out now on AWAL.