Tell your mother, tell your father,?send a telegram because the hip-hop community just lost a legend.

Phife Dawg, one of the founding members of the pioneering?group, A Tribe Called Quest, reportedly passed away Wednesday at age 45.?The deft rapper?founded the alternative collective in 1985 alongside?Q-Tip,?Jarobi White and?Ali Shaheed Muhammad. Phife swiftly became known?by his?high-pitched voice, braggadocious rhymes and?diminutive stature, which also earned him the nickname, The Five Foot Assassin.

In commemoration of the Five Footer's?legacy, we look back on five musicians influenced by his seminal group.

1. Kanye West

"(A Tribe Called Quest's) one of my biggest inspirations," the Pablo artist said during a November 2013 appearance on SiriusXM's? Sway In The Morning. " Midnight Marauders , Electric Relaxation , Low End Theory ? a lot of the melodies and the type of chords they would sample… was what I was going for when I did The College Dropout . When I felt like I was at my highest level was when I was closest to a Tribe  record. So, a record like Heard ‘Em Say was an accomplishment for me ? to even have something that was close to what they did."

2. Pharrell

"(Phife) is the sporty guy that appealed to the street, the corner, the guy on the block," the hit producer?said in a deleted scene from? Beats, Rhymes & Life , a?2011 documentary on the Tribe.?"For me, A Tribe Called Quest is cerebral.?It's priceless. It's music theory for anybody that wants to be a producer. Go study that."

3. OutKast's?Andre 3000?

"When it comes to rap, I would say (A Tribe Called Quest), Hiero , and Das EFX ," the eclectic musician told NPR Microphone Check during a September 2014 interview . "People don’t mention them a lot ? but to me it was about who had the most interesting things, interesting flows."

4. The Roots' Questlove

"Tribe was socially conscious without being too self-conscious about it… and the samples dug into the most amazing corners of '70s music," the?drummer?wrote in?an open letter published on  Billboard  in November 2015 . "They made your parents’ record collection relevant again... In 1990, I was a budding hip-hop artist, but hearing ( People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm ) made everything bloom."

"They helped name me," he continued in a reference to his stage name, which he changed from?B.R.O. the R.? (pronounced Brother Question) to Questlove. "Now?I name them for what they were, are and always will be: one of the brightest constellations in hip-hop’s sky."

5. Pusha T?

"(A Tribe Called Quest) opened up the colors of hip-hop to me," the rapper told NPR Music back in October 2013 . "I was very one-track minded, with hip-hop. Very. I'm?G Rap, I'm? Rakim , you know??I could only see it one way. Tribe just opened up the colors and let me know like, 'Wait a minute, man. This is fresh.'?You know what I'm saying? It let me know that, like, I didn't have to listen to it in just that capacity, just a street capacity. It was still fly. It was the first, like ? man, I remember the Polo Hi Tech jackets. Like, come on, man. It was so many things to me. Tribe was so many things to me. And it really opened up, like, the horizons of hip-hop to me."