Gotta Post Something That Means Something

The Pharcyde: Y (Be Like That) (Jaydee Remix)
from Drop 12-inch (Delicious Vinyl 1995)

The Pharcyde: She Said (Mike Caren Remix)
from She Said 12-inch (Delicious Vinyl 1996)



The Pharcyde's first album was a subtly misleading venture. The freeform production and songs like Ya Mama provided an air of quirkiness and levity (and not to mention the freeform, anatomically correct roller coaster cover) but that album can be thought of as more like the class clown who avoids getting his ass whipped through self-deprecation and by acting a fool. But because it received more critical acclaim for presenting a side of Los Angeles that wasn't obsessed with gangsterism and with presenting an easily palatable, humorous side of Hip Hop, it is now seen as the high point of their career and a departure from the rest of their discography (with each subsequent album labeled as being more mature and more focused). This is an assessment that I've always had a problem with. Did they become more "mature" with each proceeding album, particularly between Bizarre Ride and Labcabincalifornia? I'd argue no. The content of their message and the way it was delivered may have been more sophisticated when their second album dropped but I'll argue that their first album, despite some of it's puerile songs, was just as mature and just as conscious as anything on their second album. All you have to do is look at the song It's Jiggaboo Time that covers a subject that every "conscious" rapper has touched upon and will continue to examine, all the different way's that an artist sells out; the song ultimately ending in a mocking self-referential indictment that's as "mature" as it is satirical.

The difference between the first and second album isn't in the maturity of their lyrical content, but in the production and a bit in their delivery. More restrained and contemplative, the beats reflect the leap from the satiric nature of Bizarre Ride to a more prosaic form that comes from the burden of label politricking. The Jaydee Remix of Y, with it's new lyrics is one example. The song, more somber in tone, still has the hallmark Pharcyde sound with the sing song chorus and off kilter delivery.

The remix of She Said by Mike Caren (who happens to be Senior Veep of A&R at Atlantic and who signed Apathy of Demigodz fame) is a song that can be thought of as being more mature in content when compared to any of their previous outings, particularly after listening to Fatlip's verse about taking a girl home but not dicking her down, but really it's a song that could have probably fit in with their first album and nobody would have been none the wiser as some of their songs from their first album dealt with the same theme.

Unfortunately the Pharcyde of the first two albums no longer exists and with the exit of Fatlip, and Slimkid Tre, the group was left without their two most dynamic personalities, but credit has to be given as the other two, Romye and Imani still continue to plug away and make some decent, passable music.