The Pharcyde - Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde - 1992 - Delicious Vinyl
To understand just how unique and impressive The Pharcyde's debut was, you have to go back to 1992 and realize that these guys were from the West Coast. Nothing in their environment sounded like they did. Instead they looked to the likes of the Native Tongue collective and its embracing of jazz samples, but they also looked to comedy as inspiration. Which is not to say that this is a silly album, but it's a fun one that understands the importance of timing (to both jazz and comedy) and had no trouble straddling the line between sincerity and goofing around. The record is almost entirely produced by J-Swift who did an excellent job not just with sampling, but with also crafting the jazzy piano-n-drums interludes that would give the album some solid thematic glue. There's certainly some fun (and funny) stuff here - single "Ya Mama" being the obvious point of reference (key lyric: "Ya mama got a pegleg with a kickstand"), or "4 Better Or 4 Worse" which treats Hip Hop itself (aka, Rhymalinda) as a woman to court and eventually devolves into a disturbing obscene phone call to her. But even when it's not straight silly, it's almost always fun. Take the uplifting "Soulflower" or the awesome 80's throwback "Return Of The B-Boy" for examples. And yet the group can also hit on a more serious side, whether that's fear of being pulled over for no reason on "Officer," lamenting an unrequited love on perhaps their best remembered single "Passin' Me By," or talking about the skeletons in our closets on "On The DL." This is a seriously brilliant record that seemingly came out of nowhere. And much like the cover and title indicate, it is indeed a bizarre ride, but also an exciting and fun one. Highly recommended.