The Pharcyde, Labcabincalifornia
Featured Album
The underrated follow-up to a classic rap debut.
The Pharcyde's 1992 debut, Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde, was a revelation, balancing sunny moments like the sappy “Soul Flower,” the slapstick “Oh Shit” and “Ya Mama” and the wistful “Passin'Me By” with the dark “4 Better or 4 Worse” and the caustic “It's Jigaboo Time.” Bizarre Ride stoked many imaginations, but the moment for a breezy, carefree rap outfit, even one hailing from South Central Los Angeles, would be brief. Later that year Dr. Dre released The Chronic, and soon Nas, Wu-Tang Clan and the Notorious B.I.G. would recapture the flag for a grimmer, tougher New York.
By the time of the Pharcyde's second album, 1995's underrated Labcabincalifornia, the quartet had less time for play. They had replaced J-Swift, the gifted young producer of Bizarre Ride — last seen chronicling his drug addiction in the shocking doc 1 More Hit — with Detroit's Jay Dee (later known as J. Dilla). The standout single “Runnin'” — built on Dilla's genius looping of a Stan Getz record — contained sentiments that wouldn't have been out of place on Bizarre Ride: fear, loathing, bruised manhood. “My pappy never taught me how to knock a n—a out,” a grizzled Fatlip raps, as the song's bullies goad him into a fight. Elsewhere, songs like the seemingly laid-back “Bullshit” and the frustrated “Somethin'That Means Somethin'” suggested the tricky, trying passage of teens into young adulthood. It was an album rich with pathos and sadness. As they observed on “Devil Music,” “Every time I step to the microphone, I put my soul on two-inch reels that I don't even own.”
