Backspin: The Pharcyde — Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde (1992)
Cali surrealists stewarded hip-hop through the funhouse of adolescence. (88/100)
Originally published 8/13/22 on Medium.
Some albums become classics by transcending their moment, others by embodying it.
In 1992, recorded hip-hop turned 13 — the age at which a sonic boom of hormones, adrenaline, and inspiration ushers in the bizarre ride of adolescence. Simultaneously, the third generation of hip-hop fans, who would grow to become arguably the most passionate and devoted to ever embrace the genre, turned roughly the same age.
No album captures that ride, with all its madcap mischief, unrequited loves, and fearless experimentation quite like the Pharcyde’s perfectly timed debut. The four spiritedly imaginative South Central, Los Angeles MCs exploded into the hip-hop zeitgeist as the early ’90s transitionary period was winding down, the genre growing into the man body with which it would soon bully its way to the forefront of popular culture.
Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde wastes little time diving headfirst into the funhouse. The misleadingly tranquil “4 Better or 4 Worse (Intro)” proves the calm before the storm, like the last summer of childhood innocence, before abruptly giving way to the rollicking rollercoaster of “Oh S***”. Over frenetic drums and a heart pounding bassline, Slimkid3, Imani, and Fatlip boisterously recount increasingly absurd sexcapades gone wrong. Like most locker room confessionals, the verses unfold as tall tales rooted in equal parts fantasy, insecurity, and the irrepressible impulse to one up the last guy with ultimately self-effacing humor.
“4 Better or 4 Worse” floats atop a dreamily filtered JB’s sample with a narrative of idealized puppy love that gradually turns dark. While Silmkid3 kicks things of with an idyllic fantasy of a lifelong romance with his first love, “Rhymealinda” (metaphor alert!), Imani evokes disillusionment, portraying a teenage love eventually frayed by the realities of adulthood. In the song’s unnerving final act, Fatlip’s prank call to his unrequited crush quickly moves from awkward to creepy to potentially felonious. Listeners who find the vignette confounding are probably just too far removed to remember those unsightly days of awakening, when the most accessible way of saying “I think I might kinda like you” was psychological torment.
Bizarre Ride lives at the tumultuous intersection of bravado and insecurity that defines pubescence. For every “I’m That Type of N****,” with its chest pounding eruptions of self-affirmational grandiosity (“Douse you with my lyrical liquid for this hip-hop era/So I suggest you fetch an umbrella for my reign of terror”), there’s a self-effacing shame spiral. “On the DL” offers increasingly high stakes deconstructions of ego over a pensive vibraphone loop. While recurring guest Buc Fifty’s early morning masturbation confessional raised the most eyebrows, it’s Imani’s heart pounding tale of petty beef quickly escalated to cold blooded murder that truly drives home the song’s message.
“Officer” spins the tension between police and urban youth on its head. All four members offer varying perspectives on the trepidation felt by young Black men behind the wheel due to the omnipresence of police harassment. Yet, in this scenario, it’s the motorists who are partially responsible for their own predicament, having packed into a borrowed car driven by a license-less Fatlip. SlimKid’s verse offers a coming of age epiphany in real time, as he contemplates the consequences of his rash decision while the cruiser pulls closer:
My heartbeat is racin’ at a pace so fast
I’m wishin’ that the coppers would get off my ass
My tail can’t go to jail, ’cause it’s wack
What would happen to my girl and my record contract
Yo fellas (what?), take off the baseball caps
Word up, I heard that the nerves get tapped
And throw on the glasses and give up the tees
Oh please, don’t pull me over, officer, please!
As fledgling adults are prone to do, the fellas enjoy a spirited regression to the carefree antics of childhood on “Ya Mama”. Essentially a four-and-a-half minute dozens session in which the members mercilessly clown each other’s maternal figures, Bizarre Ride’s lead single is deceptively well structured. Despite the lack of traditional chorus or bridge, the MC’s carefully order their jones around cadence progressions and call-and-response interludes that repeat with perfect symmetry throughout the track.
The Pharcyde are at their most inspired and relatable when addressing affairs of the heart. The album reach’s its zenith with a pair of colorfully imaginative parables of love lost, found, and unreciprocated.
“Passin’ Me By” stands not only as The Pharcyde’s signature song, but one of the signature songs of early ’90s hip-hop. From the first shuffle of the inverted drum loop cribbed from Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced?,” J-Swift’s meticulously constructed sample collage evokes the dizzying dervish of teenaged infatuation. Spirits soar high and crash hard as the fearless foursome hand their hearts to a quartet of enchanting young ladies, only to have them ignominiously broken.
Each MC delivers a distinct story made all the more vivid by the quirkily colorful characters with which its populated. But it’s Fatlip’s gradual escalation from quietly determined bars to plaintive crooning that most fully embodies the song’s emotional rollercoaster.
Now there she goes again, the dopest Ethiopian
And now the world around me begins moving in slow motion when-
Ever she happens to walk by — why does the apple of my eye
Overlook and disregard my feelings no matter how much I try?
Wait, no, I did not really pursue my little princess with persistence
And I was so low-key that she was unaware of my existence
From a distance I desired her, secretly admired her
Wired her a letter to get her
And it went, “My dear, my dear, my dear, you do not know me but I know you
Very well, now let me tell you about the feelings I have for you
When I try or make some sort of attempt, I simp
Damn I wish I wasn’t such a wimp
’Cause then I would let you know that I love you so
And if I was your man, then I would be true
The only lying I would do is in the bed with you”
Then I signed “Sincerely, the one who loves you dearly, PS Love Me Tender”
The letter came back three days later: Return to Sender,
Damn
“Otha Fish,” the album’s only solo offering, finds a more seasoned Slimkid once again navigating the rocky waters of heartbreak. He ultimately consoles himself by looking forward to the possibility offered by the endless array of “fish” he’ll encounter, if he simply keeps swimming. The production by Slimkid and John “L.A. Jay” Barnes, floats with a jazzy surrealism similar to the rest of the record, but with a more measured restraint. The sound underscores the growth conveyed in the rhymes, foreshadowing the thoughtful maturity that marked the group’s evolution on its sophomore treatise, Labcabincalifornia.
Indeed, evidence of the members’ awakening consciousness is sprinkled throughout Bizarre Ride, often through brief interludes. “Jiggaboo Time” playfully calls out the the corporate machinations of the music industry and the acquiescence demanded of artists who “sign a crossed line.” “If I Were President” lets youthful idealism run wild, envisioning an egalitarian world that each generation briefly believes they’ll will into existence.
It’s precisely that naivete that hip-hop’s previous generation largely missed out on as the music came of age amid the ’80s era of crack and Reaganomics. Desperate times took hip-hop from throwing its hands in the air to fighting the power and f***king the police with little space in between to smell the roses.
Bizarre Ride spoke to a generation of ’90s kids more geographically disparate and a step removed from the height of ’80s depravity. They were every bit as entranced by hip-hop’s propulsive beats and relentless rhymes as their cultural forefathers. But perhaps they were a little overwhelmed by the rhetorical intensity and increasingly dense ideology of the conscious rap dominating the East, and not quite of the stomach for the relentless barrage of murderous mayhem unleashed by the West’s gangsta rap explosion.
Yet, the album also owes much of its infectious energy to its clear reverence for pre Golden Era hip-hop. The members play off of each other, chanting in unison like the trailblazing crews of the park jam era. The uptempo playfulness of tracks like “Soul Flower (Remix)” harken back to a time when rocking the party took precedence over rocking the hardest ice grill.
“Return of the B-Boy” brings the ride to a boisterous close with a freewheeling tribute to the foundational elements of hip-hop music and culture. Atop the iconic shaker beat of Doug E. Fresh’s “The Show,” The Pharcyde weave together a free-association tapestry paying homage to foundational hip-hop hits from Newcleus’s “Jam On It” to Rock Master Scott’s “The Roof is On Fire”.
30 Years after Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde’s release, hip-hop is a grown ass man, complete with high blood pressure, lower back pain, and a cynicism that grows increasingly bitter with each child support payment docked from its already modest check.
Yet, it continues to captivate new generations of listeners with the boldness, freedom, and raw humanity that anchor the music and culture. The Pharcyde’s debut sported all three in spades, and as a result, embodies its moment while transcending it.
By the Numbers
Production: 9
Lyrics (how the words are put together): 8
Delivery & Flow: 8.5
Content (Substance): 9
Cohesiveness: 9
Consistency: 9
Originality: 9.5
Listenability: 9.5
Impact/Influence: 8
Longevity: 8.5
Total — 88
Backspin is a look back at the albums that shaped and defined hip-hop. It explores what made them resonate, the impact they had on the culture, and where they fit in today’s ever-expanding hip-hop canon.