The year was 1992, and the rap world was going through some foundation-rattling changes. MC Hammer was about halfway down the wrong side of his 15 minutes of fame. Gangsta rap was enjoying its first taste of mainstream success, and Ol’ Dirty Bastard of the Wu-Tang Clan probably had fewer than 50 arrests to his name. And significantly, a group of four goofballs from Los Angeles released their groundbreaking debut album, “Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde.” It was a truly astounding first effort, bounding with positive energy, deft wordplay and innovative beats.
It is 2001, and the rap world is post-Hammer, post-gangsta and arguably post-Wu Tang. Is there room in the new millennium for a greatest-hits album from a somewhat forgotten rap group? The answer is an emphatic YES. “Cydeways: the best of The Pharcyde” comes as a breath of fresh air to these Jay-Z-weary ears. The Pharcyde always occupied a strange spot in the rap pantheon: Their music was predominantly lighthearted, but definitely not as benignly cheerful as efforts by Vanilla Ice or Young MC, as the weed-toking anthems “Quinton’s On The Way” and “Pack the Pipe” suggest. Nor were The Pharcyde interested in becoming gritty street poets a lá N.W.A. — sunny anthems such as “Drop” and “It’s Jiggaboo Time” were miles away from what Ice Cube was rapping about at the time.
Until last year’s excellent “Plain Rap” (sadly not represented on this compilation), The Pharcyde had only released one album after “Bizarre” — the decidedly darker “LabCabinCalifornia.”
Where does this leave “Cydeways?” Well, it’s heavy on cuts from the first album (a whopping nine show up here); it contains a sprinkling of tracks from the second (five to be exact); and of course it includes that essential element of compilation albums, a previously unreleased track (the raunchy “Panty Raid”). Drawing material from only two sources that are so different lends “Cydeways” a somewhat schizophrenic feel, especially since the tracks are in chronological order.
However, the sequence could be a good thing — the optimistic rhymes from the first album would have sounded pretty strange if they had been mixed with the grittier subjects of the songs from the second.
Not surprisingly, it is somewhat hard to narrow down the highlights of this album — being of the greatest hits variety, the peaks are many and the valleys are few. If I had to pick out some true gems, though, I would start with the wonderfully titled “Oh Shit.” This song is just awesome. Slim Kid, Booty Brown, Fat Lip and Imani each take turns describing in delicious detail the perils of 1) having sex on the 50-yard line of a football field, 2) having sex with your best friend’s mom and 3) having sex with a transvestite. You also can’t go wrong with the aforementioned “Pack the Pipe” — a comic ode to the joys of smoking weed that culminates in a “charming” description of getting a 4-year-old child high. And you would be hard-pressed not to like the uplifting “Otha Fish,” the simple tale of a guy that gets dumped and decides to move on.
So there you go. “Cydeways” isn’t perfect (where the hell is their terrific debut single, “Soul Flower”?), but it is a stellar representation of four guys that weren’t afraid to go against the current trends of hip-hop in their day. Oh yeah, the beats are smokin’, too.
