Project Reviews: “Bizzare Ride II the Pharcyde”

The year is ’92. The likes of the Beastie Boys, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Eric B. & Rakim, and Common are each putting forth projects that were the result of countless studio hours. As late-November rolls around, a group by the name of The Pharcyde will slip a debut album into the mix by the way of the recording label, Delicious Vinyl. The name? Bizzarre Ride II the Pharcyde. While singles from the project had dabbled around rap roundtables throughout the early portion of the year, Bizarre Ride was the industry’s first taste of a collective Pharcyde album. As Gangsta rap constricted its hold among the West Coast at the time of its drop, the group out of LA offered a unique and lighter tone to the West’s then-current soundboard. Loaded with eventual-gold track “Passin’ Me By”, “4 Better or 4 Worse”, and “Otha Fish”, the likes of Slimkid3, Imani, Bootie Brown, and Fatlip worked effortlessly contrasting each other’s flow and working off each other’s rhymes. It was truly natural talent, and the work of J-Swift under production bridged the project together into one of the decade’s delicacies. Choosing from a variety of topics, The Pharcyde combined humor, social justice, and neighborhood girl talk into a brilliant balance that has left its imprints among the structure of rap today. As previously mentioned, “Passin’ Me By” remains an all-time classic track among rap circles of today. The track features smooth vocals from each of the crew’s talents, while contrasting with respectable bars that stood among the overall golden-age landscape of hip-hop at the time – a dynamic and often overlooked classic indeed. Well, marking nearly a quarter-century after its inception, it serves all’s interest to take a look at this straight groovy masterpiece. Let us know where this album stands among other west coast projects, and for more project reviews, analysis and hot takes – keep it here.