Released thirty years ago this November, Labcabincalifornia is one of the most enduring and evergreen rap records that we’ve ever heard.
Formed in Los Angeles in the early '90s, The Pharcyde were quartet Imani, Bootie Brown, Slimkid3 (Tre Hardson) and Fatlip. Their 1992 debut LP, Bizarre Ride II, was a critical smash and quickly found the band a cult fan base, in no small part thanks to its irreverent tone which stood them in stark contrast to the rest of the West Coast scene. The playful energy and jazz and funk-heavy sampling (including Roy Ayers Ubiquity, Thelonious Monk, Stanley Cowell, The Meters, Cannonball Adderley, James Brown, Sly Stone, and Donald Byrd) gave the album such an offbeat verve, but Labcabincalifornia (recorded between 1994–1995) was a much more turbulent time for the band and the album marked a deliberate shift toward more introspective themes.
Although more serious and a product of its environment, the album’s tone is generally pretty laid-back and is absolutely a high-water mark for a more serious style of production that helped pave the way for a new alternative sound. Marking his first major production credit behind the desk was a young James Yancey—better known as J Dilla—and Labcabincalifornia in retrospect foreshadows the soul-heavy sound that he would pioneer across his short but seminal career. The samples used across the record - much like in Bizarre Ride II - were for the most part pulled from jazz and soul records, but the way they were weaved into a sun-blasted, hazy, and largely unrecognisable tapestry really is evocative stuff. That said, it was a joy playing Stan Getz and Luiz Bonfá’s Jazz Samba Encore! when it was reissued a while ago in the shop and clocking how many people were mouthing along “Running awaaaaaaaaay.” That one pops.
Although the critical acclaim at the time was somewhat subdued - mostly thrown by the tonal shift from their debut - it has continually found its audience over the years and is widely considered to be a seminal album and a vital document of hip-hop's evolution in the mid-’90s. It is pensive and the quartet's earnest reflections on identity, purpose and the cultures they had grown from are valorous and unlike the majority of their contemporaries. The Spike Jonze-directed video for “Drop” - shot entirely in reverse and reinforcing the group’s creative reputation - was a mainstay of MTV and certainly did the band no harm in reaching an even wider audience too, with the warm and sunny beats masking much of the album’s dissolution.
An innovative and eternally fresh-sounding album, with four bold voices in full flow and still finding space for subtlety and humour as they navigate adulthood. Labcabincalifornia is a perfect time capsule of an album, a chronicle of The Pharcyde’s West Coast.
