Running To Labcabincalifornia On The Pharcyde Of Life

by Tia Ja'nae

Once upon a time, the year I turned fifteen, I ran to The Pharcyde of life.

Like most Chicago teenagers, this happy accident happened in part to the video for Runnin’ that aired on Rap City. The lyrics had me. The video was fire. Everything about the verses just hit differently than any of their contemporaries. Then I listened to the album and just was blown away. See, feel me on this – this album is militant, don’t get that twisted. It’s up there with De La Soul’s Stakes Is High for its raw uncompromised truths. But this ain’t a state of hip-hop, state of Black America type of album like that. Labcabincalifornia is about real shit navigating adulthood. The Pharcyde are conscious objectors giving on scene reports about the other side of success once you’ve made something out of yourself.

Nobody was dropping albums like this in 1995, not even the patron saint 2Pac.

So what’s Labcabincalifornia all about? Well, it’s that album that your older brothers give you as an introduction to those tough love speeches to keep you from making all the dumb ass mistakes they made so you can prepare yourself for a world that is coming to trip you up if you get caught slipping. The jazz vibes over the mellow smooth and at times rushed lyrics hits your dome in an explosion of lyrical wordplay that is more refreshing than a reality show and more factual than the news. If memory serves me correctly a lot of people did not like this album, and only really liked Runnin’ for the beat while simultaneously ignoring the lyrics, focusing too much on the reverse slavery thing in the video. So let’s be clear about one thing – this album is so much more than a catchy hook to a political video. Labcabincalifornia is a visceral, raw, emotional, and vulnerable album from a group that is finding themselves, discovering life from a lens they didn’t know or see before because now they have money, fame, and all the trappings of success and maybe, just maybe, they don’t like the attention that it brings.

As a teenager during Labcabincalifornia’s release it hit raw, especially with the uncensored verses about the “ips” that cruise the clubs gold digging with empty pockets and hoe dreams of making a come up off slinging a piece, which was an aspiration made very popular by female rappers at the time, most notably Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown. Ask anyone old enough to get some from that era and if they are honest they will tell you that was definitely a thing with chicks and dudes alike, far before Kanye West made it catchy with Golddigger. Even in high school folks were out there jocking entertainers flagrant as hell and the stories are endless.  No lies were told by The Pharcyde on Bullshit and Groupie Therapy is probably the most honest transparent portrayal of the rapper groupie dynamic ever put on wax, with equal blame spread around on all sides. She Said is a real one about the male side of macking and getting macked out on the prowl. Trust and believe She Said was where every hot blooded American teenager’s mind was at in 1995.

Splattatorium is probably the undiscovered blunt theme interlude of that year.

The standout cuts on the album are of course Runnin’, Hey You, and the most underrated hip hop song of 1995 Somethin’ That Means Somethin’. Now Runnin’ is that joint that still gives life almost thirty years after its release, just as pivotal and thought provoking as Bobby Womack’s Nobody Wants You When You Down And Out but with a more contemporary flair. Between the hard snare syncopated cadence to the hip-hop four on the floor dropping the first bar beat, The Pharcyde spitting hardcore facts on how the people closest to you can flip on a dime in your time of need. They don’t hold no punches letting it be known even for their tightest of comrades if they in a low moment all they have are themselves because they partners got their own problems and ain’t got time for theirs.

The Hustle goes harder on this vibe, with The Pharcyde comparing their lives before the fame with their lives at the present, conflicted on the different realities they are part of making it day to day, which include substance abuse and nymphomania. Somethin’ That Means Somethin’ gives everything that Runnin’ gives and more, taking it to the terrain of hip-hop, giving a state of the union on music business affairs while expounding on being left alone to figure their career out and their personal lives while leaving a legacy. Hey You is the coping mechanism of dealing with the two faced friends with the attitudes waiting in the cut to sabotage, articulated perfectly under The Dramatics’ sample of Hey You (Get Off My Mountain). This energy keeps the pace of Y?, which throws substance abuse slipping and tripping into the mix of dealing with the fake chicks, fake friends, and not handling the business.

The tragedy of Labcabincalifornia is the fact that the group were essentially type casted into the first album so tough that critics completely dismissed, and continue to do so, this album and every one thereafter for the group’s ever changing direction. Die hard fans love and adore this album, and hip-hop heads know the place Labcabincalifornia sits in the pantheon of the genre. Critics be damned – the album is consistent, the beats are tight, the narrative checks out and is solid! And yes, despite I can’t tell you the names of any of the group members without hitting a search engine still to this day, I was and have been on The Pharcyde of things thereafter since 1995. Every teenager needs this album in their repertoire - it speaks to the youth in a message they just might be willing and able to hear.

Give The Pharcyde their flowers for daring to give us a different type of hip-hop album.