The Pharcyde : Pork (from Passin' Me By 12")

The Pharcyde : Pork (Delicious Vinyl, 1993)

Despite a small catalogue The Pharcyde (in their original line-up) was one of the most creative groups of their time. In 1990 Imani, Tre and Romye were three kids known in the LA club scene as 242, they were dancing in music videos and TV shows like In Living Color. Soon they met Fatlip and J-Sw!ft and together they recorded a demo under the name Pharcyde that got them a deal with Delicious Vinyl. The rumor was that a shady manager spent most of their advance before they complete the recording of Bizarre Ride. Broke and homeless they had to stay at their A&R crib for a while until they could rent their own place, the Pharcyde Manor, a two story, four bedroom wood frame house in South Central, known for the wild parties.

The first album was an instant classic among rap fans and they soon attract fans from the rock audience. J-Sw!ft left the group before the first album dropped, allegedly all members were bringing samples and they didn't want him to be the only one getting props for the production. The liner notes on the album reads "Produced by J-Sw!ft. Co-produced by The Pharcyde", but I don't think too many people read past the first line. The second album was disappointing for most of their original fans, but the label always tried hard to promote the group, releasing many 12", shooting many videos, including the best music video ever, they even had a video for the Jiggaboo Time skit ! Delicious Vinyl also came with a remix budget for most of the 12" hiring stars like Kenny Dope or Beatminerz or lesser known producers like Jay Dee or The Angel.

Anyway, Pork was the second track the group did without J-Sw!ft (the first was Otha Fish on Bizarre Ride) and while it sound a bit harder than the earlier material it still has that great freestyle feel with five different choruses that seem unfinished (unless someone has an explanation for the bars left blank in between scratches here and there). Pork and most of their b-side exclusive was later repackaged and rereleased in the Remix And Rarity compilation ironically called Sold My Soul.

T-Love : Butcher's Hook (from Definition Of A Yee-Yee 12")

T-Love : Butcher's Hook (Brawl/Pickininny, 2007)

You gotta thank the recession for giving me finally giving me time to update this blog, or should I say resurrect it...

So why not start again with some record I know quite well, since I put it out. I know noboby will complain for copyright infringement here.

This 12" came out two years ago as the first single from the Long Way Up [Basement Tapes] album. We pressed up 1000 copies of the single and it's been sold out for a while. The main track Definition of a Yee-Yee is on the album (limited to 500 copies, all vintage material, with full color artwork at a regular price, email me for info/orders), but the track Butcher's Cut is exclusive to the 12". Actually the song was already out before but only on the japanese version of T-Love's first CD, Long Way Back, but as far as I'm concern if a track is not available on vinyl it might as well not exist. This was recorded when she was living in London and it's produced by Herbaliser, hence the british slang in the last verse.

I also want to give props to my man Xcuz for the artwork, even though the final product didn't end up being exactly how we wanted, I think he did a great job in a very short time.