US hip-hop legends The Pharcyde talk their 25 years in music ahead of Hong Kong debut
Imani, one of the two members remaining from the original line-up, on how the group took a different route into rap, on not fitting into the East/West rivalry, and on working with the late legend J Dilla
A quarter of a century after the album that first made their name, legendary hip-hop pioneers The Pharcyde’s performance at Fly on April 14 will be their first in Hong Kong – but according to band member Imani, aka Emandu Wilcox, their history in Asia stretches back even further than their history as a band.
The Pharcyde, from South Central Los Angeles, are best known for their classic albums Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde (1992) and Labcabincalifornia (1995), and in particular their hit single Passin’ Me By (1993), a tragicomic lament about past romantic failures. The outfit, originally consisting of rappers Imani, Bootie Brown, Fatlip and Slimkid3/Tre Hardson, plus producer J-Swift – only the first two remain – are famed for their playful, humorous rhymes and funk-spiked, dance floor friendly production.
Both their lyrical phrasing and their bouncy music, says Imani, owe a lot to their pre-Pharcyde lives as professional dancers, who earned their living on stage, in music videos and even on TV comedy show In Living Color – and it was in that role that they first visited Japan in 1990, as backup dancers at a series of house music shows.
“We were really wet behind the ears,” says Imani. “We were just paying our dues; we weren’t really thinking about rapping. It was like being at university. The rapping came about because we were dancing so much, and it afforded us a lot of opportunities, and we thought we could add something to the music we were hearing.
“We try to explain this to people: as dancers, how we interpret music will be different from someone who sits at their kitchen table writing raps.”
