The Pharcyde
Biography
The Pharcyde (pronounced "far side") is an American alternative hip-hop group, formed in 1989, from South Central Los Angeles. The original four members of the group are Imani (Emandu Wilcox), Slimkid3 (Trevant Hardson), Bootie Brown (Romye Robinson), and Fatlip (Derrick Stewart). DJ Mark Luv was the groups first disc jockey (DJ), followed by producer J-Swift and then J Dilla.
The group is perhaps best known for the hit singles "Drop", "Passin Me By" and "Runnin", as well as their first album, Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde. Pharcyde continues to tour and record, both collaboratively and in solo projects—the most recent being Hardsons collaborative EP with the award-winning DJ Nu-Mark (of Jurassic 5) released in 2014 on Delicious Vinyl.
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Pharcyde group members Slimkid3, Bootie Brown, and Imani met as dancers in the late 1980s and dancing was their main ambition as late as 1990. Around this time, Imani and Slimkid3 were in a group called "As Is" and later a group called the "Play Brothers", whilst Bootie Brown was a backup dancer for Fatlip (Fatlip being the last member to join the group). Bootie Brown recalls that their earlier dancing careers influenced their rapping – "sometimes the way I rap is almost like the way I used to dance". The group met Reggie Andrews, a local high-school music teacher who worked with the Dazz Band and Rick James, and who was a major musical influence on their debut album. The group also met producer J-Swift around this time, as he was Reggie Andrewss "star pupil" according to the book Check the Technique.
Though Humboldt Beginnings is to date the last Pharcyde album, its members have since been keeping busy with various contributions and projects. A compilation of The Pharcyde was released in 2005, titled Sold My Soul: The Remix and Rarity Collection, featuring a number of remixes and rare songs. Former member Fatlip released his solo debut in 2005, titled The Loneliest Punk, and Tre Hardsons second full-length solo album SLIMKID3s Cafe was released on April 4, 2006.
2012 saw the twentieth anniversary of The Pharcydes debut Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde, and to mark the event Fatlip and SlimKid3 teamed up with the albums producers, J-Swift and L.A. Jay, as well as record label Delicious Vinyl, to play the album in its entirety at a tribute show at The Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles. The performance was intended to be a one-off, but due to overwhelming success and reception, the group began touring the show Bizarre Ride Live, and, along with MC K-Natural, working on original music under the moniker The Bizarre Ride. In December of that year, The Pharcyde released the Amerigo Gazaway-produced "Still Got Love (Bizarre Tribe Megamix)" garnering significant praise. 2015 marked the twentieth anniversary of Labcabincalifornia, resulting in a similar tour through Europe and Japan. The group continued touring Europe through 2017. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.
