Pharcyde - Labcabincalifornia c/d?

classic

second.

smoke weed listen to labcabincalifornia

perfect album

better than bizarre ride imo

Whoa hmm. Maybe. Bizarre is more fun, prob one of the most fun albums ever. Labcabin more groovy/smoker's delight. I haven't listened to either straight through in a long time.

some of the warmest production ever on a rap record. just appeals to me slightly more, both classics tho obv. otm about bizarre being an all time fun record.

I haven't listened to this in ages but lump it in with It Was Written, Beats Rhymes and Life, and Stakes Is High, all of which I kind of hated when they came out. They all bored the shit out of me after Bizarre Ride, Illmatic, Midnight Marauders, and Buhloone Mindstate which are some of my favorite records ever.

I've come around on Stakes but I ought to check the rest of these out again.

It's one of the first prominent J. Dilla productions (mostly), right? I listened to "Bizarre Ride ..." just the other day, and it's tons of fun but sort of the opposite of laid back. High strung?

my style is more unknown than what happens after death

It's no coincidence that Dilla produced a lot of the stuff on three of the records I mentioned, his stuff has always really bored me compared to Pete Rock / Premier / RZA / Large Professor / Q-Tip & Ali etc.

and Prince Paul of course

"better than bizarre ride imo"

at the time this came out I liked it but considered it not as good as the debut. Haven't heard it in years and would guess I was probably wrong at the time!

at the time this came out I liked it but considered it not as good as the debut. Haven't heard it in years and would guess I was probably wrong at the time!

― calzino, Wednesday, March 16, 2022 1:25 PM (fourteen seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

im prob the only person on earth that thinks this so i wouldnt take it as anything beyond that lol

i agree that it is better than bizarre ride but like you spottie i think it's just more my kind of mood. both classic ofc

i think dilla produced only a handful of tracks on labcab

Looks like he's credited with ... six?

rhodes-forward instrumentation so the production always sounds like layers of cloud

so relaxed and stoned you feel like you might disappear between the cushions of the couch or lift off and float between planets

"drop" is the greatest song and music video of all time

yep

I haven't listened to this in ages but lump it in with It Was Written, Beats Rhymes and Life, and Stakes Is High, all of which I kind of hated when they came out.

toss in Mobb Deep's The Infamous.

wait you hated the infamous when it came out?

"drop" is the greatest song and music video of all time

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Wednesday, March 16, 2022 1:42 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

up there for sure!

rhodes-forward instrumentation so the production always sounds like layers of cloud

so relaxed and stoned you feel like you might disappear between the cushions of the couch or lift off and float between planets

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Wednesday, March 16, 2022 1:35 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

Let's say I misunderstood it.

This morning I blasted Slick Rick's unexpected 1999 comeback.

I dug the Infamous though, and I'd never heard Juvenile Hell to compare it to.

This is an alltimer for me. I didn't love it immediately. But the more I played it the more I liked it. My introduction to J Dilla. I mean, no he didn't do the whole record but, besides "She Said", his songs were the highlights.

It is absolutely a less fun mood than the first album, but it also has the group members defining their own personalities much more distinctly. It was with this album that Fatlip really started to get folks attention as the best MC of them. It's a much more souful and introspective approach to the group's identity and the role each of them had in the group. It felt more unified to me.

The production is wonderful, even the non-Dilla tracks. And it fit the new material perfectly. Not as outright silly as Bizarre Ride, but also not the complete opposite either. I remember thinking that they were heading in a similar direction to Outkast and the Roots (and Tre Hardson ended up collaborating with the Roots in the year following Labcabin).

One of my favorite things from this era was the b-side of "Runnin":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBn_gli9xJw

"Emerald Butterfly" (1995)

Definitely classic material all around.

Skimming back through the album now— "Little D" has not aged well. Such is the fate of 97% of hiphop skits.

After my appreciation started to grow, I always used the album's beats as a road map for old records to check out. I know you could say the same thing for a lot of 90s hiphop, but if you go through and track down all the sample sources you're in for a good time. It made 16 year old me look in the Stan Getz section. I may have gotten there eventually, but it certainly would have been much later.

One of my favorite music connections is also because of this album. I already posted "Emerald Butterfly" but part of my fascination with that song has to do with what came after it. I always assumed it was a sample because everything else they were doing was sampled based. And they did sample the vocal that gets cut in at the end of the song, but the riff and everything else —to my knowledge— isn't a sample. They sing the main riff over "Moment in Time" on the album and that song is a sample. Maybe it inspired the riff on "Emerald Butterfly"? Then Tre Hardson showed up the following year in the credits for the Roots' illadelph halflife on the song "The Hypnotic" — which was basically the Roots and D'Angelo riffing on "Emerald Butterfly." And then the Roots did another variation the following year with D'Angelo and Erykah Badu (this one barely retains any of "Emerald Butterfly" and instead incorporates "Shining Star"). Just wild to think it might have all started with a Mass Production slow jam.

Anyway. Yes, I rate Labcabincalifornia pretty highly.

man i totally spaced on voting for "drop" in the music video poll, shit.

i could def get behind the "better than bizarre ride" take, the earlier album is all pops of color and punchline after punchline, while labcab is more effortlessly cool and more melodic. bizarre ride has "passin me by," though, which is probably still my favorite rap song ever.