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Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2009 > November > 08 > Entry
Fun Fun Fun Fest review: The Pharcyde
Right now’s a pretty great time to be a late-to-the-party hip hop fan, with the last several years seeing reunions by Golden Era greats like Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, The Wu-Tang Clan (or at least enough members to consider it a quorum) and west coast heavies The Pharcyde, who closed out the first night of Fun Fun Fun Fest with as energetic and compelling a show as you’re likely to hear from backpackers half their age.
Seriously, as great as the idea of hearing “It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back” or “Three Feet High and Rising” played live in their entirety sounds, Pharcyde’s trio of MCs - Imani, Bootie Brown and Slimkid3 - and DJ Ice Water made a case Saturday for being the best bet of the bunch to move forward artistically and make music in the 21st century that can come within swinging distance of classic cuts like “Passin’ Me By,” “Runnin’” and “Soul Flower,” all of which exploded like mortar shells live.
With a late 30s Imani acting as the main conductor and mouthpiece for the night, all three traded verses in perfect sync and carried an easy, humorous rapport with the crowd between songs while musing on topics like fondness for marijuana (prior to “Pack The Pipe,” naturally) and how fans have to connect with the group on Facebook since Imani’s off MySpace now; “Certain things I don’t want my son knowing about, so I’m off the MySpace since everyone can see you on there.”
If the set would’ve just been a (minor) hit parade no one would’ve gone home unhappy, but prior to show closer “Oh (expletive that rhymes with “hit”)” all three MCs walking the crowd through the call-and-response section of the song, with unsatisfactory results at first.
“Look, this up here is like double dutch, you can’t just wait on the side and think about jumping in,” Imani urged the crowd. “You’ve got to just do it. That’s the only way this will work.”
And it did, beautifully, with one of the group’s most kinetic songs transforming the crowd into one hopping mass while Slimkid3 leaned into the frenzy from the stage barrier and the entire group leaving no doubt as to their present-day relevance, regardless of it we ever get anything new from them.
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