LabCabinCalifornia

In retrospect, this sophomore release was the convergence of two different arcs: the struggle by the still-young L.A. rappers in the Pharcyde to keep themselves together, and the emergence of Jay Dee as a beatmaker whose initial Q-Tip co-sign would get him the first of a decade’s worth of genre-shifting production gigs. At the time, it just sounded like “alt-rap” — which, considering the niche yet hadn’t entirely been reshaped into the identifiably avant/revivalist duality of late ’90s indie rap, just meant it was weird in ways the mainstream wasn’t entirely sure what to do with. They were thankfully still close enough to renown to notch a legendary moving-forwards-in-reverse Spike Jonze video for the woozy, organ-smearing mobius-strip beats and  gymnastically-rhymed existential crises of “Drop.” And “Runnin’” sustains an eternal-classic energy off its saudade-serving mixture of Dilla’s MPB-via-MPC and a verge-of-fracture group of MCs facing the stressful prospect of having to learn to survive without anyone else’s help. But the deeper cuts are the ones that hit the touchiest nerves: an artistic vision weighed down by disillusioned cynicism and brought back up by stubborn momentum (“Somethin’ That Means Somethin’”), a social outlook riddled with the effects of an unresolved, almost arbitrary cosmic cruelty (“Y? (Be Like That)”), and a perspective on the fragility and compromise of opportunistic relationships that feels miles deeper than most songwriters inside or outside of hip-hop usually get (“She Said”). Jay Dee isn’t the only one who leaves his fingerprints on the boards, either — Slimkid3’s codeine-soul beat for “She Said” treads an amazing line between relaxed and unsettled, Bootie Brown’s infectious nod Eastwards on the DITC-esque bounce of “The Hustle” took an actual DITC member Diamond D to top for “Groupie Therapy,” and Fatlip’s combo of straightforward old-school funk breaks and minor-key electric piano on “Devil Music” gets at the duality of moods that comes from putting all their stakes on a bargained, provisional success that they can already feel slipping away.