*This interview has been edited for size and readability.
Bringing collectively reggae, rap, hip-hop, and a bit of little bit of ska is Cali Vibes Music Pageant, held each Valentine’s Day weekend on the Downtown Lengthy Seashore Waterfront. The GoldenVoice-run soiree has cherry picked essentially the most important cultural phenoms of Cali Reggae and neatly packed the most important names, a number of OG’s, a headlining weed sponsor and hashish village, in addition to a hidden tattoo speakeasy right into a one-stop store for stoners in every single place. Cali Vibes is greater than a music competition, it’s a residing, respiratory testomony to all the things and everybody that’s influenced the Cali Reggae scene over the previous twenty years, together with underground hip-hop pioneers, The Pharcyde.
Standing side-stage on the Greens Stage, I can really feel the solar beating down on my neck. I’m eagerly ready for The Pharcyde to start their set, questioning in the event that they’ll play my favourite track, the widely-sampled “Passin’ Me By”.
They do. And as I stroll with members Imani, Tre (Slimkid3), and Fatlip in direction of their inexperienced room post-show, we chat in regards to the blossoming underground rap scene of the 90’s, an period then-dominated by West Coast gangster rappers like Tupac, Dr. Dre, and fellow Cali Vibes artist, Ice Dice.
Excessive Instances: Weird Trip and The Continual got here out inside weeks of each other in ’92. What was that dynamic between gangster rap and underground hip-hop again then?
Imani: Gangster rap was well-established and poppin’ method earlier than The Continual got here out. It was so predominant. It wasn’t even a contest, gangster rap was dominating the panorama.
Tre: In LA, typically, the dynamic of hip-hop was that you just had been both a gangster or the inventive, inventive kind.
Imani: However [the underground] wasn’t effervescent sufficiently big again then. Gangster rap was in every single place you went. So, both you’re doing that and turning into a part of that panorama, otherwise you go the place everyone’s not that. In each a part of town there have been little pockets—Lengthy Seashore, Inglewood—pockets of us who used to bounce or who had been DJ’s, producing, emcee-ing, loads of that which wasn’t affiliated with gangster rap.
Fatlip: It was gangsters versus artist sorts. That’s actually what it was.
HT: How did you guys make that distinction for yourselves?
Fatlip: You don’t select that. That began earlier than the music. That began after we had been younger within the metropolis of Los Angeles.
Imani: We all know the trimmings and all of us knew individuals who died within the streets, was in gangs, promoting medication, all that.
Tre: The those that had been gangbanging, it selected them. Particularly in my hood, it was so shut like I might’ve been a gangbanger with my greatest pal, all of us used to play soccer on the street and I keep in mind the day after they simply turned to no matter gang the road was. I used to be born on a road that was predominantly Bloods, but additionally I had of us that had been Crips so it’s like I’m within the center, I’m impartial I can’t be on this facet or that facet. And it’s so simple as if I’d’ve stayed with my dad as a substitute of my mother, I’d’ve positively been gangbanging that’s for certain.
Fatlip: You already know what’s loopy? LA is the gangster capital and the leisure capital. So that you’ve received these artist guys who’re saying “I wanna be dancing, I wanna be on TV with Bobbi Brown and Michael Jackson, I wanna make beats,” and that was leisure, that was present enterprise. For a very long time, gangster tradition didn’t pay loads of consideration to alternatives in present enterprise.
HT: And that’s the trail that you just guys took.
Fatlip: Yeah, and once more, these had been the 2 paths in LA again then.
Imani: Ice Dice made a remark again within the day, “Go away that to the n***as with the humorous haircuts” and he was speaking about us. Not us particularly, however individuals like us, doing what we had been doing.
Tre: Right here’s the opposite factor too: LA was positively a harmful place. It wasn’t no shit to be fuckin’ round with.
Fatlip: You get in the place you slot in and I believe either side had been completely happy the place they slot in. Gangbangers had been completely happy doing that and I used to be completely happy being who I used to be.
HT: What do you suppose the women most popular?
Fatlip: With women it was a fair taking part in area, between the dope sellers and the inventive entertainer kinda guys, in case you might make women’ giggle… You already know what I’m saying? Once more, it was the artsy kind versus the hustler, or the gangbanger or the pimp. LA shit.
HT: Going again to the start, what did you guys develop up listening to?
Tre: I used to breakdance so Egyptian Lover, Rodney-O, Joe Cooley, NWA, Too $hort.
Imani: Blues, gospel, church music, R&B, soul.
Tre: George Clinton, Parliament-Funkadelic, and the gangsters used to hearken to that stuff too. That was the widespread denominator between us.
HT: “Passin’ Me By” is one in all your most widely-known songs, and likewise widely-sampled. How do you guys really feel about all these different artists sampling the track?
Tre: I like it and I’m glad you stated one thing about it. I simply love creativity. We sampled any person and any person sampled us, it’s so dope. It’s giving it life and further legs. I like beat flips—Maya when she did “Fallin’” was so dope, after which Drake did it, after which Tory Lanez and that shit is so dope. I like it actually, let the oldsters run with it.
HT: Lots of people say that gangster rap matches right into a field and has very particular standards and is hyper-masculine, and all that. Do you agree?
Imani: I gotta give my two cents right here, being from Compton and being an enormous fan of Ice Dice. He’s the instance of a lyricist, so that you hearken to gangster rap, however this dude is so lyrical on another shit and I can’t agree that he matches right into a field. He takes it to ranges past the field of gangster rap. Ice Dice is a good storyteller, to the purpose the place he can take it to the flicks.
Fatlip: I assumed we had been going to speak about weed, man.
HT: We’re getting there I promise. You’re rolling one up proper now. What’s your relationship with weed like?
Imani: I’ve OCD with shit so I needed to discover out what occurs from the seeds to me smoking it and all the things in between. I used to smoke wax, I needed to learn to make it. I smoke weed, I’ve to study the way it was grown. I needed to determine it out myself. I’m a learner. I’m a pupil and a instructor, so after I study I deliver it to different individuals.
Tre: If I ever wanna strive one thing I am going to him first to search out out what’s up.
Imani: I don’t know all the things, however sure issues are my shit and I wanna know all the things about it.
HT: What’s your favourite pressure?
Imani: Bubba. I like indica-dominant stuff, I like stoney, I like fragrant shit. There could possibly be some dust weed that will get you fucked up, I’m cool on that. It don’t should look fairly, however it has to odor good.
Tre: I at all times had points with weed, I get paranoid.
Fatlip: Inform ‘em about that one time
HT: Storytime?
Tre: Alright, so there was this one time at band camp [laughs]. There was this one time, years in the past, I had smoked weed with them within the van and received a bit of too excessive. I went over to my girlfriend’s home and we had been laying in mattress, and I began to journey out. I simply began laughing, I couldn’t cease laughing. I used to be making an attempt to cease, so I put my face within the pillow however felt like my physique was leaving my head. And I used to be like “Oh, I’m trippin unhealthy.” So lengthy story quick, I am going exterior and I’m trippin’ exterior and my homeboy, Mike, got here and he was making an attempt to get me to snap out of it. So the fuckin’ ambulance got here they usually had been like, “Okay, what do you need to do?” We had been younger, my mother and grandma didn’t know I smoked weed…
HT: How outdated had been you!?
Tre: 18, 19 one thing like that. The ambulance man goes, “Hear, we’re going to should take you to the hospital and get in touch with your mother.” And I used to be like no, fuck that, I’ll simply keep right here and end trippin’. So that they left.
HT: And also you’re certain there wasn’t the rest in it?
Fatlip: No, trigger all of us smoked it!
Tre: One other story is we received excessive within the van once more and we went to the flicks. So, I’m within the films and I’ve received a baseball cap on and I took it off, however then felt like I used to be floating exterior of my head and I needed to hold my baseball cap on so I wouldn’t float out of the theater [laughs]. That shit had me trippin’. So my verse on “Pack The Pipe” is about how I’m panicking… I’m not likely a smoker. However shrooms, that’s an entire totally different factor. That’s my factor. What I realized about medication is you’ve gotta know which one is for you.
HT: What’s your favourite place to eat in LA?
Fatlip: Cafe Gratitude and Sage. Hipster vegan shit.
Tre: I’ll say Scrumptious Pizza and In-N-Out Burger.
HT: Within the spirit of One Love, the brand new Bob Marley film, in case you might select an actor to play you in a documentary about The Pharcyde, who would you select?
Tre: I don’t even know, that’s a very good query! My pal Daybreak, her son appears to be like precisely what I seemed like after I was youthful.
Fatlip: Earl Sweatshirt!