Reunited Pharcyde Speak on Plans, Break Up, Dilla

Author: Andres Tardio

After last year's Rock the Bells, The Parcyde was rejuvenated, reinvigorated and reunited. Looking to go forward as a group, the crew is now looking to catch that spark that made them so popular to begin with. Recently, some of The Pharcyde members spoke about this in the Los Angeles Times.

Although they still have not worked on a new album, they have done some shows together. Imani explained that it can be a step towards a new CD if the vibes are right.

"We were doing our own things for a while, then the Rock the Bells opportunity came around and it was cool trying to re-create the old vibe for those shows. We’re not ready to make another album yet; these shows are about us getting together and becoming compadres again so we can go forward in the future," he noted, before speaking on new material. "It’s a vibe thing. It’s nothing that we can manufacture inorganically. I can rap forever, I write rhymes all day, but the Pharcyde is about us coming together from different angles, the same story from different perspectives. We need to just chill and hang out and let songs come together when it feels right. Time isn’t necessarily important in that respect."

Taking the blame away from Fatlip, Imani added that it was a collective issue and one that may have been related to youth.

"People shouldn’t blame it on Fatlip. We were all young and we had success come at us really fast. We were trying to maneuver through the madness and we weren’t always making good decisions. There wasn’t one moment when Fatlip or any of us did something that specifically caused a breakup. It was a series of things: from record company politics to management to everyone’s individual egos. We’d done a lot of tours and we were curious to know what it would be like to make our own music," he said "At the end of the day we’re all artists, not Pharcyde employees. It’s always hard to keep four individuals on the same page, but if you’re supposed to come back together you do, and that’s what’s happened."

During their run, The Pharcyde also worked with Dilla before more many people knew him.

"We were flipping out and losing our minds. The stuff was just incredible and he told us that it was a kid he knew named Jay Dee," Imani added."So we told the label that we wanted to pay him $2,500 per beat and they weren’t feeling it because he was barely known at the time. We told them that he was incredible and that he was going to be huge so we should get them while the beats were cheap. So he produced about half the album and we formed an incredible camaraderie with him. It was like magic -- we’d give him some tracks, disappear for a few hours and when we returned they’d sound completely different."

No official word has been given as to when the group will work on music for a brand new album.
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