#482: Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde [The Pharcyde, 1992]

The second album on this list to feature the second Roman numeral, this is the debut album by West Coast rap group the Pharcyde and the first hip hop album on this ranking. Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde is a record characterised by youth; the Pharcyde are really a group of teens chatting inane nonsense about masturbating on the toilet, choking on marijuana smoke and making endless yo mama jokes. Even the album art, which depicts a rollercoaster ride into a vagina dentata, relates to the themes of sexual inexperience and a fear of the future. Unfortunately, it does remind me of some of the negative aspects of young guys, like on 4 Better or 4 Worse, where Fatlip prank calls a young woman and threatens to sexually assault her. The Pharcyde do delve into deeper subjects on Officer, where they plead to a police officer to not pull them over for being “four black n****s ridin' through the neighbourhood”. even on Officer though, they can't stop themselves from sounding simply exuberant. Joyful rapping and jazzy production are the two tines that make up this toasting fork of an album. 3.2/5.