The Pharcyde: Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Straight and bent, hard and squishy -- these are rap's polar opposites. Onyx want to jump your mother; the Pharcyde want to break you up. Both succeed big time.

"Bacdafucup" and "Getdafucout" bookend Onyx's debut; the raps in between stalk that inch-wide thematic turf of threat, bluster and strut. "Slam," "Blac Vagina Finda," "Da Mad Face Invasion" -- you get the picture. Four baldheads from Queens, N.Y., with Jam Master Jay of Run-D.M.C. co-producing, these menaces crank up monolithic old-school noise, thick as a brick and iceberg cold.

Goofball motor mouths, Pharcyde hail from L.A., but they're nobody's gangstas. Instead, with "Oh Shit," "Ya Mama" and sonic "skits" like "It's Jiggaboo Time," they ride merrily roughshod over East and West Coast dogma