The Pharcyde
Labcabincalifornia
- Released
- 2018
- Format
- Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue
- Label
- Craft Recordings · CR00080
- Rating
- 9/10
native-tonguesdilla-timelastones-throw-adjacent
Hip Hop
View on Discogs ↗ Related titles
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A Tribe Called Quest The Low End Theory Q-Tip passed Dilla's demo around after hearing his beats, and Dilla got the Labcabincalifornia gig because of it — the Low End Theory and this record are connected through Q-Tip's endorsement. -
J Dilla Donuts Labcabincalifornia is Dilla's first major production credit at age 21 — Donuts is where the same producer arrived eleven years later, at the end. -
Q-Tip The Renaissance Q-Tip's Renaissance contains Dilla-produced tracks made before his death — the same Q-Tip who gave Dilla his first major gig is the one who kept Dilla's work circulating after he died.
Dilla produced most of Labcabincalifornia at age 21, two years after first touching an MPC. He got the gig because Q-Tip had heard his demo tapes and started passing them around. The specific moment of transmission: Amp Fiddler walked Dilla onto Tribe’s tour bus at Pine Knob in Michigan during Lollapalooza ‘94 — Beastie Boys and A Tribe Called Quest were the hip-hop acts on that bill — and Q-Tip heard the beats. Q-Tip is the literal reason this record sounds the way it does, and the reason Dilla ever got to Los Angeles.
The Pharcyde’s contribution to the record is easy to underestimate in retrospect. By 1995, the space between LA’s G-funk and the Native Tongues East Coast aesthetic was still a productive tension, and Labcabincalifornia sits directly in that gap — Dilla’s MPC feel, the Pharcyde’s particular gift for melody and self-deprecating lyrical personality, the whole thing sounding like nothing else on either coast.