The Pharcyde’s Imani gets down!

DJ Echo recently interviewed Imani from the legendary 90’s collective, The Pharcyde on Westside Radio!  

 
Echo: Welcome to The Hip Hop back in the day show. 

Imani: Whaddup world. What’s happening?

Echo: You guys aren’t strangers to Westside, so thank you again for taking time out to speak to us. 

Imani: Ain’t no thang. Just sitting here on a Easter Sunday, chilling. Soaking up the sunshine! 

Echo: Firstly, like all, you must be saddened by the departure of Phife Dawg. What would you like to say about the Tribe legend?

Imani: Man, it was a sad day over here. My son came up to me when I was in the car chilling. He told me, he was like, Phife is dead. And I’m like what. I’m like nah, that’s like a rumour or something, and then I came in the house and went online to see what was happening and sure enough, I see 9th Wonder had tweeted out, and that’s when I knew it was for real. You start thinking about all the times you had, and the thoughts you had about Tribe and Phife. It’s kinda sad. The next day I went to my boy Super Natural’s house and he played me the song ‘Dear Dilla’. We sat and watched the video and it was sad. We shed a couple of years and talked of our own experiences with Phife. He resting now, so we gonna keep him alive in spirit. He’s with the greats: part of the atmosphere. 

Echo: Yeah, he was a legend man. So as this is The Hip Hop back in the day show, what was the Hip Hop scene like growing up in your neighbourhood?

Imani: I’m from Compton California, so the scene was in the infantile stages. I mean it was created in the Bronx in the early 70’s and made its way to LA by the 80’s. My hood was mostly about gang culture, so what we were mainly doing was the BBoy thing, Breaking and Pop Locking. A lot of the gangsters would Pop Lock, so I grew up Pop Locking with my people. You know doing Windmils, spinning on heads. That’s how I got into Hip Hop, through dancing. 

Echo: Was you doing Graffiti back then? 

Imani: Nah, my ma would have whipped my arse if I wrote on anyone’s wall. We used to write on our note books and stuff like that, but we weren’t going out there with crayons and hitting up walls or bombing. I had homies that were doing it, but that wasn’t my thing, I was a BBoy, I was a dancer, I liked the music, that’s what I loved. 

Echo: So, at your concert, we can expect to see some moves on the stage yeah?  

 
Imani: Argh man, at the concert you can expect to see a celebration of sound, rhythm, colour, music and energy. That’s what you can expect at a Pharcyde show.

Echo: Wicked. Where you gonna be then?

Imani: We gonna be in Manchester, Camden in London and I’m gonna be out there getting me some good Indian food. I know I’m gonna be out there in the rain. I know people are gonna come and show us love, because we been coming there for a while. We came with the Brand New Heavies back in the day. London is like….well if it wasn’t so expensive I could probably have me a little flat out there. It takes two of our Dollars to make one of y’all Pounds. 

Echo: Thats why I like to go over to America and Canada cos it’s good.

Imani: You like be balling. You be buying two pairs of Jordans.

Echo: True. Ok, final question. What plans do the Pharcyde have in 2016?

Imani: In 2016 the plan is to stay current and in the now, not worry about the past, but the future, cos tomorrow was here, yesterday was here, tomorrow gonna be here, so it will always be the now. We make music constantly so I would hope the people don’t expect the corporations to give them the good shit, but reach out and look for it: you gotta Periscope, Tweet and Facebook the Pharcyde, even MySpace. I think that’s making a comeback. You know, there are so many places. Just link up and network, and then you know what’s happening. 

Echo: Thank you for your time.

Imani: No thank you, and the people over the years that have given us so much love. It’s the 20th anniversary of our second album ‘Labcabincalifornia’ and so we gon come over there and come celebrate with y’all. And it’s more like a celebration of the Pharcyde cos we still able to make music and come perform for the people. That’s what it’s about. I just love it every time I come over there, and we all get busy. 

Echo: Thanks again for your time.