The group that eventually became The Pharcyde began as a B-boy dance group. Imani (born Emandu Wilcox) and Romye Robinson, aka Booti Brown, were dancers alongside their friend Robert Vincent, and they formed the group 242 in the mid-1980s. Vincent would depart as the group met Tre Hardson, and by the early 1990s, the trio would land high-profile gigs dancing, like on the hit sketch comedy show In Living Color. They also met music teacher Reggie Andrews, who introduced them to a local rapper named Derrick Stewart, who called himself "Fatlip."

"For us, it was more or less the dance groups that started off everything," Romye would explain years later. "You went to school with different people that maybe you were part of a dance group with. Then maybe you elevated from a dance group to an emcee-type situation."

The quartet would dub themselves "The Pharcyde," and with Andrews' connections, they landed a record deal with Delicious Vinyl. This led to the group making a well-received guest appearance on the sophomore album from acid jazz outfit The Brand New Heavies. The Pharcyde guested on Heavy Rhyme Experience, Vol. 1 on the song "Soul Flower," which became their first official appearance as emcees. It set the stage for the group to get to work on their debut album for Delicious Vinyl.

"We call ourselves the Pharcyde 'cause it’s a name that doesn’t set any boundaries,” said SlimkidTre in Rolling Stone. "[We're] nuts when it comes to music. We dig the crazy shit.”

"When I was with the Pharcyde, as a producer, I tried to make it about more than just what you’re hearing," Swift told SPIN in 2012. "It’s the things that you’re not hearing. The things that give you the atmosphere that makes you think you’re in another world. And then you actually are in another world! So, you have to document everything. I did a lot of recording just talking with Pharcyde, ragging on each other. We grew up together, so that was nothing. I had all this wealth of recording and then it is like making a movie. You have to edit it down, and chop all this footage, but you have so much material that it works itself out, you know what I mean?"

The album's musicality would be one of the elements that made the group's first album sound unlike anything else when it was released in November 1992. The group's sensibility was also front-and-center throughout Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde. Album opener "Oh Shit!" featured the group's sense of humor perfectly married to Swfit's musicality and gifted ear for samples; and the group's first single "Ya Mama" was one elaborate game of the dozens, over a sample of Mike Bloomfield's version of "Season Of the Witch," and the classic drums from "Synthetic Substitution" from Melvin Bliss.

It's heightened and juvenile—in all of the best ways.

“We laugh a lot,” Imani would tell the L.A. Times in 1993. “We find humor in things other people don’t. Everyday situations. People might look at things around here and say, like, ‘Damn!’ We say, ‘Hah, hah, hah.’ We just chill out."

The album also features a stellar remix of "Soul Flower," as well as "4 Better or 4 Worse," which features Swift himself on the chords.

"My daddy was a musician, so we had a piano, and then, I started collecting gear," Swift said in 2012. "I met this guy who became my manager and the Pharcyde’s manager — that’s a whole other story — but he had all this old equipment that he didn’t like anymore. But we took that shit and we would create what we thought was the greatest shit on earth. I’m sure it was garbage but we learned our craft on that stuff."

The album's sampling is no less inspired; perhaps best exemplified by hit single "Passin' Me By." The song features a sample of Quincy Jones' cover of "Summer In The City," and the distinctive organ riff carries the four emcees as they share sad stories of unrequited love. The Pharcyde actually got to meet the legendary Jones as they were working on the album.

"He was mad cool," Tre told Mr. Mecc in 2013. "I know his daughters and he’s always really been really open to the change of music, you know what I mean?" J. Swift remembered in that same interview: "He told me he loved the record, he loved what we did… “Great stuff, great stuff. I love it!” Which was really humbling to me because he’s a master. He’s what Dr. Dre is now… back then and still mashing on an even higher level."

"Just think of how many eras he’s been through," Tre noted. "It’s easier to say which ones he hasn’t seen. He’s had his hand in so many things. Especially if you start counting samples? I mean dude… That was a straight up blessing."

"I remember meeting him," Fatlip added. "We walked up, shook hands and kept it moving. But I feel like just from meeting him, he gave us the blessing on using his sample."

The success of "Passin' Me By" eventually pushed Bizarre Ride... past the gold mark. The album caught on majorly with alternative music fans, as well; giving the group an unexpected rock audience.

"I’m not saying things happen by chance, but I do think that we really don’t have control over certain elements," Romye would tell Adrienne Thomas in 2018. "I would’ve never thought that we’d catch on with a majority white audience. That wasn’t who we saw at our shows - we were from South Central, you know? So to have a large, college-type following like that was just totally unexpected. What you may think of as your audience or as your level of success can be totally wrong. If you get too wrapped up in that, you can fall into a rut like me, thinking “man, I don’t really want to do this anymore" because you’re not attracting the type of crowd or selling the amount of records that I thought I was going to sell."

The Pharcyde may not be the first act that comes to mind when one thinks about the commercial rise of West Coast rap circa late 1992, but Imani, Fatlip, Booti Brown and SlimKid3 were no less instrumental in that seismic shift in Hip-Hop's power base. Sure, artists like Ice Cube, 2Pac and the Death Row camp got the lion's share of attention and airplay, but a hit like "Passin' Me By" and the critical acclaim of Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde was right alongside G-Funk as Cali Hip-Hop bum-rushed the mainstream. And Pharcyde's affable, goofball personas made them major influences in what was becoming a very fertile West Coast underground or "alt-rap" scene. Alongside contemporaries like Del The Funky Homosapien and the Heiroglyphics and even Digital Underground, the foursome made it apparent that West Coast wasn't always going to mean "gangsta rap" or any of it's offshoots.

But even with the critical acclaim of their debut album, there was a sense that the group didn't know if The Pharcyde would sustain itself.

“We’re only going to make three albums together,” Imani declared back in '93. “Bizarre Ride... was the first, and now we want to get everything a little better. But then we’ll stop. Romye wants to be an architect, Tre wants to be a songwriter, and Derrick and I will be doing our things, but I just want to make three good albums for the Hip-Hoppers and then move on.”