There is an art to trying too hard without looking like you’re trying at all. On ‘2 Get 2 U’, The Pharcyde founding member Bootie Brown turns the strange performance of seduction into smooth, mischievous hip-hop.
Brown describes the premise as “the various ways men will try to seduce a woman”, and there’s plenty contained within that deceptively simple idea. Attraction has a habit of turning otherwise rational people into strategists: changing how they talk, exaggerating their confidence and searching for whatever combination of charm and persistence might finally capture somebody’s attention.
Brown approaches that behaviour with an appropriately light touch.‘2 Get 2 U’ isn’t a grand meditation on romance. Its appeal comes from character, with Brown’s relaxed delivery giving the track the feeling of somebody observing the rituals of attraction while participating in them himself. There’s humour in the pursuit without reducing desire to a punchline.
That balance should be familiar to anybody who has followed Brown’s career. As a founding member of The Pharcyde, he helped establish one of alternative hip-hop’s most distinctive voices. Songs such as ‘Passin’ Me By’ and ‘Drop’ demonstrated how naturally the group could combine eccentricity, vulnerability and humour, finding space for personalities that didn’t necessarily fit the genre’s dominant archetypes.
Decades later, Brown still understands the value of not taking himself too seriously. Producer Les Lockheart provides an ideal backdrop for that instinct. The beat leaves enough room for Brown to settle into its pocket rather than compete with it, creating an easy chemistry between production and delivery. Nothing feels particularly forced, which is useful for a song about all the ridiculous things people do when trying to appear effortlessly desirable.
The collaboration itself emerged from another important part of Brown’s creative life. Through OrganicBeat Session, his PharcydeTV show dedicated to showcasing beatmakers and producers, Brown encountered Lockheart’s production and immediately heard somewhere his own voice could belong.
“I heard this track and knew I could create something special with it,” he explains.
There’s something appealing about that reversal. Brown may be the veteran artist providing a platform for emerging producers, but he remains open to being inspired by the people he’s spotlighting. The relationship between established artist and new talent isn’t presented as one-directional mentorship; fresh ideas travel both ways.
‘2 Get 2 U’ demonstrates that the playful curiosity which helped make The Pharcyde so distinctive hasn’t disappeared with time. Smooth, conversational and full of personality, Bootie Brown turns romantic pursuit into another opportunity for character-driven storytelling. Decades into his career, he’s still listening for something unexpected, and still knows exactly what to do when he finds it.
