The 43nd installment of I Used to Love H.E.R., a series in which artists/bloggers/writers discuss their most essential or favorite hip-hop albums and songs, comes from English multi-instrumentalist/producer Max Tundra (born Ben Jacobs), who opened for Junior Boys in Phoenix back in April in support of his 2008 release Parallax Error Beheads You (Domino). While he admitted he wasn’t much of a hip-hop die-hard, he expressed an affinity for one particular song and its Spike Jonze-directed video.
The Pharcyde, “Drop”
(off Labcabincalifornia, Delicious Vinyl, 1995)
“The video for this used to come on MTV when I was working a nightshift at a shitty post-production company which has since gone out of business. At the end of a long day making coffees and teas for unappreciative clients in the edit suites, it was a pleasure to see these goofballs messing around backwards, splashing around town with their trousers falling down. The song itself is phenomenal – one of the most eery, mesmerising, wordy slaps round the face of me at the time. I haven’t followed much of hip-hop before or since, but this edgy track got under my skin for good, and infuses what I do, to this very day. Hey.”