Photo credit: Bee Gutierriez
After decades in hip-hop, longevity can easily become an exercise in looking backwards. Bootie Brown sounds considerably more interested in who, or what, might catch his attention next.
On ‘2 Get 2 U’, the three-time Grammy-nominated artist and founding member of The Pharcyde turns romantic pursuit into something smooth, playful and character-driven. Built around production from Les Lockheart, the single considers the various performances people adopt when attempting to attract somebody: the confidence, persuasion and occasional ridiculousness involved in trying to make yourself impossible to ignore.
“What ‘2 Get 2 U’ means to me is the various ways men will try to seduce a woman,” Brown explains.
It’s a simple premise, but one particularly well suited to an artist whose personality has always been central to his appeal. Brown’s delivery remains relaxed and conversational, allowing the track to unfold with the feeling of somebody telling you a story rather than labouring to make a grand statement. Attraction becomes less about sweeping romance than human behaviour, what people say, how they present themselves and the little strategies deployed when desire enters the equation.
The production complements that looseness. Rather than crowding Brown, Lockheart gives him space to inhabit the beat, resulting in a track whose charm comes from its ease. There’s experience in the delivery, but little sense of an artist trying to remind listeners how experienced he is.
As a founding member of The Pharcyde, Brown helped establish an alternative hip-hop vocabulary in which humour, vulnerability and eccentricity could sit comfortably beside technical ability. Tracks such as ‘Passin’ Me By’ and ‘Drop’ remain part of that legacy, while later appearances with Gorillaz on ‘Dirty Harry’ and ‘New Gold’ demonstrated how naturally his distinctive presence could travel beyond conventional hip-hop boundaries.
‘2 Get 2 U’ doesn’t attempt to recreate any of those moments. More interestingly, its very existence demonstrates the curiosity that made them possible.
Brown discovered Lockheart through OrganicBeat Session, his PharcydeTV platform showcasing emerging beatmakers and producers. After hearing the instrumental, he immediately recognised somewhere his own voice could go.
“I heard this track and knew I could create something special with it,” he says.
There’s something fitting about a veteran artist finding his latest inspiration through a platform designed to spotlight new talent. Rather than treating discovery as something reserved for listeners, Brown remains a listener himself. That willingness to encounter an unfamiliar beat and follow the instinct it creates is arguably a more meaningful marker of longevity than simply preserving an established sound.
It also prevents ‘2 Get 2 U’ from carrying the burden of legacy. The single doesn’t need to announce another reinvention or compete with music made decades earlier. Instead, Brown takes a good beat, finds a character within it and enjoys the possibilities.
‘2 Get 2 U’ succeeds because it wears that history lightly. Smooth, charismatic and mischievous, the track finds Bootie Brown doing what has sustained him for decades: following an unexpected idea and making it unmistakably his own. For an artist with plenty of reasons to live in the past, he still sounds far more entertained by whatever comes next.
