Pharcyde's "Drop" Music Video

....mmm drop

With a sample from The Beastie Boys' 1986 single "The New Style," the Pharcyde's "Drop" opens up a space to occupy, look around, and groove in. Just as the song invites its listener to sink in, go in between, and be there when the beat drops, Spike Jonze's video also destabilizes time. As it definitely takes work to let the beat drop properly, it also took a lot of practice to make it go backwards. The members of Pharcyde had to memorize the lyrics to their verses backwards in order to lip sync convincingly. Using the help of a linguist to get this vernacular right, gibberish was written on the cue cards (phrases like "Eight, Kay, Car, Ick, Side, Jer, Dit"), and the streets of Broadway in Los Angeles were walked upon, glass was smashed or reconstructed, and clothes stripped off or put back on -- it all depends on your perspective on time with this experiment in its unravelling.