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BIEBER

The Inevitable Justin Bieber Weed Bust Is Here

By Amos Barshad at

Bad news, fellow Beliebers: Justin Bieber has been busted in Sweden. With drugs. Well, with weed. Also, a stun gun.

The news came first via Stockholm police, who said Bieber's tour bus was searched because cops smelled what they believed was marijuana smoke emanating. OK, but check this out: The cops smelled the smoke while the bus was parked outside of Bieber's hotel. They didn't move in, though, until Bieber's show that night, sending in a special narcotics unit while the bus was empty. Were Stockholm PD terrified of what bloodbath might occur if they entered the bus while Bieber was onboard? Or did they really just not want to hear anyone say the word "swaggy" out loud? Anyway, they found what was originally reported to be a "small amount of drugs" that was being "sent to a laboratory for an analysis." So are Stockholm's cops officially the nerdiest cops in the world? They don't know any recreational-drug aficionados they can call up and be like "Bro, bro, what the hell is this?"

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HIP HOP-OLOGY

Bizarre Ride: The Pharcyde and the 20th Anniversary of a Brilliant Record

By Alex Pappademas at
Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images

There are, officially, four Pharcyde albums. But I'm going to follow in the footsteps of an old college friend of mine who liked to deny the existence of a third Godfather movie ("It would have been terrible — I mean, imagine if Winona Ryder had dropped out, forcing them to cast Sofia Coppola as Pacino's daughter?") and say there are really only two: 1995's Labcabincalifornia and its predecessor, 1992's Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde, the group's debut album, released 20 years ago this week. (If you heard it around that time, please take this opportunity to contemplate the alarming speed with which you're hurtling toward the grave. This is going to keep happening. Midnight Marauders and Enter the Wu-Tang both turn 20 next year; our commemoration-mad culture will not let you forget it. Deep breath.)

Bizarre Ride came out within a month of the most epoch-defining L.A. rap album of all time, Dr. Dre's solo debut The Chronic. It's convenient and tempting to view these albums, created in the same riot-torn city around the same time, as two sides of a coin — the hedonistic/nihilistic blockbuster that converted gangsta rap into a pop master-narrative and the goofball-surreal cult record whose self-deprecating sense of humor and no-joke songcraft poked holes in that narrative. The problem with that binary is that Bizarre Ride doesn't really have much to say about gangsta hegemony; when Fatlip, Imani, Bootie Brown, and Slimkid3 take satirical aim at their context, it's usually to mock the self-righteous solemnity of so-called "conscious" rap. Hence the voice insisting "We need some brothers to be, like, droppin' knowledge and writing good stuff" before "Ya Mama," a demented dozens routine ("Ya mama got snakeskin teeth!") complete with four-part barbershop harmony.

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