Ice Cube: “Really Doe” (4th + Broadway); The Pharcyde: “Ya Mama” (WEA)

Rap is championed as super-concentrated street reality whereas it’s increasingly became a game of media fantasy where you can hardly distinguish between that tricky concept dubbed “real life” and movie and T.V. fabrications. Certainly Ice Cube doesn’t so much embrace everyday eventuality as storyboard his next video. Even if Rodney King gets name-checked, you figure it’s only as part of a Cube-directed biopic. As for The Pharcyde, this time they’re playing the role of Vaudevillians of 1993, tickling the funny bone with some gross humour about a fat lady they’ll never let sing on their records.