J-Swift Made Big Hits 
With the Pharcyde 
Before Tragedy and Drugs 
Nearly Took Him Down

Nanette Gonzales

See also: Top 20 Greatest L.A. Rap Albums Of All Time: The Complete List

J-Swift hit rock bottom five years ago. Sacks of crack bulged in the pockets of the former Pharcyde producer. A million-dollar deal with Tommy Boy had long evaporated. Home was a sleeping bag next to the Crazy Girls strip club on La Brea. At one point, he was attempting to rip the wig off a woman he'd been pimping two weeks prior -- except that it was Super Glued to her skull.

"If you have a sense of humor, you can make it through anything," says the 40-year-old Inglewood-raised musician, who was born Juan Martinez in Madrid. It's a sentiment that may well have been the mantra for the Pharcyde, the Merry Pranksters of '90s West Coast rap.

We're at a sushi restaurant in Atwater Village, near the small house he shares with his wife and two children. Miraculously, he shows few effects of the ravages of drug abuse. His hair is still thick, his face smooth, his recollections unusually vivid. It's been 20 years since the release of his psychedelic hip-hop jazz opus, Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde -- a record so influential and inventive, the Weekly recently named it the fifth best L.A. rap album of all time. Martinez produced the classics "Passing Me By" and "Ya Mama," among others.

Problems between him and the Pharcyde surfaced before the album's completion, following an arrest after the Pharcyde took a trip to loot the Fox Hills Mall during the 1992 L.A. riots.

"We tried to get away in a van moving 10 miles an hour. The cops maced me and everyone else escaped," Martinez says with a laugh.

After several days away, he returned to the studio to find his crew had named themselves co-producers on several tracks. The apoplectic Martinez had retained sole credit on hit single "Passing Me By" but still opted to quit with two songs left. "Egos had gotten in the way. They were fighting constantly. It was a collective effort, and no one could touch us when everyone played their position and had fun," Martinez says, adding that he's open to reuniting with the group, though he places the likelihood at long odds.

Following the split, Martinez earned a Tommy Boy deal to produce his artists Quinton and the Jazzyfatnastees. Remix offers came in from Massive Attack and Prince. In particular, Martinez's remix of the Purple One's "Let It Go" was hailed by ?uestlove as a favorite.

But the deal disintegrated and simultaneously Martinez's father, a Cuban-born émigré and jazz musician, passed away. Shortly thereafter, Martinez started sniffing coke, which became blunts laced with crack and, eventually, a packed pipe. His mother's near death in an auto accident and his career turmoil hastened the downward spiral. A dozen years were lost to the streets, smoke and multiple jail stints.