The Pharcyde, K-OTIX Fitzgerald's October 24, 2013

Hip-hop has evolved over the years of its existence more than any type of music in the same time period. Since the late '70s and early '80s, has moved from the simplistic beats and rhymes of Slick Rick and Sugar Hill Gang to the more provocative LL Cool J and Public Enemy, through Tupac and Biggie into your pop-culture-busting Snoop Dogg, Wu-Tang and Eminem, and all the way to Lil Wayne, Jay-Z and Kanye.

Somewhere there in the early '90s, when Pac and Dre were "out on bail, fresh out of jail, California dreamin," a branch of free-thinking lyric-based hip-hop branched off from the mainstream "gangsta rap" that had been all over MTV at the time.

One of the most influential and celebrated groups from that time, The Pharcyde, got together last year for the first time in ages, and has been steadily touring around the country since, including twice now to a nearly full room of Houston classic hip-hop fans.

Thursday's mood was set early on with a jovial set from the recently re-united (their first show in nearly ten years) local legends K-OTIX. While Houston rap has been closely related to the chopped and screwed era of the late '90s and early '00s, K-OTIX managed to make a name for themselves outside of the UGK/Fat Pat/DJ Screw/Mike Jones/Paul Wall/Chamillionaire scene that helped put our fair city on the musical map.

With a style very similar to other '90s and '00s alternative hip-hop acts like Jurassic 5 and De La Soul, K-OTIX manage to take the bitches and hoes, sizzurp and cocaine out of their music, and add meaningful lyric after meaningful lyric. I'm not sure what took these guys ten years to make it back on a Houston stage, but whatever it was, that long stalemate is thankfully over.

They put on, in my opinion, the performance of the evening, even with the headliners bringing their all not too long after. Hopefully, this isn't the last we'll be hearing from them -- by the crowd reaction to their set, it looks K-OTIX may be back entertaining again soon.

The Pharcyde, which now consists of only two of the original four members, took the stage rather unassumingly, jumping into their set without much hoopla just after midnight. Imani and Bootie Brown were super-energetic from the get-go, jumping around the stage to their first few songs while the crowd gently bobbed their heads along to the beat.

Joined by DJ Big Wiz, who can normally be seen behind the decks with Aesop Rock, the Pharcyde managed to squeeze every last bit of energy out of the troopers who made it through the hip-hop melee they were put through last night, which lasted more than four hours.

The set was everything you'd expect from a group like The Pharcyde. The crowd were really into every last bit of the set - one that featured hit after hit from the LA MC's. "Ya Mama" came early, "Runnin'" was the next crowd-pleaser, "Drop" hit at just the right time, and set-closer "Passing Me By" found the most hands in the air.

Review continues on the next page.