It was during the closing years of the 1980s that Prozack and DJ Design, two idle residents of San Jose, California, first came together to form Foreign Legion, entertaining themselves through bicycle thefts and rhyme creation. The addition of Marc Stretch years afterward turned the project into a trio and gave rise to the group's distinctive brand of cynical, word-focused underground hip-hop. ABB Records put out the crew's first 12" single, Full Time B-Boy, in 1999, while Insidious Urban followed with the Nowhere to Hide 12" the next year. Call-and-response hooks from Marc Stretch and Prozack, paired with DJ Design's offbeat productions, quickly caught on. By this point the trio had moved its base to San Francisco, a city already home to sympathetic artists including Del tha Funkee Homosapien and DJ Shadow. Insidious Urban issued the debut album, Kidnapper Van: Beats to Rock While Bike-Stealin', in September 2000, showcasing a rap unit willing to mock both itself and the broader condition of hip-hop music over strong beats. Following a short break, the members resurfaced in late 2002 with the Happy Drunk and Voodoo Star 12"s; these singles paved the way for Playtight, their next full-length release on the same label. A European tour began in March 2003.
