Blackaliciousness

In the Bay Area hip-hop scene, even on a worldwide level, there are few names that command the respect of Quannum Projects group Blackalicious. This duo — MC Gift of Gab and DJ Chief Xcel — is part of a collective that also includes DJ Shadow and rappers Lateef the Truth Speaker and Lyrics Born (collectively know as Latyrx), one of the West Coast’s most notable and influential crews.

With new-school and next-level drive pushing old-school hip-hop ethics, the Quannum Projects crew (formerly known as Solesides, a group whose origins can be traced back to Davis, CA, where the crew’s members went to college) is steadily releasing some of the genre’s brightest jewels, the latest of which is Blackalicious’ long-awaited Nia, the first full-length album from a group that has been making quality music for the better part of 10 years. Loosely translated as "purpose," Nia dropped to critical and fan acclaim, asserting this 22-track opus as one of the best hip-hop releases of the year.

Insights into the genre of hip-hop, the arts in general and the nature of humanity abound in Nia’s lyrics, especially on tracks like "Deception" — "This is a story of a kid / his name is Cisco / he made more money than the Count of Monte Cristo." The story goes on to relate the rise and fall of a rapper whose inner vision is clouded by the almighty dollar, not necessarily a specific tale but a subtext of Nia’s overall theme of purpose. Other tracks, like "Cliff Hanger" and "Dream Seasons" look at the human condition, while tracks like "Fabulous Ones" and "Reanimation" are straight-up hip-hop, dissing wack MCs and proving prowess with wicked vinyl cuts and rhymes of pin-point accuracy and unwavering conviction. Simply put, it’s the essence.

The Synthesis recently had the chance to converse with Gift of Gab and Chief Xcel from their East Bay office about Nia, the group’s development since the early days and what’s on the horizon for Quannum Projects.

Gab: Yeah, that was four years in the making. We started working on that as soon as we finished Melodica. So it’s been a long process.

Gab: We wanted it to be perfect. We did, like, over 40 songs, and as the years change, you change and grow artistically, and we just wanted what represented those four years the best.

Xcel: Well, if you go back and look at your body of work… Say you wrote an essay in the eighth grade, and you go back and look at an essay you wrote in the 10^th grade, then look at something you wrote in the 12^th grade and then you look at your college work — they’re all just reflections of those periods in time. The thing that you wrote in the eighth grade you obviously wouldn’t write now. And that’s not to say it was wack; it was the best you did then ‘cause that’s where you were at, it was an expression of yourself. That’s how we look at our body of work from Melodica to A to G to Nia.

Xcel: Our main thing, man, is that we’re just trying to express ourselves to the fullest, and we use past present and future to do that because, I mean, it’s a vast world of music out there and the creative realm is so vast that there are no limits, there are no boundaries. We work hard to draw on all of our experiences musically and life-wise, to really bring that in, synthesize that and make it very comprehensive in our sound.

Gab: And a lot of times it’s not even like we sit down and think we’re going to put a theme to it. It’s more just the way it comes out; it’s what we’re thinking, what we’re feeling or what we’re trying to express at that moment.

Gab: It can work any one of three ways. Sometimes X will have a beat — actually he’s about to shoot me this new beat tonight — and then I’ll write the lyrics to it. Sometimes I’ll have some lyrics or a style or a concept, and I’ll shoot it to him and then he’ll put music on it. Or sometimes, like the way "Deception" was made, we just comes together, start building and do a song together in one night. But most of the time, X will shoot me the track and I’ll write to that, putting down lyrics to what we call a skeleton, which is an unfinished track, and then he’ll even rearrange the track more around my lyrics to fit them, too. So it happens many ways.

Xcel: Well, "Deception," and I wanna make this clear, is not really a wack rapper song, or a state of hip-hop song. It’s just really a microcosm of the bigger theme of Nia. When you break it down, it’s about somebody who, when he got into what he was doing, he had a strong sense of purpose, and for whatever reasons, he let external forces jade him from his past. You know, Cisco could have been a painter, a Web designer — the bottom line was that he had something he held dear to him. He lost that. "Turmoil" [the trilogy’s second part] was more about him hitting rock bottom and going almost to the brink of insanity. Then with "Redemption" [part three], it’s Cisco getting back on track and being even stronger than he was when he started.

Xcel: It was done after Nia. Yeah, you know, El-P [Company Flow] did "Turmoil" and Kut Master Kurt did "Redemption."

Gab: It was meant to be an expansion on the one song.

Gab: That’s just something that just comes out. I go where the beat takes me. Really, it’s just the way that I feel the beat, and I don’t feel any two the same. It’s just a matter of where the beat takes me, and I try to approach it like musician — not just to rap but to actually complement the beat as if I was another instrument. So it’s really more the beat than it is me, and how the beat makes me feel.

Xcel: I really just consider myself a student in the world of music, and as a record collector I try to explore as many genres as possible because I think there’s something to learn from everything, whether it be Cuban or Latin, soul, funk, rock, whatever. I’ve always been intrigued by different artists’ approaches to their crafts and disciplines, so I try to bring back as much of that and absorb as much of that as I can, bring into my stuff and make it the best that it can be.

Xcel: I’m always picking up records, man. Yeah, actually though, I came up on a Latin record that I didn’t know anything about, when I was up in Oregon last week, but I’m not going to give out the title ‘cause I’m gonna use it. But yeah, I’m really feelin’ the Latin, always digging gospel, soul and funk. There’s just a lot of music out there right now that I’m likin’ a lot.

Gab: The Common record is good. I’ve been listening to Corrupt ‘cause I think he’s an extraordinary MC, and then just old stuff. Oh, and the J5 sampler.

Xcel: We’ve just got a lot music coming out. Gab is working on a solo project; me and Lateef have a project called Maroons and we’re working on an album; Lyrics Born is heavy into the completion of his solo album; we got a funk band from Germany called The Poets of Rhythm, who are on Quannum Spectrum; as well as an alum coming from Joyo Velarde.

Xcel: Yeah, we’re always pushing to do that. But even more so, we’re always pushing for the development of the artist, and really getting the music out there to the world.

Xcel: It’s always good to have a support structure. And you gotta realize that we’ve been together for so long, which is not just a rarity in hip-hop but a rarity in entertainment, to have a core of artists be together for close to ten years now is pretty phenomenal to me.

Gab: It’s good to have a lot of people with similar vision because you can go out and be jaded a lot of times by a lot of different things that you see out there, but you can come back and talk to your crew, and you get the same and strength.

Xcel: Yeah, we’re long-time Del supporters and fans.

Gab: Indeed.

Xcel: We’re working on the next album.

Gab: Keep hittin’ ‘em over the head with bangers.

Gab: You remember when The Honeymooners dropped "The Lost Episodes" after the show was long gone? Just keep that in mind — the Blackalicious lost tracks.

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