Working on a Purpose

Not many underground hip-hop crews have caused the stir that the Solesides crew kicked up when they started dropping music in the early and mid-'90s. At that point, underground hip-hop was just bubbling to the surface, spurred on by acts out of the Bay Area, Los Angeles and New York, and this collective was a major driving force in unearthing the genre.

Started in Davis, CA by a group of students who used the college radio station where they all worked (90.3 KDVS) as ground zero, this artists' collective-comprised of Blackalicious, lyricists Lateef The Truth Speaker and Lyrics Born, and DJ Shadow-first dropped the "Send Them" single by Lyrics Born (then known as Asia Born), DJ Shadow's "Endtropy," Blackalicious' "Swan Lake" single, and the rare, sought-after "Radio Sole 1" mix tape. With these releases as a foundation, Solesides built a strong following, one of the strongest in existence outside of accepted industry confines. DJ Shadow's 1996 MoWax release, Endtroducing, and 1997's full-length, eponymous debut from Lateef and Lyrics Born's group, Latyrx, brought truck loads of critical acclaim to Solesides and really blew up the collective in the eyes of music media and hip-hop fans around the world.

After spending time on touring and promotion, the crew took a break, reemerging early this year refreshed and on a new mission with a new idea: Quannum Projects. According to Blackalicious members DJ Chief Xcel and rapper Gift of Gab, the time had come to reset the whole thing. The members of Solesides felt that they had achieved all the goals they set and wanted to start fresh, take their past successes and build on them anew, creating stronger empire.

As members of the Quannum crew, the guys in Blackalicious are O.G. Gab and Xcel have been around since the inception of Solesides and have continually, albeit sparsely, released quality material. The group's first joint was the aforementioned "Swan Lake" b/w "Lyric Fathom," followed shortly by the Melodica EP (which included the two single tracks), a stellar collection of seven tunes that set the underground on fire when it dropped in October of 1995. Tracks like "Rhymes For The Deaf Dumb and Blind" and "Lyric Fathom" established Gab as a hard hitting and innovative lyricist who can kill MCs with the swoop of a pen while other tunes like "Swan Lake" and "Attica Black" showed his more intuitive side and a willingness to include some very real and personal things in his rhymes, not just anthems about bitches, 40s and AKs. Chief Xcel's skills on the wheels of steel are evident at one listen, and whether the music is mellow or rough and tumble, Xcel adds his soulful touch. His chops are among the most underrated, and a good example of some his best older work can be found on the "Fully Charged on Planet X" 12-inch vinyl (b/w Shadow's "Hardcore (Instrumental) Hip-Hop").

Now, with the recent release of the Quannum Projects Spectrum album, Blackalicious' A to G EP (which was distributed through the now defunct 3-2-1- Records) and the impending release of their first full-length, Nia (pronounced Nēa), the time seemed right to catch up with the Quannum crew's Gab and Xcel to find out about the long-awaited Nia (which has been over four years in the making), how things are going with Quannum, and making music with a purpose.

X: A little bit of both, mainly, just keeping it a really careful, thoughtful process because we put a lot into this record and it was important that everything and every circumstance be exactly right in putting it out.

Gab: Exactly, and there were a lot of times when we had to fight for those circumstances to be right. That ties into the concept of the album.

Gab: The purpose, basically, is self realization, all the trials and tribulations that you go through in life to become a man and to realize who you are. Going through whatever it may be, personal struggles, growth issues... It's all about growing, and to us, Nia represents our purpose at this time in this phase in our lives as artists.

X: It's to find a voice and also, we believe that God gave us this artistry as a gift, as a vehicle for expression, and that's what the whole discovery of purpose and revelation is for us.

X: We were getting a lot of offers [from major labels] but we've been doing this for a while and whatever scenario we were going into had to be the most comfortable for us and make the most sense business-wise.

X: It did for the sole fact that with [the A to G EP] we wanted to go the independent route. And, you know, I don't have to tell you how shaky the industry is right now. This is the first Quannum release, distributed through 3-2-1, and basically, Fiona [Bloom, head of 3-2-1] heard a track we did for James Lavelle [UNKLE producer; MoWax Records owner] a while ago, called "Changes," and she wanted to license that for a compilation they were doing, but we did "Touch the Stars" for her instead.

X: Nia is 17 songs strong, three of which are on the EP.

X: Man, the last five years have been consumed with Nia, but I've got two other projects that I do besides Blackalicious: Lateef from Latyrx and I have a group called Maroons that we've been working on, and I've got soul group called The Nova. So between all that, Nia and Blackalicious, and getting Quannum Projects running, we're workin'.

Gab: Yeah, 24/7. That's about it. I've just been working on Nia. I did do a little side project-I flew out and did this project [that had] jazz artists conversing with hip-hop artists. I did a little cut on there, but that was a few years back. Other than that, just working on the Nia album.

Gab: Me and X met back in high school in the Bay Area. A rapper who is now on Priority, Homicide, introduced us, but at the time, I had another DJ. After Homicide introduced us, it took some time for us to get to know each other. X was from Northern California and I was from Southern California-we was young, you know, it was an ego thing. We used to debate on who was better: Ice T or Too Short. When we sat down and started building, the thing that really made us bond was that song, "Top Billing." That's what sparked our first, down-to-earth, ego-free conversation. Then, Me and X and Homicide was about to form a three-man group, a Run DMC kind of thing, but Homicide left the school we was at. Also, like I said, I had another DJ, but he stopped doing hip-hop around that same time. I called X one day and I said, "X, I need a DJ." He said, "When?" and I said, "Forever." It was cool like that, and we both just hung up. It was just that quick, and ever since then, we've been down.

After I graduated from high school, I went back down to Southern California-San Fernando Valley, where I'm from-and we would hook up over the phone. He made beats and would play records while I wrote lyrics to what he was playin' me over the phone. After a while, that long distance thing just wasn't working out. Around same time in Davis, X met Asia Born [later Lyrics Born], DJ Shadow and Zen, and there was talk about forming Solesides. Everything just kind of fell together like that. That's when I moved out to Davis. Intentionally, I moved out there to be involved with the label and also to get into college.

X: As a music collector, I like to go through and thoroughly search all genres of music, and I go through periods when I'm only looking for specific things. I may go through a six-month period where all I really buy is, like, gospel and funk records. I may go through a three-month period where I'm looking to get nothin' but country records or break beats. I think that all the different influences and seeing how they can fuse together is what has actually created our sound. It's not like a strictly jazz thing or a strictly funk thing. It's all these different things to create one Blackalicious thing, you know?

Gab: In terms of my musical influences... You know, I'm a lyricist, I definitely can't listen to wack music. I study lyricists, people like Bob Marley, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Rakim, KRS-One, Run DMC. The list of influences is just too long, because different lyricists influence and move me in different ways at different times. I like to hear it when you can really feel people's souls when they speak, you really feel, after you hear them, that you know them, and those are the types of lyricists that move me.

Gab: For me, it's therapy. I write what I know, you know what I'm sayin'? I write about what I feel and what I see. Or sometimes I might write battle lyrics just to let out some frustration, just kill MCs, instead of going out and killin' the postman. Just kidding [laughing], I wouldn't kill a postman. But really, it's therapy and it's an outlet to let those emotions and frustrations out and express them.

X: Well, first of all, with Solesides, at the end of 1997/beginning of 1998 we all went on a retreat, if you will, when we just took everyone out away from everything to kind of reflect, to focus on what the original principles and objectives of Solesides were and what had been achieved. It was kind of a group consensus that we had achieved it all, so it was like, "Okay, where to now?" We kind of took on a destroy-and-build ethic with it, in that we had built it up, but we wanted to tear it all down and build it up into something stronger. Thus was the formation of Quannum projects.

X: Not at all. It was just that we had looked at what was happening in terms of the outstanding response we got from the Latyrx album and the gains that we had made on every level with every group involved, and it all far exceed what the original intents were. We also looked at the music everybody was making. I mean, everybody saw what was happening with Nia and how much more advanced it was from any of our previous works. We saw where Lyrics Born was going production-wise and as a lyricist, the things that Shadow was doing and the things that Lateef was doing, and we just wanted to build a stronger vehicle to support all of our work.

X: Just a musical expansion. Our new album, Spectrum, features Blackalicious and Quannum as a group-Blackalicious, Latyrx and DJ Shadow. It also features a lot of people that we like and respect a lot. There are collaborations with El-P from Company Flow, Jurassic 5, Souls of Mischief; we have a new band signed to Quannum Projects called The Poets of Rhythm who are incredible; and we have a new solo vocalist named Joyo Valarde. So hopefully, Spectrum is just glance into the revamped vision, just to give people a small taste of what's to come.

X: The sky is not the limit. God willing, this music will just manifest itself and our dreams for it, and bring forth good things.

Gab: Absolutely. It's just a lot of working and a lot of creating, doing our projects.

Pick up Blackalicious' Melodica EP and the A to G EP, both available at finer record stores. Also, grab up a copy of the Quannum Projects Spectrum album and be the coolest kid on the block.

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