Blackalicious aligned themselves with certain West Coast rap outfits such as the Pharcyde and Jurassic 5 by favoring the so-called “positive tip,” favoring spiritual and uplifting themes over violent or misogynistic ones. Although the duo shared the quirky, eccentric tendencies common among experimental alternative rappers, spirituality remained a central element of their recordings. Although the group itself did not coalesce until the early 1990s, its core members had already crossed paths in the late 1980s. Gift of Gab, born Timothy Parker, and Chief Xcel, born Xavier Mosley, first encountered each other in 1987 as students at John F. Kennedy High School in Sacramento, California. Neither was a Sacramento native: the DJ and producer Xcel, then performing as DJ IceSki, hailed from the San Francisco Bay Area, while the rapper Gift of Gab came from the San Fernando Valley suburbs of Los Angeles.
After Gift of Gab, also known as Gabby T, finished high school in 1989, the pair went separate ways until they reconnected in Davis, California, in 1992. By then Xcel was enrolled at the University of California at Davis, and Gift of Gab had relocated there specifically to launch Blackalicious. While attending UC Davis, Xcel began collaborating with the hip-hop collective SoleSides, whose roster included DJ Shadow, Lateef the Truth Speaker, and Lyrics Born. The crew’s Northern California imprint, SoleSides Records, issued Blackalicious’ first single, “Swan Lake,” in 1994; though never a commercial blockbuster, the track found favor as an underground favorite within alternative rap circles. SoleSides Records followed with the EP Melodica in 1995. By the end of 1997 the label had rebranded as Quannum Records, which released the subsequent Blackalicious EP A2G in 1999.
Quannum issued the group’s debut full-length, Nia—a Swahili term meaning purpose—in 2000. Eight years after forming, Blackalicious secured a major-label deal when MCA added the Californians to its roster late that year. The resulting album, Blazing Arrow, appeared in April 2002 on the Quannum/MCA imprint and featured contributions from vocalist Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine, the Roots’ Questlove, and veteran soul and jazz poet Gil Scott-Heron. Following the promotional tour, both Xcel and Gift of Gab pursued individual projects; Quannum released Maroons’ Ambush, pairing Chief Xcel with Lateef the Truth Speaker of Latyrx, alongside Gift of Gab’s solo effort Fourth Dimensional Rocketships Going Up. The duo reconvened in 2005 for their third album, The Craft, issued on the Anti- label.
A decade elapsed before another Blackalicious release, during which Gift of Gab completed three further solo albums and Xcel collaborated with RV Salters under the name Burning House. The two also spent three of those years shaping Imani, Vol. 1, which surfaced in 2015 as the group’s fourth studio album and included appearances by Lateef, Lyrics Born, Imani Coppola, and Zap Mama. Rapper Gift of Gab passed away on June 18, 2021, at the age of 50.
