by SCOTT C

Having bridged the gap between independent hip hop success story and major-label baptism with relatively no sweat whatsoever, Blackalicious are preparing to bless open ears with yet another offering this coming January. The Oakland duo of Chief Xcel and Gift of Gab released their debut, Melodica, in 1995, heralding the arrival of a new voice in West Coast hip hop. Gab's verbal gymnastics and Xcel's tailor-made productions were also closely linked with DJ Shadow, Lateef the Truth Speaker and Lyrics Born, all contributors to the short-lived glory days of their collective label, Solesides. Coming back hard in 1999 with new label Quannum Projects, Blackalicious released the A2G EP, followed by the album Nia. Blazing Arrow, their first album recorded after signing with MCA, pushed these hip hop futurists to yet another level of evolution, collaborating with artists like Rage Against the Machine's Zack de la Rocha, Jurassic 5's Cut Chemist, ?uestlove of the Roots, DJ Shadow, Ben Harper and Gil Scott Heron. After 10 years in the game, Blackalicious continue to be energized by music, challenging listeners as well as each other. As the pair get ready to headline the grand finale of Concordia's Orientation Festival (running September 2 to 11), the Mirror spoke to Chief Xcel over the phone from his home in Oakland, California.

Mirror: I want to ask you a personal question.

Chief Xcel: Shoot.

M: Do you actually listen to hip hop? I've noticed this sort of trend with the hip hop artists that I've been talking to over the last while, which involves listening to no hip hop, or very, very little.

CX: It stays pretty consistent with me. I mean, like everything, rap constantly runs in cycles where you have your high periods and your low periods. Even then there's those few gems that tend to stick out, and they kind of actually get you through those low periods. We're always looking at different ways of expanding and learning, and I think to hear people say that hip hop is not what it used to be is thinking backwards instead of forwards. I always try to look at it with optimism, man.

M: Have you and Gab ever felt like it was your turn to contribute a gem to the sea of mediocrity?

CX: First of all, I feel like hip hop, like every form of black music from jazz, funk and soul to R&B, is all part of a continuum. It's really not about us making our contributions. We've never approached things with a "we're here to save the day" kind of feel. For us, this is the music that we make, a reflection of who we are at a certain time in our lives. The idea for us has been to make that contribution with as much honesty and integrity as possible.

M: Has there ever been a moment where you caught yourself saying out loud, "I'm getting old in this shit!"?

CX: Yeah, everyday (laughs). I'm in close contact with a lot of youths on a daily basis, just with kids from around the way. When I talk to them, the Pharcyde is old school. I'm like, damn! It's kind of ill, but then when I think about it, their reference point makes sense. It's 2003 and the average 16 year old was five years old when Pharcyde's Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde came out! That would be the equivalent to me in 1988 thinking about some thing that came out in 1977, which is pre-Sugar Hill Gang. If you look at it like that, it's kind of like, damn! The beautiful thing about it is that our artform, our genre is still developing. So you have not one or two generations of hip hop, but now three and four generations of hip hop that have grown up with the music. Some people's reference point is Biggie or Tupac, and that's not necessarily a bad thing as long as they study what came before them, y'know?

The aging b-boy

M: Uh oh.

CX: What?

M: It's the plight of the aging b-boy!

CX: Man, I was just talking to my cousin the other day about the aging b-boy, and how these guys are buying mortgages and starting college funds for their kids. He was trippin' because he was like, "My wife can recite the lyrics of just about every hip hop song that came out before 1993, but she doesn't even check for any of the stuff that's coming out now." Ever since I heard "Rapper's Delight," I was sold. After I heard Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel, it was done. So, I've always made it a point to just check for shit, whether it's commercial or underground. I try to be open and listen to everything that I can.

M: I just feel like a lot of people truly believe that you eventually grow out of hip hop, and that's in part thanks to a lot of the truly infantile and almost disposable shit that we're bombarded with a lot of the time.

CX: For us, it's impossible to grow out of because it's what we grew up through. It's always been the limb that has helped create our perspective on the world. It's in us, and there's no takin' it out of us. We could have this conversation 30 years from now and we'll be talking about the perspective of a 60-year-old b-boy (laughs). That's why I love touring the European festivals, man. You get to see cats like Herbie Hancock, who's gotta be almost 60, still up there doing his craft. George Benson too. They're still out there and they're still doing it. Artists in our genre will be doing that same thing very soon.

Hip hop globetrot

M: When did you realize, as an artist, that hip hop was bigger than your area, and say to yourself, "There's a big world out there we need to check?"

CX: I think I was 14 or 15. I saw a documentary about b-boy culture worldwide, where they had cats from France, cats from Germany and all the breakin' and graffiti crews from all over the globe. At that point I knew this shit was global. I think there was this group from the U.K. called Phase and Rhythm and I they had a 12-inch called "Layin' Down the Beat." That came out in '86, '87, and it was really dope. I was also a big fan of Derek B from London, and London Posse. In the early '90s I got exposed to hip hop from Japan with my man DJ Muro -

M: The king of diggin'?

CX: Yeah. Him and his group Microphone Pager were really dope. It's kind of ironic that our first record Melodica came out in the U.K. before it came out in the States.

M: When you and Gab sit down to make music, does the question of relevance or marketability ever come into the process?

CX: It's kind of funny that you ask that, because we're working on the new album right now. This process has been different than any other album process that we've entered into, in that this was the first one that begun after "the storm," or after our major label debut. We just went in and were like, "Yo, fuck everything else, we have to stick to our chemistry." Nothing matters except the music. Nothing matters except what is coming from the minds of Tim and Xavier.

With Brassmunk, specifics, Rugged MC, the Quad Squad breakers and paintings by Heavyweight at le Spectrum on Thursday, Sept. 11, 7:30pm, $15 (free for Concordia students)

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