Timothy Parker, better known by his stage name Gift of Gab, is an American rapper best known for performing in the Bay Area hip hop duo Blackalicious along with DJ Chief Xcel. He is also a member of Quannum Projects, a Bay Area hip hop crew and record label, and has performed and recorded as a solo artist.
Endtroducing..... is the debut album by American music producer DJ Shadow, released on September 16, 1996 by Mo' Wax. It is composed almost entirely of samples, mostly from vinyl records, and features moody, slow tracks and upbeat jams reminiscent of Shadow's early hip hop influences. Shadow produced Endtroducing over two years using minimal equipment, particularly an MPC60 sampler.
Jared Bridgeman, better known by his stage name Akrobatik, is an American rapper from the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. He is also a part of the hip hop collective named The Perceptionists with Mr. Lif and DJ Fakts One, which released Black Dialogue in 2005.
Lateef Daumont, better known by his stage name Lateef the Truthspeaker, or mononymously as Lateef, is a hip hop artist from Oakland, California. He is a member of several hip hop groups such as Latyrx, Lateef and the Chief, and The Mighty Underdogs. He was one of the founding members of the Solesides collective, which became Quannum Projects.
Nia is the debut studio album by American hip hop duo Blackalicious. It was released in Europe by Mo' Wax on August 30, 1999, and later re-released in the United States by Quannum Projects on February 29, 2000, with a slightly altered track listing.
Latyrx is an alternative hip hop duo consisting of Lateef the Truthspeaker and Lyrics Born. The roots of their partnership lay in the formation of the Solesides collective at the University of California, Davis.
Selling Live Water is a solo studio album by American hip hop artist Sole. It was released on Anticon in 2003. It peaked at number 126 on the CMJ Radio 200 chart, as well as number 7 on CMJ's Hip-Hop chart.
Little Johnny from the Hospitul: Breaks & Instrumentals Vol.1 is an instrumental album by American hip hop group Company Flow, released in 1999. It peaked at number 29 on the UK R&B Albums Chart.
Solesides was an underground hip hop label based in Northern California, founded in 1991. It comprised various DJs and MCs, the most notable being DJ Shadow, MC–producer Lyrics Born, and the duo, Blackalicious. The members of Solesides all met via the radio station, KDVS, the 5000-watt community radio station of the University of California at Davis. During high school, Davis-natives DJ Shadow and The 8th Wonder used to frequent the station to support Orus Washington's hip-hop show. In college, journalist and then-grad student Jeff Chang, broadcast a weekly hip-hop radio show that got the attention of DJ Shadow and The 8th Wonder, freshmen Xavier Mosely, Tom Shimura and Joseph Patel. They all shared a like-minded passion for hip-hop that pushed beyond the sounds of mainstream commercial music.
Later That Day is the debut solo studio album by Lyrics Born. It was released on Quannum Projects in 2003. It peaked at number 40 on the Billboard Independent Albums chart.
Quannum Spectrum is a 1999 compilation album by artists associated with American hip hop record label and collective Quannum Projects. It was the first release on the Quannum label after its name was changed from Solesides. In addition to Quannum artists, the album features contributions from Jurassic 5, Divine Styler, Souls of Mischief, and El-P.
The Album is the first studio album by Latyrx, an American hip hop duo consisting of Lateef the Truthspeaker and Lyrics Born. It was released on Solesides in 1997, and it was re-released on Quannum Projects in 2002.
'"Send Them/Entropy "', is a double A side EP by Asia Born and DJ Shadow and the Groove Robbers. This was released 1993 from Solesides. Parts of this were later featured on the retrospective album Solesides Greatest Bumps.
Droppin' Science Fiction is the first studio album by The Mighty Underdogs, an American hip hop group consisting of producer Headnodic and rappers Lateef the Truthspeaker and Gift of Gab. It was released by Definitive Jux on October 14, 2008. It peaked at number 50 on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart.
Joshua Paul Davis, better known by his stage name DJ Shadow, is an American record producer and DJ. He first gained notice with the release of his highly acclaimed debut studio album, Endtroducing...... He has a personal record collection of over 60,000 records.
Jeff Chang is an American journalist and music critic on hip hop music and culture. His 2005 book, Can't Stop Won't Stop, which won the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award, chronicles the early hip hop scene. His writings have appeared in publications such as URB, The Bomb, San Francisco Chronicle, the Village Voice, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Vibe, Spin, The Nation, and Mother Jones. Jeff was the Executive Director of the Institute for Diversity in the Arts + Committee on Black Performing Arts at Stanford University. In June 2018, the Institute announced in a press release that Chang will leave to become the first vice president of Narrative, Arts, and Culture at Race Forward.
Blackalicious is an American hip-hop duo from Sacramento, California, made up of rapper Gift of Gab and DJ/producer Chief Xcel. They are noted for Gift of Gab's often tongue-twisting, multisyllabic, complex rhymes. The duo have released four full-length albums.
Tsutomu "Tom" Shimura, better known by his stage name Lyrics Born, is a rapper and producer. He is one half of the duo Latyrx with Lateef the Truthspeaker.
Tragic Epilogue is the first studio album by American hip hop group Antipop Consortium. It was released on 75 Ark on February 22, 2000. The group's member Beans described it as "a eulogy to the end of hip-hop".
