Mo’ Wax — Where Are They Now: Blackalicious (1999)
Mo’ Wax was a record label started by James Lavelle in 1992, which closed about ten years later. Initially they released 12" singles and licensed a compilation from Japan of Japanese Hip Hop, until 1994 when they began releasing albums of their artists original work. While some of these artists such as DJ Shadow, DJ Krush, and Money Mark continued releasing music after Mo’ Wax closed, others have seemingly disappeared from the music scene. In this series I will look at each artist on Mo’ Wax and try to find out where are they now…
Blackalicious are Timothy Parker, aka Gift of Gab, and Xavier Mosley, aka Chief Xcel. The two first met in 1987 as students of John F. Kennedy High School in Sacramento, California, and were originally part of a three piece which Mosley likened to “a RUN DMC type thing with two MC’s and one DJ”. Their third member was a fellow John F. Kennedy student and MC known as Homicide, but when he left the school the planned group fell apart. Timothy Parker had also been working with a DJ named Maestro K, but when Maestro K lost interest in Hip Hop Parker called Xavier Mosley, as Parker later explained, “I was left without a DJ. I called X and was like ‘Yo I need a DJ’ he said, ‘For how long?’ and I said ‘Forever’ and it has been on since then”.
After graduating high school in 1989 Mosley moved to Davis, California to study at UC Davis, and he and Parker kept in touch, exchanging songs over the phone, until Parker moved to Davis and Blackalicious were reunited in 1992. In Davis, Parker was introduced to Mosley’s friends who had come together thanks to a regular Hip Hop radio show hosted by Jeff Chang, aka DJ Zen. These students included Josh Davis, Lateef Daumont, and Tom Shimura, and at the end of 1992 they formed Solesides, an independent Hip Hop record label.
Solesides’ first release came in February 1993, with a 12" featuring both Josh Davis as DJ Shadow, and Tom Shimura as Asia Born. October 1994 saw the labels second release, Blackalicious’ Swan Lake, followed by another Blackalicious release, the Melodica EP which was later referred to by Muzik as “One of the best slices of progressive, underground hip hop ever cut”. The Melodica EP was released in the UK before the USA, and the UK pressing was put out by Mo’ Wax in 1994 featuring 11 tracks, including instrumental versions. This was given the catalogue number MWSSLP 001, and while the Melodica press release suggested this was the start of a new series of Mo’ Wax / Solesides releases, it was the first and last time Mo’ Wax used the MWSS format.
Fans in North America had to pay extra to import the Mo’ Wax edition until July 1995 when Jeff Chang posted online announcing that the Solesides edition of the Melodica EP was now out in stores along the West Coast. Describing the differences between the Solesides and Mo’ Wax versions, Chang explained the Solesides pressing had “a new track, new cover art, no instrumentals. It’s put together tight-ass just the way we wanted it to be. Plus it’s hella cheap…” Chang also announced that Blackalicious had just finished recording new B-sides for another single which was due soon, but nothing was released, and following Melodica fans began wondering again how long they’d have to wait for more Blackalicious.
In 1997 the official Solesides website announced work had been finished on Blackalicious’ debut album, with the title revealed to be Nia. The website further explained that: “there’s still some more tweaking left to be done. The first single is titled “Do You Love It Enough?” with “Trouble” on the b-side. Look for the single and the album to be out later this year, and stay tuned to the website for song previews and more details.” No further update was forthcoming, and a song titled Do You Love It Enough was never released. Part of this could be due to Solesides closing at the end of 1996, and while the label was reborn in 1997 as Quannum Projects with many of the same artists, the Quannum labels first release didn’t arrive until 1999.
Nia was also eventually released in 1999, preceded by the A2G EP which included exclusives such as Alphabet Aerobics alongside other songs which featured on Nia. The albums delay was associated to “personal turmoil,” which Parker described as “a frustrating period, the hardest in my life,” but luckily the groups fans were still present and the album sold over 250,000 copies.
Rolling Stone gave Nia 3/5, writing, “The rhyme patterns on Nia recall Eighties rap classics, but the break beats are broken up and fueled by whimsical samples, Xcel’s turntablist-inspired scratching and new pan-African patterns…This longing for post-gangsta hip-hop has been expressed before but has seldom rocked so well.” Spin also praised the albums “cogent, committed songwriting” awarding it 8/10. NME felt it didn’t hold up to their earlier Melodica EP, and in one of the albums few negative reviews they gave the album 6/10. But while they praised stand out tracks such as Cliff Hanger, The Fabulous Ones, and Making Progress, they concluded the album “too often dips into jazzy blandness.”
The album peaked at #22 in the UK Independent Albums Chart, and #29 in Billboards Independent Albums Chart for the USA. In the UK, Mo’ Wax also released two more singles from the group, with both Deception and If I May / Reanimation also entering the UK Charts, and the press release for Deception teased a future release of a song called Cliffhanger in 2000. This doesn’t appear to have been released, and likewise, following the release on Nia, Blackalicious also teased a new album titled B-Sides Live which would collect their non-album tracks with recordings from their Nia tour. While the band did make recordings of shows in England, France, America, and the Netherlands, these remained unreleased, and instead Nia was followed by Blazing Arrow in 2002, a new album from Blackalicious which the group began recording during the Nia tour.
By this time Mo’ Wax was closing and Blazing Arrow was released worldwide by Universal Music via MCA Records, after a bidding war thanks to Nia’s strong sales. Rolling Stone awarded Blazing Arrow 4/5, and Pitchfork gave it 9.3/10, calling it “one of those classic summer albums that crams in so much sound and so much life that listening to it is like going to a block party, all-day concert and a family reunion all at the same time.” Meanwhile, Spin gave the album 6/10 and felt that its guest artists hogged the spotlight too much, with the album featuring appearances from Zack de la Rocha, Cut Chemist, Ben Harper, Gil Scott-Heron, Money Mark, Sean Lennon, DJ Shadow, Lyrics Born and Lateef, among others.
Blazing Arrow was followed by The Craft in 2005 before Blackalicious went on hiatus, and both members worked on other projects which they had begun exploring in the early 2000's. Parker has since released several solo albums as The Gift Of Gab, while Mosley teamed with fellow Solesides/Quannum crew member Lateef Daumont to release the album Ambush in 2004 under the name Maroons, before teaming with Hervé Salters for the album Walking Into A Burning House in 2013.
In 2014 Blackalicious’ Alphabet Aerobics, from their 1999 A2G EP, entered the UK Independent Singles Chart Top 50 after actor Daniel Radcliffe performed the song on TV. With renewed press interest, Blackalicious took the opportunity to announce they had new music coming soon, and after a ten year hiatus between albums, in 2015 Blackalicious released Imani Vol. 1. The album was met with positive reviews, and Blackalicious announced that it was the first part in a proposed trilogy, reassuring fans that they were still active.
2019 saw Blackalicious tour in celebration of Nia’s 20th anniversary, and they celebrated New Years Eve with a special Quannum MC’s event featuring Blackalicious, Lateef the Truthspeaker, and Lyrics Born.
In January 2020, Parker announced on Facebook that he had been on dialysis for the past seven years due to kidney failure, but that he would finally be receiving a transplant soon. Due to the extreme costs involved, Parker started a fundraiser and gave everyone who made donations access to a special solo EP called Offering, and in September Parker shared several updates to the Blackalicious Facebook page where he appears to be doing well.
In an update from February 2020, Parker announced that he was working on a new solo album titled Finding Inspiration Somehow, and that a new Blackalicious album was also in the works. This would be the follow up to 2015’s Imani Vol. 1. which the group previously hoped to release the second volume of in 2019, and while it’s unclear if this is still part of the Imani trilogy, fans will surely rejoice at hearing that the group remain active in 2020 after a friendship and partnership that has lasted over thirty years.
