SoleSides/Quannum Projects: independent hip-hop outside the industry and mainstream

StrettoBlaster’s signature feature, the Hip Hop Labels project, is back in full force, with a long-overdue mix, for more than one reason. The first one is that this mix was supposed to go out years ago, but it got stuck in what common mortals call…life. Precisely, mine. Hence, to put it simply, this is my fault, sorry about that. Nonetheless, we are finally here.

I say “we” because this gem is brought to you by w-w-w-dot-strettoblast… No, ok. Later. The usual research and digging efforts were made by yours truly, 2Mave, and the mix was composed, skillfully crafted and beautifully cut by a new presence here at SB. Let me introduce you to Dj Funkulo, aka Andrea, who enthusiastically committed to this project and made an egregious work out of it. Bravo!

The second main reason is that, if we are talking about indie labels, this one should have been explored before, due to the sheer quality of the body of work they published. We have been to California before (check your Good Vibes, folks), but today, we are mining gold with what appears to be a double feature, but it is in fact one: Bay Area’s finest, SoleSides and Quannum Projects.

A story of friendship and like-minded passion for Hip Hop: the Solesides

Before delving into the history of the SoleSides collective, let me say that when I approached this label I was kinda convinced it would have been a pretty straightforward kind of research. Looking at the names, I was expecting to have readily available the albums of all the main acts of this collective, names like DJ Shadow or Blackalicious. Oh, boy, how naïve I was.

Basically, none of the albums for which they are famous were published through their label. Yeah, let’s look at Blackalicious: they only published a couple of EPs with these two labels throughout the entire parable of their careers. Which made the entire thing more difficult.

SoleSides was born in 1991 as a collective/label comprised of emcees and djs and even more as a close-knit group of friends when they were all freshmen at college. The entire thing kick-started revolving around KDVS, the community radio station of the University of California at Davis, where the head figure and mentor, Jeff Chang (later author of an interesting book about the “Hip Hop generation”, aptly titled Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop – which made KRS One unhappy, though – check it here) broadcast a Hip Hop radio show.

The original lineup and the cohesive core of the collective were constituted by DJ Shadow, the late The Gift of Gab (R.I.P.) and Chief Xcel  ( these two were also known as Blackalicious), and Lateef The Truth Speaker and Lyrics Born (i.e., Latyrx). These five guys will be the artistic heart of SoleSides and, by extension, of Quannum Projects later.

The idea was immediately to go in a different direction, away from the commercialised mainstream music, a factor which basically remained the signature of the collective since then. In a sentence, a huge kiss and goodbye to any easy-listening temptation.

You all remember DJ Shadow naming a song on his masterpiece “Why Hip Hop sucks in 1996”, which might seem strange looking back now, when the entire nineties are often called the golden age.

But Shadow had quite a different conception about what this music could have been and was capable of being, even back then. For him, it was all about experimentation, breaking down genres and being desperately anchored to an idea of hip-hop which wasn’t banalised as just plain rappin’. What he was trying to do wasn’t promote a defensive vision of hip hop (like much of the later backpackerism) but to preserve the content by innovating the form.

His contribution shaped what instrumental hip hop looked like. And it all started with that first single in 1993 called “Entropy“.

SoleSides’ artist-run experience ended in 1997 mostly with few singles and EPs published, but it was strong enough to pave the way for a quite interesting arch of long-plays and some juicy contracts for at least Shadow himself and Blackalicious. Amongst the best works we can find the quite renowned “Melodica” EP by Blackalicious and, as the final hurrah and best-selling LP, Latyrix first and only album.

Talk about going out with a bang. The self-named leadoff track is a great introduction to Lateef and Lyrics Born careers, and it has been consistently considered an underground classic by many (like Blockhead, for example). While the title-track created a lot of buzz when it came out as a b-side the year before, the album was in a way the epitome of the avant-gardist, experimental Hip Hop they were trying to spearhead at SoleSides. In a Bay Area that was already full of temerarious and boundary-pushing Hip Hop music, SoleSides definitely put their name on the map of the who’s who of the underground.

Then SoleSides closed down, only to be re-shaped and open up again as Quannum Projects few months later.

Quannum Projects: another step ahead of the curve

Between 1999 and the early Y2K’s, Quannum Projects represented by all intents and purposes the Bay Area counterpart of Def Jux (you can find our previous Def Jux mix here), without the Big-Apple-centric quirkiness and post-apocalyptic flavours of the El-Producto-directed label, but with all the creativity and innovation you would expect from such an eclectic group of artists.

The comparison ain’t that strange if we consider that The Mighty Underdogs (Lateef & The Gift of Gab plus Headnodic, of Crown City Rockers fame) album was indeed published by Def Jux in 2008.

Well, not everything went immediately smoothly. The first volley of the new label/collective was, potentially, an awesome product. The label presented itself to the world with the visually memorable compilation Quannum Spectrum, in which Quannum Mc’s intersected with an interesting array of guests, like Company Flow’s survivor El-P, and other California underground heavyweights like Souls Of Mischief, Jurassic 5 and Divine Styler. But, out of nowhere, they also brought in a German funk band, The Poets Of Rhythm.

The problem is that the very first compilation from Quannum is a mixed bag of hits and misses. The intent to break the norms and categorisations was clear, but the results were subpar in the long run. That did not deter Quannum people from going forward in their quest to innovate the terrain of what could be called Hip Hop.

From then on, a string of solid performances followed, starting with Blackalicious A2G EP, followed by The Gift of Gab’s solo albums, Lyrics Born’s first solo adventure in 2003 and the much later solo album of Lateef The Truthspeaker.

There are times when Quannum’s main emcees overly exert their own verbal dexterity, but more often than not, they casually strike a balance between extreme virtuosity, random rawness and overall thematic mindfulness, making what they say and how they say it worth listening to.

Quannum always stayed as almost family-like type of affair. Aside from the usual suspects, the label did end up expanding to a few other artists around 2003. Honestly, though, most of what was published from the outside of the original core seems more like a bizarre musical divertissement.

I mean, what the hell were they thinking when they signed Curumin or published General Elektriks’ first album totally escapes me.

Way more fruitful was the addition within Quannum’s orbit of Portland, Oregon’s born Lifesavas. Now, here we can find uncompromising underground Hip Hop which perfectly continues the label trajectory while being personal. Not ground-breaking, maybe, but somewhat elegant and gifted with productive acumen. Lifesavas first album straight away allows us to receive a snapshot of both the man behind the mic, Vursatyl, and of the two men behind the boards, Jumbo The Garbageman and Rev. Shines.

Slowly gliding down: the petering out of Quannums

And soon came the end. You should have noticed by now, but exploring these indie Hip Hop labels has been an exercise in self-harming. Since most (if not all) of them are by now defunct, this scenery really is a plurima mortis imago, like Virgil’s quote.

Quannum artists remained somewhat a connoisseur’s choice, partially at their own uncompromising aesthetic will, partially because what they were doing was simply too sophisticated for the middle-to-late 2000s music market.

Nonetheless, they pushed through into the first few years of the next decade, with probably the last album made in 2012 by The Gift Of Gab. After that, there were a few solo projects here and there, none published as Quannum Projects.

What is left is a brilliant image of what the underground hip hop scene was like from the early ‘90s to the first decade of the new century. A helluva lot of music for us, of which we offer a brief sample here with our mix.

Enjoy the tracklist and best regards, y’all!

SoleSides/Quannum Projects – A Tribute Mixtape

Tracklist:
01 Latyrx (Hard Left Remix) – Lateef & Z-Trip
02 A To G – Blackalicious
03 The Wreckoning – Lateef the Truthspeaker
04 Bad Dreams – Lyrics Born
05 Livin’ Time Life Movement 1 – Lifesavas feat. The Gift Of Gab
06 Best Of Me – Maroons feat. The Gift Of Gab
07 Swan Lake – Blackalicious
08 Way of the Light – The Gift of Gab
09 Gutterfly – Lifesavas feat. Camp Lo
10 Pack Up Remix – Lyrics Born feat. Evidence & KRS-One
11 Rise – The Gift of Gab feat. Raashan Ahmad & Zumbi