E-Mail This Article to a Friend Quannum leaps A hip-hop collective hits the road BY MICHAEL ALAN GOLDBERG

In 1991, five UC Cal-Davis undergrads — Josh Davis, Xavier Mosley, Tim Parker, Tom Shimura, and Lateef Daumont — drawn by their mutual love of hip-hop to Jeff Chang’s campus radio show, forged a tight bond over the dusty vinyl artifacts they’d spin into the wee hours of the morning. Soon, the crew would formalize their union under the Solesides banner, a means to put out their own singles and book local shows.

In the decade-plus that followed, their adopted monikers and collective creations would become some of the most revered and respected in independent hip-hop circles and beyond: DJ Shadow (Davis), Blackalicious (Mosley as Chief Xcel and Parker as the Gift of Gab), Lyrics Born (Shimura), Lateef the Truth Speaker (Daumont), Latyrx (Daumont and Shimura), DJ Zen (Chang). Along the way, there were more evolutions as well. Chang left to pursue a career as a journalist. Solesides relocated to the Bay Area and morphed into the more-structured, better-distributed Quannum Projects. Some charter members inked major-label deals, released acclaimed albums, and found themselves on the road more often than at home; others stayed closer to the fort, honing their production skills and looking for fresh artists to sign and mentor. Nearly everyone embraced collaborations outside the Quannum habitat. In recent years, all those varying commitments and opportunities made getting the fivesome together onstage or in the studio, much less at someone’s house just to hang out as in the old days, a rare event indeed.

Which is why, when the idea was put forth last year that the entire roster — artists old and new — embark on its first-ever national tour, all parties made sure to clear their schedules and make it happen, if for no other reason than to reunify the fellowship and signal to fans that it’s as solid as ever. The tour comes to the Avalon April 15.

"I’m just excited about the fact that I’ll get to spend a lot of time with my friends," says Shadow over the phone from the UK, where he’s playing a handful of solo gigs in advance of the Quannum trek. "I should be spending all my time in the studio because people always complain that it takes me too long to make records. But this tour is gonna be a lot of fun. It’s a way of saying, this is who we are and hey, we’ve been around as a label for 12 years now and that’s a long time by hip-hop standards, by any standards, really. Plus, I feel that in a lot of ways I’ve changed musically, that the music we’re gonna be putting out is a little different; we’re redesigning the Quannum logo . . . so this is a good way to kick all of that off."

The tour is happening in the midst of a relatively fertile era for Quannum, known more for the quality of its output than the quantity (of its 40 releases, fewer than 10 have been full-length albums). The second half of 2003 brought Lyrics Born’s richly entertaining (and five years in the making) debut long-player, Later That Day . . . , as well as the Spirit in Stone album from Portland, Oregon’s, Lifesavas, the first non-Solesides act brought into the fold. Set to drop in May is Gift of Gab’s solo bow, Fourth Dimensional Rocketships Going Up; a debut album from songstress Joyo Velarde (who’s crooned on the Lyrics Born album and Blackalicious’s Blazing Arrow) is on the horizon, and Shadow himself just put the wraps on his first Quannum single in about four years, "Put Your Back Into It," which will be available only at tour stops.

"It would be cool to have three or four new artists and a bunch of releases every year," he says, "but it’ll probably always focus on the original core. I’m happy if it’s the kind of label where even if it sits in limbo for five years, it’s ready to fire back up and always be there as a permanent outlet if we don’t have anything else available or we wanna experiment with something different musically."

As for what fans can expect live, Shadow says the crew will eschew separate sets in favor of performing as one big unit, likening the scene to a (mostly) well-rehearsed Broadway production in which people rotate on and off the stage. Given the amount of talent, exceptional material, and long-standing camaraderie shared by these cast members, this show promises to be one of the finest hours in Quannum’s illustrious history.

"I was recently looking at some performance footage of us from like 1993, and remembering where our heads were at," Shadow muses. "It was just all about being in school mode, where we had very few cares outside of exams or whatever. You didn’t have to worry about house payments, kids, wives, any of that kinda stuff. Things have definitely changed, but when we all come together it’s just as fun and funny as always, everyone’s jokin’ around, and the musical ideas still flow. We know how to make good things happen."

Quannum World 2004, with DJ Shadow, Blackalicious, DJ D-Sharp, the Gift of Gab, Joyo Velarde, Latyrx, Lateef and the Chief, Lifesavas, and Lyrics Born, comes to Avalon, 15 Lansdowne Street, on April 15; call (617) 228-6000.