Touring duo Blackalicious the sound of the other California

By FEDERICO MONSALVE

Sacramento in California has cows and politicians. A few kilometres down the road, Davis has middle-class kids at university and a surfer population that rivals Malibu and Santa Monica put together.

Further south, the Bay area, including San Francisco and Oakland, gets a little bit more mixed.

The hip-hop beats, the street culture and soulful jams permeate the most liberal (and one of the wealthiest) sectors in the state.

So when a couple of African-American kids from the Bay, passionate about hip-hop, go to the University of California at Davis and then ship off to Sacramento, the chemistry is intriguing and the musical result equally introspective and multicultural.

"DJ X-Cel and I hooked up in Davis, we were doing a radio show and met Laryx and DJ Shadow," says Blackalicious' surprisingly quiet MC Gift of Gab (Timothy Parker), from Sydney.

"Being at university there was like isolation, you know. We got to know each other artistically really, really well and spent a lot of time swapping music and ideas."

Their music seems thought out, well written, crafted by pen and paper rather than cathartic street battles.

Blackalicious know their ABCs and they are proud to let the world know.

Their hit Alphabet Aerobics (the equivalent of Jane Fonda for verbal fitness) is a tongue-twisting masterpiece and a testament of MC Gift of Gab's passion for weaving language with an extreme mix of musical influences.

DJ X-Cel finds beats from everywhere, rock, classical, jazz, soul.

"It's about how to best depict a vibe, how to throw an emotion or a situation out there and do it in a fun way that hasn't been done before - that's what I want my music to be.

"Like I wrote the song Chemical Calisthenics [where Gab goes through the periodic table getting increasingly faster] in one night while waiting for Cut Chemist [from Jurassic 5] to show up to the studio.

"It was hard out trying to arrange chemical elements, all this new language and making it into something that would be fun."

Their reputation as purveyors of finely tuned, lyrically driven hip-hop rests on the weight of Melodica. The 1994 EP was a marathon through a wide range of styles, from the soulful 40 Oz. for Breakfast to the rhymed extravaganza of Lyric Fathom.

"We've grown a lot from that album. Blazing Arrow [their latest LP] was more collaborative and we had a chance to work with people like Ben Harper and Gil Scott-Heron," says Gab.

"So we feed from a lot of their talent, learn and weave it into our music."

Musically, Blackalicious have become one of the longer lasting ambassadors of the West Coast sound that evokes long stretches of desert road, rhythms that weave spirituals, slide guitars, and horns that scream welcome to the car wash.

Lyrically Gab has the gift, and he ends the conversation with a sly confession: "We are beating through the dictionary man, we want y'all to try and keep up!"

* Who: Blackalicious, hip-hop outfit

* Where and when: Galatos, Galatos St, Newton; tonight and tomorrow (tomorrow sold out).

* Cost: $44.50