Obituary: Quick-spitting Blackalicious MC Gift of Gab dead at 50
Gift of Gab performs with Blackalicious at Yoshi’s in Oakland on Jan. 9, 2020; his final Bay Area performance. Sean Liming/STAFF.
Much-loved hip-hop MC Timothy J. Parker, better known by his stage name Gift of Gab, passed away June 18 of natural causes at 50, his collaborators announced on Friday. Originally from Sacramento, Gift of Gab was the frontman for Bay Area project Blackalicious, along with DJ Chief Xcel (Xavier Mosley).
Gab’s gift was truly something special. His intricate and articulate flow could elevate songs into thought-provoking transformative experiences. Harder-hitting than other conscious rap MCs, Gab also distinguished himself with brilliant and experimental lyricism. Much respected in every corner of the hip-hop world, he was a stunning performer as well, capable of stealing the show with uncanny freestyles.
“It is with much sadness and a heavy heart I announce the passing of my friend and brother of 34 years, Timothy Jerome Parker aka The Gift of Gab,” Chief Xcel wrote on Instagram. “He returned peacefully to the essence on June 18, 2021.”
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A master of quick-witted and twisting rhymes, which sometimes had the added difficulty of a theme, such as on 1999’s iconic “Alphabet Aerobics” (where each word in each line started with the same letter, from A to Z), Parker lived through several health scares: most recently, kidney failure. He finally received a transplant in January 2020, when Blackalicious played their final shows prior to the pandemic. The duo’s last Bay Area performance came at Yoshi’s in Oakland on Jan. 9, 2020, performing a career-spanning set.
“When Gab broke away for an extended verse, he used seemingly bottomless lungs to develop a crescendo of intensity that peaked with some hard-hitting truths,” RIFF critic Alex Baechle wrote.
Parker and Mosley met at Sacramento’s John F. Kennedy High School in 1987 and formed Blackalicious several years later while Mosley attended the University of California, Davis. During this time, the duo began working with Lyrics Born and DJ Shadow, a bond that would go on to last permanently. Lyrics Born (Tsutomu Shimura) once told RIFF that he and Gift of Gab worked at a call center together in Oakland, along with Boots Riley, who used that time as inspiration for his film “Sorry To Bother You.”
His collaborators praised him as an authentic and innovative individual who dedicated himself to his craft. Furthermore, he was noted for his philosophical nature and drive to use music to bring about positivity in people’s lives.
Gift of Gab performs with Blackalicious at Yoshi’s in Oakland on Jan. 9, 2020.
“Gab I’ve known forever because we were in the same crew. We started Quannum Projects [another all-star group] together back in the ‘90s and we’re still friends,” Lyrics Born said in 2018. “We still record on each other’s records. … He calls me up if he’s got a verse for me. I just do it. There’s rarely any money involved; we’re friends who record together.”
Online, Lyrics Born explained how he and other friends planned to not take Parker’s presence for granted: “4 the past few yrs there was an ongoing discussion amongst X, Lateef, & myself that Gab may not be with us forever, & that we agreed 2 making the most of what time we did have together. This is why I took every Quannum MCs, reunion show I could.”
Blackalicious released several EPs in the 1990s that led up to 1999 masterpiece, A2G (with “Alphabet Aerobics”). A debut album, Nia, followed the same year. Its second album, Blazing Arrow, featured artists like Gil Scott-Heron, Rage Against the Machine’s Zack de la Rocha, Ben Harper and Cut Chemist. Blackalicious’ production dropped off after 2005’s The Craft, with its final album, Imani Vol. 1, in 2015. But Gift of Gab released several solo albums and recorded with Quannum MCs and the Mighty Underdogs.
He appeared on numerous DJ Shadow recordings, as well as on 2019’s Our Pathetic Age.
“Our brother Tim, having walked this earth as a student of life for over 50 years, has graduated to the next plane of existence,” DJ Shadow wrote on social media. “He begins his renewed travels accompanied by the many spiritual attributes developed during this time among us mortals…”
At the time of his passing he left behind scores of tracks for future releases.
My statement regarding the passing of Timothy Jerome “The Gift Of Gab” Parker. pic.twitter.com/f5VS5N1zdc
— DJ Shadow Official (@djshadow) June 25, 2021
It is with heavy hearts and great sadness that we announce the passing of our dear brother Timothy J Parker aka The Gift of Gab,” announces his crew Quannum. “Tim departed this earth to be with our ancestors on Friday, June 18, 2021.
/1
— Lateef (@TruthspeakerHQ) June 25, 2021
Reporter Alex Baechle contributed to this report. Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.