It was announced last week that on June 18, beloved and bespectacled battle rapper-turned-underground lyricist The Gift of Gab, a.k.a. Timothy Jerome Parker, died from natural causes at the age of 50. Parker was the immutable tongue behind Blackalicious, a duo with DJ and producer Xavier “Chief Xcel” Mosley that produced four albums between 1999 and 2015 since their founding in Davis, California, in 1994. Blackalicious were founding members of the Bay Area-based hip-hop collective and label SoleSides, now known as Quannum Projects, alongside local legends DJ Shadow, Lyrics Born and Lateef the Truthspeaker, all of whom have expressed their devastation on social media.