Gift of Gab’s “Escape to Mars”

Blackalicious MC Gift of Gab drops his second solo album, Escape to Mars, through Cornerstone RAS on October 27. Although the Bay Area indie pioneer has pushed this album out the release date back several times — it was originally scheduled as a Giftstribution exclusive — he hasn’t been idle. Last year, he teamed with Lateef the Truthspeaker and Headnodic to form the Mighty Underdogs, dropping the full-length Droppin’ Science Fiction.

Guests on Escape to Mars include Del, Brother Ali, Joyo Velarde, Lateef and Bart Davenport. Relatively unheralded producer DNAEBEATS handles production. (September 25 update: The release date has been pushed back to November 10.)

Here’s the bio snippet:

Production on Escape was placed mainly in the hands of the Bay Area’s talented DNAEBEATS, with a few tracks also helmed by Hednodic, from Gab’s most recent star collabo project The Mighty Underdogs and Crown City Rockers. Del the Funky Homosapien and Brother Ali, another two undeniably iconic MCs, are featured on “Dreamin'”, one of the record’s stand out cuts. Gab also recruited some of the talent from the Quannum Collective he helped pioneer, including Joyo Velarde, Lateef The Truthspeaker, and Honeycut’s vocalist Bart Davenport.

His hopes of keeping things close to home set the stage for the album’s inspiration. “People are gonna think this is about Martians, but it’s not,” Gab explains. “It’s more so about taking care of the planet we’re on. We might have to escape to Mars or somewhere else if we keep taking the planet we live on for granted.”

“I’m not trying to preach to anyone,” he continues. “I just think it’s important for us to raise the level of consciousness and consideration of these things.” On songs like “Electric Waterfalls” and the title track, lyrically he journey’s into these topics directly. Musically speaking, it was also a space age inspiration that led him to break some new personal ground.

“Some of the more electronic feeling songs were new territory me,” Gab states. “I didn’t really connect with much of that until we went out and did some shows with Bass Nectar and I saw the culture shifting in front of me and thought it was a great thing.”

Here’s the track listing:

• 1. “E2MTRO”
• 2. “El Gifto Magnifico”
• 3. “Lightyears”
• 4. “Dreamin'” (feat. Del The Funky Homosapien & Brother Ali)
• 5. “In Las Vegas”
• 6. “Escape 2 Mars”
• 7. “Electric Waterfalls”
• 8. “Richman, Poorman”
• 9. “Someofthepeople”
• 10. “Spotlight”
• 11. “Rhyme Travel”
• 12. “Dreamin’ (Aqua Sawtooth Remix)”