Solesides

Solesides was an underground hip hop label based in Northern California, founded in 1991. It comprised various DJs and MCs, the most notable being DJ Shadow, MC–producer Lyrics Born, and the duo, Blackalicious. The members of Solesides all met via the radio station, KDVS, the 5000-watt community radio station of the University of California at Davis. During high school, Davis-natives DJ Shadow (a.k.a. Josh Davis) and The 8th Wonder (a.k.a. Stan Green) used to frequent the station to support Orus Washington's hip-hop show. In college, journalist and then-grad student Jeff Chang (a.k.a. DJ Zen), broadcast a weekly hip-hop radio show that got the attention of DJ Shadow and The 8th Wonder, freshmen Xavier Mosely (Chief Xcel), Tom Shimura (Lyrics Born) and Joseph Patel (a.k.a. Jazzbo). They all shared a like-minded passion for hip-hop that pushed beyond the sounds of mainstream commercial music.

In 1991, the six came together to form a collective of artists and hip-hop lovers, naming the label SoleSides. The first release, was a 12" single, numbered "SS001," featuring DJ Shadow's instrumental odyssey, "Entropy" on one side and Lyrics Born (then known as Asia Born) on the other side with the song, "Send Them." The white-label 12" was preceded by a cassette single version of the release and both have fetched high dollars in the re-sale market. Only 400 cassettes and 200 12" vinyl singles were originally pressed up and sold on consignment in record stores in the Bay Area.

In 1996 the label won a "Goldie" award from the San Francisco Bay Guardian, being described as "Both a progressive crew of deejays and rappers and a fiercely independent artist-owned label...".

The label produced some of the most notable and memorable hip-hop music of the early 1990s including Blackalicious's "Melodica", Latyrx's "The Album" and DJ Shadow's "Entropy".

Solesides disbanded in the winter of 1996, and was reborn as Quannum Projects in spring of 1997.