Gift of Gab, aka Timothy Parker, and Chief Xcel, aka Xavier Mosley, have etched their characters into hip-hop history as Blackalicious, exploring the progressive landscape of rap.

Gab makes his mark with uncanny flows and lyrical proficiency; Xcel provides the warm beats. They hit Honolulu for the first time together on Friday.

Gab was born in L.A., Xcel came from the Bay, but they met in Sacramento, Calif., while attending high school in the late ’80s, and bonded over their mutual love of message-oriented MCs like Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, Kool G. Rap and KRS-One, with their slick rhymes and irresistible beats.

The music-making got serious when the two got together in Davis, Calif., joining the Quannum Projects collective with other inventive West Coast notables, including DJ Shadow, Lyrics Born and Lateef the Truthspeaker.

Their 1994 debut single “Swan Lake” and the EP that followed, “Melodica,” established the duo as a group to be reckoned with, getting national attention for elaborate wordplay, perceptive lyrics and uplifting rhythms.

Like Gab sang on “Lyric Fathom,” the first track off “Melodica”: “I’m a kamikaze bomb … with an arsenal of drama in my rhymes / With the tracks and backs, and heads is broken to pieces.”

In 2002, with backing from major label MCA, Blackalicious released highly acclaimed album “Blazing Arrow,” with highlight tracks including “Make You Feel That Way,” “Alphabet Aerobics” and “Blacka.” The online magazine Pitchfork praised it as “one of those classic summer albums that crams in so much sound and so much life that listening to it is like going to a block party, all day.”

“We are just passionate about making music. I’ve always been about lyricism, style and raising the bar. I’ve always been a competitive MC,” said Gab, calling with Xcel from California last week. “Making music is a never-ending thing for us.”

“We are trying to leave (listeners) with a body of work that hopefully connects with who they are; that hopefully makes them make that face like, ‘Oh, wow,’” he said. “We always want to leave the fans with something memorable.”

The Bay Area vets parted ways to explore solo projects following 2005’s album “The Craft,” but reconnected in 2012. That’s when they began laying the foundation for a three-album series they launched with the release of 2015’s “Imani Vol 1.”

Xcel said the album trilogy reflects their artistic growth, but still contains the same intricacies in style and rhymes that fans have grown accustom to. “We definitely have a foundation that we work from, but we keep expanding it,” he said.

“We put our all into this music. We always wanted to hold on to that hunger we had before we got our first record deal,” said Xcel, who expects “Imani Vol. 2” to come out early next year. “We always wanted to hold on to that consistency.”

In addition to battling rappers in his lyrics, Gift of Gab has also been battling kidney disease. His condition became widely known last month, when a documentary about his experience premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

The short film, titled “Gift of Gab,” focused on the lyricist’s experiences while on tour in 2012.

“I said we should do a documentary about it, to show people that whatever they are dealing with, whether it be kidney failure, cancer or whatever, these things don’t have to stop you from living fully,” said Gab, who undergoes dialysis three days a week for five hours each treatment session.

To cope with his disease, Gab said he has adjusted his lifestyle and has made great strides with his health.

“I make sure it doesn’t stop me from doing anything else,” said Gab. “The beauty of dialysis is there are clinics everywhere. It’s mind over matter. I write rhymes when I am on dialysis. ‘Imani Vol. 1,’ 70 percent of that was written when I was in dialysis.”

“For Gab to be able to share his experience with the world was inspirational in itself,” said Xcel. “He’s a force of nature and inspires me daily.”