ABiCA, a two-piece rap group, writes songs about darkness and perseverance
ABiCA, a two-piece rap group from the Chicago area, described their music as being about perseverance — whether it’s overcoming feelings of numbness, one of the members’ battles with drug addiction, coping with the death of an ex-girlfriend who overdosed or standing up against politicians lying about wars in the Middle East. They said they’re not trying to be a part of mainstream hip hop but instead create their own sound outside of it.
ABiCA made a name for themselves in the late 2000s and early 2010s with four studio albums — “Truth in Lies,” “Enigma,” “Numb (Prelude)” and “Numb.” After a 12-year hiatus, ABiCA returned in 2023 with their album “XIII,” currently streaming on Bandcamp.
The group has about 11,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. They’ve opened for Eminem’s rap group D12 and collaborated with Twiztid, Hed PE, Deuce from Hollywood Undead, Twenty One Pilots, Jason Porter, Intrinzik and others.
Aaron Aleman and Brian Aureden form ABiCA going by the stage names, Tac and Hash.
“I had an inside joke with another Aaron and we called our sense of humor ‘The Aaron Complex.’ So, I shortened that up into an acronym and then I eventually just kept it all capitalized,” Tac said, explaining the origins of his nickname. “Then I guess ‘Tac and Hash’ sounded good together.”
The third original member, Chris, went by the stage name “Cant,” named after the philosopher Immanuel Kant. He left ABiCA before the release of their first album.
The name “ABiCA” comes from the first letters of the three original members’ legal names, “A,” “B” and “C.”
“We had the A-B-C. And I’m like, ‘alright, where can vowels go to make this a word?’” Hash said, adding that it was originally spelled as “ABiCa” rather than “ABiCA.”
“I remember that’s originally how I wanted it to be spelled,” Tac said.
“But I needed the symmetry,” Hash said as Tac laughed nostalgically.
Tac and Hash said they started rapping as teenagers in the early 2000s, writing songs to make their friends laugh.
“We burned CDs and gave them to people at our high school,” Hash said.
“I remember one song [about how] guys are always trying to get into girls’ pants — but we flipped it. And the girls were trying to get into our pants,” Tac said. “The hook was, like, ‘girl, this is my love song, I made it just for you’ and then ‘all you want to do is just fucking, let’s screw.”
After receiving positive feedback, ABiCA said they began making more serious songs about the darker side of life — often drawing influences from horrorcore artists such as Insane Clown Posse and Twiztid.
“My first concert ever was Twiztid — the Mirror/Mirror Tour,” Tac said, referring to when Twiztid toured with former Psychopathic Records artists Blaze Ya Dead Homie and Anybody Killa in 2002.
“It wasn’t really us, but we tried to do that and emulate what they [Twiztid and Insane Clown Posse] were doing. It evolved from there into finding our own sound and what we wanted to say personally” Hash said.
When ABiCA recorded their first album, “Truth in Lies,” they’d mostly moved away from horrorcore. They rapped about subjects like heartbreak and depression over beats often in the vein of industrial rock bands like Nine Inch Nails.
“Truth In Lies” includes “Lie to Me,” a song about how people claim to desire blunt honesty but can’t handle it and “Forever,” a song about a man who killed himself to die together with his terminally ill lover.
ABiCA’s fourth album, “Numb,” features social commentary in the song “Just Another.” Tac and Hash rapped about lying politicians, war in the Middle East, grieving mothers and gang violence.
“It just seems like a big cycle happening over and over again,” Tac said. “When is this going to stop? When is ‘just another’ not going to be just another? When is it going to end?”
After the release of “Numb” in 2011, ABiCA went on hiatus, but the duo stressed that they never stopped being friends.
“Nothing happened between us. There wasn’t a rift or anything. We needed a break,” Hash said “We finally got back together about two and a half to three years ago — just because we were missing it so much. And I think we put together a very authentic album.”
ABiCA returned in 2023 with their newest album, “XIII”. They rapped about Hash overcoming drug addiction in the song “It Follows” and about social media toxicity in “Triggered.”
Hash said previous ABiCA albums would sometimes exaggerate feelings and experiences for the sake of good storytelling and passion in a way that “XIII” doesn’t. He said that “XIII” reflects all the genres that have influenced them — rock, rap, industrial and electronic music — more than any previous album.
Tac is half-white and half-Cuban and Hash is white. They said that some white rappers are trying to be someone they’re not, but that’s not what ABiCA does.
“There are white rappers out there who try to take on the kind of thug/gangster mentality,” Hash said. “Who knows? Maybe it’s authentic. Others feel like it’s not. And they’re just trying to act hard or tough.”
“We were always just trying to use that style of hip hop — because again, that’s what we grew up with — but make it into our own sound by adding industrial rock elements,” Hash added.
“We’ve tried to separate ourselves from the pure hip hop community,” Tac said. “We try to have our cadence. When someone listens to an ABiCA song, I feel it doesn’t sound like any other kind of band.”
Jonathan Davison, a music producer from the United Kingdom, joined ABiCA after their return from hiatus. Davison’s background is in rock music, he said. ABiCA said this is the first time they’ve had a consistent producer throughout their songs.
A 2024 remix of “What I’ve Become,” a song from “Numb (Prelude),” is currently streaming on ABiCA’s YouTube channel.
ABiCA said they’re also working on a remix of “My Demise,” a song from “Truth in Lies” about the death of a former identity.
