In Revue- 'Oxymoron' (Schoolboy Q)

"My grandma showed me first strap" Schoolboy Q giddily snarls in "Gangsta", the off-balanced banger opening his major label debut. On first listen it's one of millions of gun references that have popped up in hip-hop since Schoolly D "copped his pistols" in '85. If you're an interloper you'd roll your eyes and call it a day. But if you packed it in you'd be missing something most of those millions haven't been able to do, make perilous gangster talk sound uplifting. For the duration of Oxymoron's gut-wrenching hour, that's precisely what the Black Hippy crew-member does.

Of course not every line in Oxymoron possesses familial innocence. The record is replete with tales of casual sex, drug consumption, and gang violence that would make the bravest of souls noxious. Streetwalkers hit the corner regardless of whether or not they have pneumonia. Baseheads take over entire parks and no matter what room you walk into people will be carrying. The only reason Oxymoron doesn't suffocate is because Q's the kind of guy that'll crack a joke when things couldn't be tenser. He'll refer to wilin' out as "going hamhock" and spotlight a jiggling belly as he dodges junkyard dogs in the hypnotic Raekwon feature "Blind Threats." If the tongue was ever sharper than the sword it’s here.

Quite honestly few tongues in rap can twist in as many directions as Schoolboy Q's. In the aforementioned "Gangsta" he: snarls, imitates his mother, elongates "b****" into something almost unpronounceable, and manages about 400 "YAWK YAWKS." Blissful Chromatics sampler "Man of the Year" turns Q's s***-talking to stutters as he can hardly believe the breathing room his career has afforded. "Make mills from a verb" as he succinctly puts it. While the electro slither of "Studio" arrives as a half-baked pop bid, Q fully commits to the premise. He calms down to match the muted drums and chipmunk cries; allowing himself to get caught up in the moment.

Commitment alone doesn't carry Oxymoron to the finish-line though. The record has one of the best collections of beats since Kendrick Lamar unleashed good kid, m.A.A.d city. It's a musical factory where you'll get caught on a hook if you move around enough. Tyler, the Creator's wailing tornado sirens in "The Purge" draw you in, instead of sending you fleeing from the blood-soaked scene. "Los Awesome", Pharrell's clattering effort is the type to appear on a 90s Cash Money production if the budget was in the 7 digits. And even when a song is bare-bones in construction there's top-dollar craftsmanship involved. "Collard Greens" is the ideal of this standard. Dark "chintzy" keys call to mind Lamar's smash-hit "Swimming Pools (Drank)." MPCs are mashed with cement hands and drums bounce harder than Super Balls. It's an endorphin rush of sounds, one that fully energizes both Q and Lamar. School ticks off his drugs of choice like an overeager surveyor while Lamar becomes a whirling dervish of language. He'll steal your girl in Español before adapting a Houston drawl to  "slow it down." On the other side of the tracks, all "Prescription/Oxymoron"'s first half has to offer are stereo-pans, soft whooshes, trilling violins, and sobering handclaps. Still it's enough to pull at heart strings and when School's daughter Joy cuts through the pill-malaise to ask "what's wrong daddy?" dry eyes are an impossibility.

While the entirety of "Prescription" aims to leave a mark, Oxymoron is more impactful when personal details come in sprays. The Alchemist's lateral beat in "Break the Bank" sees Schoolboy Q hopping in a Nissan seconds after tipping his bucket hat to a departed "cuzzo.” Q could've dedicated a whole track to his uncle's worsening drug addiction; instead he tucks it in between Sega Genesis' and N64s in album centerpiece "Hoover Street." In my own life I've idolized uncles I never knew well, so I can't begin to imagine one shriveling up in front of my eyes. "He sweats a lot and is slimming down, I also notice moms be locking doors when he around," Q paints in painstaking detail over a canvas of bass knocks and ominous synth. And that's precisely where Oxymoron and good kid, m.A.A.d city deviate. Kendrick Lamar's game-changer resembled a Hollywood production, albeit one with the vision of Argo or American Hustle. He was a self-professed "good kid" who had to imagine some of the more gnarled elements because he was deliberately being kept away from them. When he asked "if I told you I killed a n**** at 16 would you believe me?" we could comfortably answer no. To its credit, Oxymoron lacks such imagination which is what makes it so uncomfortable. Tales of fallen college football stars and wide-eyed children getting caught up with Crips sound stock, they're not. They're the baggage Q (born Quincy Hanley) carries everywhere. If he ever sheds them and actually gets a "Hollywood ending" to this story, he'll have Oxymoron to thank.

"Man of the Year"

"Break the Bank"

"Californication" ft. A$AP Rocky- Schoolboy Q

Yesterday the first move I made was to snatch up copies of St. Vincent's digitally skronky self-titled LP and Schoolboy Q's heavily anticipated Oxymoron release. Bogged down by a major article, I couldn't wait to tear into two albums I'd been "dying" to hear. However, amidst all that great new music, I fell into a rabbit hole of Fallout Boy songs. I perused Wikipedia reading up on band members and who gets credit for what. It wasn't celebratory the entire time though. I gleefully sniped at "Sugar We're Going Down" wondering how exactly Pete Wentz won against this unnamed girl when she wound up as "a line in a song." Had I plowed ahead to their next record, 2007's Infinity on High I would've come across the perfect reference point for Schoolboy Q and A$AP Rocky's working relationship, "This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race".

I'm fairly certain the bi-coastal pair hasn't heard much of the pop-punk band, but there's no other way to describe them. Q came to prominence on Rocky's churning "Brand New Guy" with full-throated threats and nightmarish squeals. So Rocky paid the Black Hippy member back by burning down the indelible "Hands on the Wheel" with a laundry list of drug-consumption that still makes me feel high. How does Q respond? By doubling down on the crisp Long. Live. A$AP cut "PMW". He tipped his bucket hat to "Hands on the Wheel", made 30 racks in one flight, and managed to bring back the much maligned Hush Puppies brand. Their partnership is a hip-hop Cold War with all of the escalation, but none of the ill-will.

That's why it seemed impossible Rocky wouldn't be appearing on Oxymoron, Q's major-label coming-out party. Did the pair have nothing left in the tank? Was there actual animosity? Had we already reached disarmament? All of those questions disappeared as soon as "Californication" (a Target only exclusive) was revealed. Rock doesn't waste any time coming in over the nightmarish 8-bit beat. He brings 808s back in full-force, lands a DDT on the rap game, and pulls-off a BBC joke that will make news junkies squirm. Not one to be outdone, Q bulldozes the listener with a brand of over-consumption he's perfected. Forget nibbling on fine lobster or steak, he'd rather "eat until my tummy swole." Sex turns into a game of "eenie, meenie, minie, mo" and enough indo will be blow to rival The Fog. "Californication" then continues Q's streak of making embraceable "lecher" raps that pull everyone around him into that universe. To quote the man himself, "wouldn't be the first" and here's hoping it's far from the last.

Oxymoron is in-stores now through TDE/Interscope. Look for a review of the LP later in the week.

"Break the Bank"- Schoolboy Q

Despite running a music blog, I border on being a musical Luddite. I don't have a Spotify account, have never seen Pandora in action, and still haven't managed the ins and outs of Soundcloud. When albums leak I don't ever hear them, partially because download sites are alien to me but also because I don't like my listening experience to be spoiled. I'm the same with singles being released ahead of an album. I can listen to one in advance without any concern, but I start to grow nervous if I hear a second or third. Though it's admittedly silly, I don't want to be shown the whole picture. I want to figure it out on my own.

That said, Schoolboy Q could share all of Oxymoron before it debuts and I'd listen-in without any qualms. Everything off the Black Hippy's third release has been that compelling. There's chest-puffing earworm "Collard Greens", claustrophobic rumbler "Banger (MOSHPIT)", and the perpetually bouncing "Man of the Year". Alchemist collabo "Break the Bank" continues the trend while threading a needle through the disparate strands. The tremulous guitar sample recalls "Banger (MOSHPIT)" without marinating as long. A descending piano figure will linger in your memory bank as long as "Collard Greens" blissfully nonsensical chorus. And a warning of "good grades and skipped school, this life gon' catch up soon" rivals the gnarled wisdom of "home of the paid on the first, then probably going broke by the third." Q continuously veers across multiple lanes for the length of the track's six minutes. In one instance he's singing "la di da di da", then he's running from baseheads in the park. As a brash teen he's says "f*** rap" before embracing it in his wizened 20s. An album change isn't enough to rid Schoolboy Q of his inherent contradictions.

Oxymoron drops February 25th through TDE/Interscope. 

"Man of the Year"- Schoolboy Q

 
For anyone keeping tabs on the blog on a regular basis, odds are you've seen the glowing write-ups revolving around the Chromatics instant-classic "Cherry". "Cherry"s a song rankled by paranoia, worrying about conditional relationships and fleeting moments (like a kiss) that seem to have the weight of the world bearing down on them. Initially I wrote, "Cherry" embodies what Rodney Dangerfield once referred to as "the heaviness", a ghastly creature preying upon your every move; out of sight but never fully out of mind.

Schoolboy Q's "Man of the Year" which features "Cherry"s crying synthesizer upends that heaviness without breaking a sweat. What was once a backbeat to the world's most sullen dancefloor is reconstituted as party central. Here everything's bouncing around and everyone's "getting hype for the sound" to distract from the downbeat material. Where Ruth Radlet wearily declared "I can't keep crying", Black Hippy crewmate Q is offering up "peace and love" unfazed by any mortal danger lurking around the corner. "Home of the paid on the first, then probably going broke by the third" Schoolboy reflects in his affected snarl. But even that brief turn to the dour is just another springboard back into the song's effortless trap-bounce. The only fleeting moments here are the moments of struggle.

"Man of the Year" is from the upcoming NBA2K14 soundtrack.  As for Schoolboy Q's next album, Oxymoron is still without a release date, though Top Dawg Entertainment CEO Anthony Tiffith assures it will be announced "early next week".

"Banger (MOSHPIT)"- Schoolboy Q

Habits and Contradictions provided a near-perfect summation of Black Hippy Crew member Schoolboy Q's inherent personae on that LP. Q split the difference between the lurid and the lovely, between harmless stunting and reckless gangsta posturing. "Hands on the Wheel" he was joyously "too high to stand," by the lurching zombie of "Oxy Music" he became a tour-guide through a blood-stained narcotic scene where death lingered in the air. "Blessed" the self-confessed sinner dipped a toe into holy water, while the former "Sacrilegious" had him realizing he was doomed to "marinate in Satan's sweat". Hard-knocking new track "Banger (MOSHPIT)" fits into the unsanctified side of the equation; Q playing host to a party where bodies are left and no one says a word. Guitars quietly quiver and the bass rattles as Schoolboy Q rumbles with beasts and loads up the ammo. Even in these grey situations, Q notices the minor details, the "yellow tape by them candles" and how his shoelaces happen to match "the flannel". In Schoolboy's stark world it's often impossible to breathe, but there's always the occasional gulp of fresh air to be found. 

Schoolboy's third studio album and first major label release Oxymoron is set to drop sometime this year via Interscope/TDE, but there's still no official date. 

 

What's New(s)?

Kendrick Lamar appears on Arsenio

Last night Kendrick Lamar sat down for an interview on the newly minted Arsenio Hall Show. During the discuss, Lamar talked with Hall about witnessing Dr. Dre & 2Pac film the "California Love" video when he was a kid. The Compton MC also tore through a hellatious rendition of "m.A.A.d city"  and teamed up with Black Hippy crewmate Schoolboy Q to gallivant during earworm "Collard Greens" from his forthcoming Oxymoron LP. Q isn't going to pass up the chance to rock a bucket hat and Kendrick kicks back until it's to deliver his bilingual blast. "Chidi ching ching". 

Le1f releases Tree House mixtape

After two release hiccups, Le1f has followed up the industrial judder of January's Fly Zone with the equally constricting Tree House. Featuring 15 tracks and production from The-Drum, Falty DL, and others, the tape suffocates with stereo rattling numbers "Plush" and the appropriately titled "Swerve". The tape demands repeat listens if for no other reason than the hypnosis it lulls you into during first engagement. You can download it here and listen to the oppressive burble of "Cane Sugar" below.

Le1f has also announced the "Tree House Party Tour" which will feature Antwon and Lakutis and crisscross the U.S. for the next month. Tour dates can also be found below.

Tree House Party tour dates:
9/25 Washington, DC - U Hall
9/26 Philadelphia, PA - Boot & Saddle
9/27 New York, NY - Santos Party House
9/28 Boston, MA - Brighton Music Hall 
10/3 Minneapolis, MN - 7th Street Entry 
10/4 Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle 
10/5 Vancouver, British Columbia - Celebrities 
10/6 Seattle, WA - Chop Suey 
10/8 Portland, OR - Holocene 
10/10 San Francisco, CA - Stereo Mighty 
10/12 Los Angeles, CA - Los Globos 
10/16 Austin, TX - Holy Mountain




Check back in tomorrow for more of the newest in new(s).