I been struggling with which album to pick all week
. Kinda hard to decide where to start when we have a crop of people with varying levels of knowledge about hip hop, as well as the different tastes. Ultimately I landed on "Oxymoron" by ScHoolboy Q.
I know Jimmy and Chris will be at least somewhat familiar with this one due to it having two smash hits, but I feel like this is a good jump off because it walks a line between mainstream and underground.
Q is a fairly popular artist but not ubiquitous like Kendrick, Kanye or Drake, though he is connected with artists in that tier. Generally I assume everyone involved in this either has at least a baseline familiarity with rap or at least knows Kendrick, whom Q is a label-mate of, so I think this album will be a good basis to build off of, as I do hope to bring more current artists/albums to the table. In fact, it was between this and two other non-Kendrick TDE artists in terms of which album I wanted to pick, and if this one resonates then I'll probably circle back to those others in the near future.
Anyways, just a little background and context that I think will be useful for the listening experience:
- Q is a member of Top Dawg Entertainment, the same LA label as Kendrick, Jay Rock, SZA, Ab-Soul and others.
- He is from LA and a lot of the content is about his life as a gangster in LA as part of the Hoover Crips, which he'll often reference. So when you hear him reference Hoover, Figueroa and Figg Side, he's just referencing the streets his gang were associated with.
- The title of the album is a reference to the contrast between his raps which tell the story of life as a gang member, and his current life a successful artist and parent. It's also an allusion to Oxycotin which used and sold.
- This would be the height of his mainstream success and his most mainstream sounding album. At this time, the whole TDE label was taking off led of course by Kendrick, so I tend to find the albums they released at this time sounded the most mainstream. Nonetheless, Q is very crass, humorous and and to the point, so this album still represents his griminess and unique lyrical delivery well. I would say it's at least in my top 2 favorite Q projects but for others, his other more experimental sounds might be more favorable.
