Schoolboy Q Is Still a Mystery. That’s What Makes Him Great

“Gang shit, I invented that, huh?”  asks Schoolboy Q on “Pop,” a track from Blue Lips, his first album in nearly five years. It’s clearly an overstatement. But give the former Hoover Street Crip credit: Back in the early 2010s, he fused the open-eared, genre-less sensibility of Tumblr rap with vintage L.A. gangsta flows in classic moments like “Hands on the Wheel” and “Druggys Wit Hoes Again.” Along with Vince Staples, Boogie and others, Q marked a clear break from the city’s G-funk identity, even as he paid homage in collaborations with the likes of Tha Dogg Pound and Suga Free. Still, he’s an enigma. Paired with Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul, and Jay Rock — the famed Black Hippy quartet at the center of Top Dawg Entertainment — Schoolboy Q has long seemed like the hooded thug quietly nursing a brew in the corner of the room, only to startle his friends with an energetic, hair-raising party chant.

Q has promulgated that sense of mystery and danger through much of his catalogue, whether donning a ski mask for 2014’s Oxymoron or titling his 2016 album Blank Face. The latter, which shifted between taut, noir-ish cop funk and percussive turn-up anthems, remains a highlight of the rapper’s career. After the disappointing 2019 album Crash Talk steered too heavily in the latter sonic direction, Q went on an unexpectedly long hiatus, only occasionally resurfacing with loosies like 2022’s excellent “Soccer Dad.” Thankfully, Blue Lips returns to the dynamic stylings of Blank Face, albeit with a few important twists. And with Lamar having departed TDE to form his pgLang imprint, it represents a moment when listeners can fully appreciate Q for his singular ability to craft compelling, thought-provoking gems without resorting to comparisons between the two. (SZA, of course, is now TDE’s main breadwinner.)

One of those twists arrives early in the nearly hourlong Blue Lips with “Blueslides,” a title seemingly inspired by Mac Miller’s 2011 album, Blue Slide Park. The late Pittsburgh rapper became a key figure in L.A.’s hip-hop scene before he died in 2018. An iconic Mass Appeal cover from 2013 depicted Miller walking barefoot alongside Q on train tracks in a hauntingly lovely and innocent image. “Lost a homeboy to the drugs/Man I ain’t trying to go backwards,” Q raps on “Blueslides.” “When I realized that his mama hurt/And think was it worth it/Man I gotta shake this shit/Wake up and move with a purpose.”

When Q leaked “Blueslides” several days before the release of Blue Lips along with a handful of other cuts, fans speculated that the 39-year-old rapper was depressed. (“Bitch, I am not sad,” he hilariously responded during a pre-release event. “Look, I rap about my life … so I come off sad sometimes. But bitch, I’m rich as fuck!”) They needn’t have worried. For every confessional moment like “Cooties,” there are three or four teeth-baring mashers like “Pop,” where he flexes alongside an animated Rico Nasty, and “Back N Love,” where Devin Malik chants “Back in love with this shit” over and over. The music, crafted by TDE regulars like TaeBeast and JLBS as well as several others like CardoGotWings, Alchemist, and Childish Major, juts between the kind of soulful live-band arrangements and wordless vocal arias typical of the TDE catalogue and brusque, bass-riddled attacks like “Yeern 101.” Then there’s “Foux,” an incredible pairing with Ab-Soul set over UK jungle rhythms. “Marijuana, hydro, pussy, hoe, ass, titties,” Q chants near its end.

Blue Lips is stocked with samples that feel both musical and textual. Two tracks, “Foux” and “Germany ’86,” are culled from the Watts Prophets’ 1972 album Rappin’ Black in a White World and an earlier era of L.A. street poetry. “My mom stay working late/She taught me how to be great/My superhero’s a woman,” Q raps on the latter. Yet his personality remains out of focus. It’s not just the way he clips his bars like he’s twisting off a knot on a twomp sack. It’s also his raspy voice that he can soften or harden at will. It’s the way he spits out “God/Credit/Bless/Love/The Realist” in a staccato assault. Most importantly, it’s how his oscillating raps contrast with the frequently dreamlike production that makes Blue Lips feel like an inebriated haze.

Part of why Blue Lips is compelling is that it seduces the listener enough to accept Schoolboy Q on his own terms. He remains an essentially private figure even as he talks about raising his kids, arguing with the mother of his children, or boasting about his whips and exploits. “A man supposed to have scars,” he raps on “Time Killers.” For him, it’s all we need to know.

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