ScHoolboy Q and Kendrick Lamar are Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates, but ScHoolboy Q looks at the material from his fellow rappers as a measuring stick, not just songs from his partners-in-rhyme. ScHoolboy Q is gearing up for the release of his Oxymoron album and Kendrick Lamar’s major label debut release, 2012’s good kid, m.A.A.d city, was one of last year’s most acclaimed projects.
“It’s competition,” ScHoolboy Q says of the Black Hippy music making process in an exclusive interview with HipHopDX. “I gotta be better than his shit or just as good. It has to be just as good or better.”
ScHoolboy Q recently said that his album was done and a lot of the content centers on worrying about yourself, not others. But given the self-imposed competition ScHoolboy Q has created, he’s looking at K Dot in particular as a model. “Kendrick, at the rate he doin and progressin’ in this music, is inspiring,” ScHoolboy Q said in the exclusive interview with HipHopDX. “It’s crazy. I’m glad he dropped [good kid, m.A.A.d city]. If he didn’t drop that album, there’s no telling how good my album woulda been.”
AD LOADING...
ScHoolboy Q has been signed to Interscope Records since 2011 and has worked on Oxymoron with producers David Banner and Pharrell Williams, as well as the same sonic team Kendrick Lamar used on good kid, m.A.A.d city, which includes T-Minus, Sounwave and Scoop DeVille. Oxymoron will be ScHoolboy Q’s major label debut album and follows his independent releases #Setbacks and Habits & Contradictions in 2011 and 2012, respectively. ScHoolboy Q, Kendrick Lamar and the rest of Black Hippy, Ab-Soul and Jay Rock, will be performing at Rock The Bells 2013.
Additional Reporting by Andres Vasquez.
