Until now, ScHoolboy Q hasn’t touched on the subject to nearly the same degree, but the mindboggling thematic complexity found just between these two tracks (songs that aren’t even my favorites on Blank Face, mind you) demonstrates the quantum leaps forward he’s taken as a songwriter. Reflections on money - and whether or not there are truly responsible ways to make and spend it - have become one of Black Hippy’s chief collective projects since they first broke into the mainstream, from Ab-Soul’s Control System to Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly. “I come from pimpin’, bangin’, baby momma rockin’ yayo,” he declares, so it only makes sense that he empathizes with people locked in the same cycle despite eventually deciding “N**** fuck all that, I’m tryna go my road.” He puts into focus the brutal practical reality of gang activity as a means of staying afloat where options for a more honest living are scarce. On the former, Groovy Q goes over a propulsive beat to reflect on how he and a love interest were able to make it out of “Broke times in a broke place.” In celebration, Q wants to spoil her with new cars and shopping sprees peppered throughout the track however, are interludes from Candace Pillay, assuming the role of his girlfriend and insisting “I don’t want your money darling / I just want your love.” It’s both a genuinely sweet track (the only moment on Blank Face that could be described as such) and an incredibly sly subversion of stereotypical hip-hop materialism.Ĭharm turns into desperation, however, as ScHoolboy descends from his “Cribbo in the hills” back down to the streets of South Central on “By Any Means.” The beat is driven by defeated background vocals and muddy bass notes that seem to periodically detonate rather than form a steady groove, giving Q a suitably bleak soundscape for his take on Malcom X’s famous phrase. Take the clever back-to-back pairing of mid-album cuts “Whateva U Want” and “By Any Means” for instance. The study of contrasts has always been Q’s bread-and-butter, and his ability to weave together seemingly oppositional narratives is stronger than ever on Blank Face. Meanwhile his first major label record, the brilliantly titled Oxymoron, largely found Q rewinding his narrative back to his adolescent days selling oxycontin while getting high on his own supply.
His two indie releases, Setbacks and Habits & Contradictions, see him trying to reconcile his come-up as an MC and his responsibilities as a father with his love of partying and his connections to gang life. That he endeavors to tackle such a nuanced subject here isn’t surprising, as each of his past efforts have dealt with some contradictory facet of human nature.
This is the difficult revelation that ScHoolboy Q - LA rapper, one-quarter of Black Hippy, and one of the flat-out best MCs around right now - wrestles with through much of his second major label release, Blank Face LP. The realization that there are greater things in life than money is an epiphany often afforded only to those who already have money.