A By: Michael Bayliss
Schoolboy Q has been an artist at the forefront of rap music ever since his first mixtape Habits and Contradictions, and thanks to T.D.E and black hippy, him and his crew have amassed global audiences with their distinct styles of Southern California hip/hop. One mixtape he sold like an album and one album that could of been better later, his second attempt the Blank Face LP does not disappoint.
A seventeen song piece which includes features from T.D.E artists SZA and Lance Skiiiwalker as well as E-40, Kanye West and Anderson Paak is a solid second album from Schoolboy Q. Through a dizzying array of drum high hats, ambient synths, and Q's blunt lyricism Blank Face is one of my favorite albums of 2016 so far.
Blank Face does a fantastic job of expressing every side of Q as a human and rapper. With absolute bangers like THat Part and TorcH, to the more R&B/pop-induced love song sound of WHatever U Want and Overtime, to protecting his identity as a black man in America today with the songs Black THougHts, and By Any Means. An allusion to the well known Malcolm X speech "By Any Means Necessary" in which he called for "Freedom, justice and equality, by any means necessary"
Schoolboy Q has been an artist at the forefront of rap music ever since his first mixtape Habits and Contradictions, and thanks to T.D.E and black hippy, him and his crew have amassed global audiences with their distinct styles of Southern California hip/hop. One mixtape he sold like an album and one album that could of been better later, his second attempt the Blank Face LP does not disappoint.
A seventeen song piece which includes features from T.D.E artists SZA and Lance Skiiiwalker as well as E-40, Kanye West and Anderson Paak is a solid second album from Schoolboy Q. Through a dizzying array of drum high hats, ambient synths, and Q's blunt lyricism Blank Face is one of my favorite albums of 2016 so far.
Blank Face does a fantastic job of expressing every side of Q as a human and rapper. With absolute bangers like THat Part and TorcH, to the more R&B/pop-induced love song sound of WHatever U Want and Overtime, to protecting his identity as a black man in America today with the songs Black THougHts, and By Any Means. An allusion to the well known Malcolm X speech "By Any Means Necessary" in which he called for "Freedom, justice and equality, by any means necessary"
Schoolboy Q's second album Blank Face LP is a full rehaul of who he is as a rapper. Giving fresh perspectives on what it means and meant to be a gangster and how much the culture of gangbanging has affected him throughout life. Blank Face paints a picture of his upbringing and reaffirms one of the biggest parts of identity in this genre of music, repping where you're from with all the tenacity imaginable and never letting up when the world is systematically against you.