OXYMORON… Doing Bad To Do Good

Courtesy of Billboard

“YAWK, YAWK, YAWK, YAWK!” You’re probably familiar with that ad-lib from the popular of Kendrick Lamar song “m.A.A.d city.” The artist behind that emphatic shout is ScHoolboy Q who dropped his first major label album Oxymoron dropped this past Tuesday. The album had been leaked four or five days before the date of the official release. The album is gritty and hard-hitting with a reality check of what the streets of Los Angeles are like. ScHoolboy Q takes you on a journey of how he went selling drugs to provide for his daughter to becoming this known rapper signed to the top label in hip hop Top Dawg Entertainment.

         ScHoolboy Q’s previous album, Habits and Contradictions, made him an indie rap success and helped push West Coast hip-hop back into relevancy. Q’s new album has features from artists such as 2 Chainz, Tyler, the Creator, Kurupt, Suga Free, and Q’s TDE labelmates Jay Rock and Kendrick Lamar. The album also shows close similarities to his previous album through its fierce rhymes, infectious lyrics, and takes a peek into his past life of crime. It also brings the “anthems of paradise and poison” meaning it talks about the good and the bad times.

    

Courtesy of Billboard 

     My overall favorite song on the album has to be either “Gangsta,” “What They Want” featuring 2 Chainz, “The Purge” featuring Tyler, the Creator and Kurupt, or “Man of the Year.” On the song, “Gangsta” Q brings that fury you would hear on an Eminem album along with the West Coast feel of an Ice Cube album. “What They Want” featuring 2 Chainz seems like it could have fit right in on Based On a T.R.U. Story. The Mike WiLL Made It-produced track combines the catchy one-liners of 2 Chainz with ScHoolboy Q’s serious-minded one-liners. “The Purge” features West Coast artists of the past and future in Kurupt and Tyler, the Creator. The song brings a vicious feel to it and would draw fear into ScHoolboy Q’s rap rivals. The song “Man of the Year” is not a lyrical masterpiece, but is an ultimate song of boasting. “Man of the Year” is nonsensical yet very appealing to any hip-hop music lover.

         The album was good overall in my opinion and it was the best West Coast album since Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city. Would I say Oxymoron is album of the year so far? Yes because there has not been any other major release yet. Oxymoron shows how someone doing something considered bad in the world means something good for another.