Black Hippy crew - Kendrick, ScHoolboy Q, Ab-Soul, Jay Rock

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cobl04

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Thought I would make a thread for these guys. It's gonna be a huge year - ScHoolboy Q has just dropped his debut album Oxymoron, and it's excellent. Kendrick's good kid, m.A.A.d city was the first album from the crew, and TDE has stated that he has another album coming later this year. There is also a Black Hippy group album coming out, which should be terrific.

Top Dawg's Kendrick Lamar & ScHoolboy Q Cover Story: Enter the House of Pain | Billboard

Anyway, all hip-hop fans should get on Oxymoron. ScHoolboy Q is supposedly the tougher, angrier rapper of the crew, and there's some straight up harder rap on the album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiqT54dNUog

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k66w45Iz7cc

And there's some other great tracks too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEMsjeq43_U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEYsgGarfww

And of course the lead single, which is dope as all hell. FlyLo dropped it the other night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L2vJEb6lVE
 
-Kendrick is awesome, perfect discography so far.

-Ab-Soul needs to pull his head out and release something else before any hype he has dies off completely, but Control System was promising.

-Q is decent but Oxymoron is too long and too generic to keep my attention, I don't get the critical praise at all.

-I love Jay Rock's features. He absolutely murdered the TDE cipher. Can't say I've heard any solo projects of his.

-You already know I'm a huge fan of Isaiah Rashad. He's well on his way.
 
I'll agree Oxymoron is too long but I really liked it. Makes me think I glossed over Habits & Contradictions.

Jay Rock's verse on Money Trees is great, only thing of his I've heard. I never made it all the way through Control System. Ab-Soul's Outro is amazing, but mostly cos of the jazz production.
 
I was p. jazzed for Oxymoron, but it fell by the wayside since I had some personal matters to attend to around the time it dropped. So I was able to finally sit down with it today and really dug it. Looking forward to giving it some more spins. "Man of the Year" remains the hottest shit.
 
"man of the year" is definitely awesome, but the rest of oxymoron had me disappointed, and i was as hype as anybody for it. honestly, i haven't even played the album since the day it came out. it just hasn't stuck with me like setbacks and h&c did.

as for the rest of black hippy, i've never been interested enough in jay rock to seek his albums out, ab-soul bores me to death besides "terrorist threats" with danny brown...and, while i think kendrick is incredibly talented, he rubs me the wrong way often (i know i'll catch some heat for saying that lol), and i haven't listened to gkmc in months. those unskippable skits have got to go too. i will never understand why rappers love skits so damn much, but most of the time, they're awful.
 
What about KDot rubs you the wrong way? I feel like perhaps the response to his Control verse probably might have annoyed you.

Totally agreed on skits, although the Dominoes shit on gkmc was hilarious, I thought.
 
it's hard to explain, but i feel like, a lot of the time, he's so focused on being LYRICAL that it feels unnatural and he loses my interest.

and then there's his media portrayal as another savior of hip hop, which isn't really any fault of his own and i try not to hold it against him. i'm just always skeptical of anyone being deemed the rapper who's gonna save rap because i firmly do not believe that rap needs to be saved. period.
 
To be fair, the skits on GKMC contributed to the overarching storyline. It's one of the rare albums where I feel that the skits add something. Certainly beats Broke Phi Broke.

If Kendrick's next album is another classic and he continues murdering every feature he gets his hands on, I say go ahead and anoint him.
 
of course the skits contribute to the story, but that doesn't mean i want to be forced into listening to them every time i hear the album. i don't think it would've been the worst thing in the world to make them skippable is all.

are we counting section.80 and gkmc only as his discography? or are we including overly dedicated? what about his self-titled ep that came before overly dedicated? (i'm not even gonna get into his work as k-dot cause he was a teen when he did that mixtape)
 
Gonna side with oneblood there, they did contribute to the storyline but I sure as hell don't need to hear two minutes of god-bothering at the end of every track. And rap does not need saving, you're right, and it's very frustrating to read op-eds every time a relatively young rapper releases a coherent track.

But I also side with imps, because S.80 and gkmc were both fucking brilliant and he does kill pretty much every feature. Although did you guys listen to the Tame Impala collab? Proof that he's not invincible. Terrible.
 
i should probably further explain my issues with propping anybody up as a savior in hip hop...it has to do with the fact that the rappers who get portrayed in that way are inevitably "lyrical" rappers and it tries to erase party music from hip hop, as if it's somehow less worthy. when the reality is...yes, hip hop was absolutely partially started as a rebellious art form that was political and social, but it was also strongly informed by and based in house parties and dances. there's no way around that, and i don't like the erasure of history going on there.
 
GKMC is the most warm, full-bodied, lived-in, sympathetic yet hard-hitting album I've heard in years and there is nothing wrong with it except for the hook in Real. I think the album would be a lesser work without the personal details that the skits offer us but, you know, opinions. Also, overly lyrical? Compared to beloved lyrical MCs like Guru (and I love Gang Starr), at least Kendrick has a recognizable voice and flow. MAAD City is as engaging as it gets.

Agreed with Impy: if Kenny's next album somehow lives up to the hype, he'll be in a league by himself (with Kanye in a separate, nearby league).
 
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yes, overly lyrical. lots of times, i don't want to listen to something that i need to decipher while listening to get the full effect. that's where i'm at right now with rap and i respect that lots of other people don't feel the same way. i also think you're going to find that i'll defend some rap that i wouldn't have touched a few years ago, like cobbler's found with waka flocka and lil b.

i will give you that kendrick is more listenable than guru (and a lot of other classic rappers) based on his voice and flow. he's obviously one of the best rappers out right now. no denying it.
 
Everything has its place. Flocka is hilarious. With his great ad libs and those ridiculously over the top Lex Luger beats, I am in for like 20 minutes at a time. More than that and I get a headache.
 
SZA needs to be added to the thread title. Z leaked and while it's not as amazing as the My Morning Jacket album of the same name, it's still great and gives TDE the range it needs to be a dominant label:

SZA -Childs Play feat. Chance the Rapper

SZA - Julia

Julia sounds like a new Charli XCX song and is too hot for words. Most of the album is in a chill R&B lane though.
 
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Quality over quantity; if I have to wait an extra three months for another masterpiece, that's fine with me. Note that there's no guarantee "I" will be on the album either.
 
Well, if the whole album sounds like "Untitled (Song from the Colbert Report)", we're looking at my favorite hip hop album of all time.


Spoiler Alert: It won't.
 
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