ScHoolboy Q Says New Album Will Show 'Different Side'
ScHoolboy Q’s 2016 album Blank Face LP is up for a Grammy this weekend, but instead of just basking in that glory, the TDE spitter is already on to the next one.
Speaking with Beats 1, Groovy Tony revealed that he’s “halfway” done with his third studio album, which already has a theme.
“This is more so my life after I made it to the point of ScHoolboy Q,” he explained. “I gave you me [on past projects], but I never gave you the other side of me, the father, the dude that’s actually happy, the dude that doesn’t be in the hood just hanging out, the dude that’s trying to put his homies in position now.
“I’m not a deadbeat father anymore,” he added. “I’m in my daughter’s life. She lives with me, I’m in actively, I pick her up, take her to school every morning. It’s just a whole different Q. I want to give people a whole different side of me.”
According to Q, he’s working “12 hours a day” on the new LP and he’s “never been this inspired.” While the project has no release date, he says he’s already got plenty of tracks completed following his “Blank Face World Tour.”
This weekend, Q is up for two Grammys: Best Rap Performance for his Kanye West-assisted “THat Part” single, and Best Rap Album for Blank Face. The latter category also includes efforts from Chance the Rapper, De La Soul, DJ Khaled, Drake, and Kanye West. According to ScHoolboy, the nomination alone is a W.
“You see the type of rappers they put in the Grammys,” he said. “They don’t put rappers like me. With me just being nominated, I won…You see Chance, Kanye, Drake, De La Soul. None of them are street rappers. Rap music came from the streets. Not knocking them. I love Chance’s music. I love Drake’s music. I love Kanye’s music. I’m [a] fan. But they never want to acknowledge that other part. The fact that 50 Cent, Snoop [Dogg], Nas, none of these guys ever won a Grammy, 2Pac didn’t win a Grammy, Biggie never won a Grammy. Why the artists like us never win the Grammy?
“We never get to walk up there and grab that Grammy,” he added. “Everybody else do it, people that’s nice, people that’s kid-friendly music. You gotta have this whole little smiling thing about you. You gotta show up everywhere and shake hands and everybody gotta love you. What about the music though? What about the life? We are putting our life in our records.”
Q said he didn’t attend the 2015 Grammys when Oxymoron was nominated in the Best Rap Album category because he didn’t think he’d win. This year, however, things may change.
“My daughter wanna go,” he explained. “I think she said she wanted to go so I may go. If she says again that she wants to go then I’m gonna go but if she says she doesn’t want to go, then I’m not gonna go.”
See more highlights from the conversation below.
On his new album workflow: “I’m 12 hours a day right now. I’m hard in it right now. I’m halfway done with it already. I’ve never been this inspired this soon. As soon as I got off tour, I was inspired. I was even inspired on tour. I brought a little studio set up for the bus and laid ideas down, came back and finished them off.”
On street rappers: “A lot of people hear us talk or hear ‘shoot, shoot, shoot.’ Bro, you know how many people actually get shot in the hood? ‘You just talk about shooting?’ No. [Expletive] die in the hood. So yeah, I talk about shooting because that’s what goes on. Honestly, street rappers, we have the most substance in our music because what we’re talking about is for real…A lot of people go in the studio and they aim for a certain audience. We don’t aim for a certain audience. We go in the studio and give you our life. I’ve got 10 dead homies. I got over 15 homies in the pen that I’ll never see again.”
On why he might skip the Grammys: “I’m not a suit type of person. I’m not like a mingling…The smiling [expletive]…Nah, I don’t wanna do that. I made it here without doing that and I’ma stay doing me.”
On the streets: “It’s hard for me to really talk about my street side. Don’t get me wrong. I’m gonna always have that aspect of my music, but not so much how I used to be where I was just straight street, street, street, street…It’s a little different.”