ScHoolboy Q — CrasH Talk — Album Review
Despite being three years since releasing his Grammy-nominated Blank Face LP in 2016, Top Dawg Entertainment’s ScHoolboy Q has seen a plethora of success in features ranging from Joey Bada$$’s political “Rockabye Baby” and the ASAP Mob’s uptempo trap banger “Bahamas” to the laid back “Something Foreign” from SiR’s underrated neo-soul record November and finally his 2019 contribution on the Chinese rap group Higher Brothers’ track “Won’t Believe.” Q rarely misses on a feature, and despite his almost niche music style and genre, he’s been able to contribute worthwhile verses on music from all over the rap/hip hop spectrum as well as the country. His music has always been able to evolve to sound modern while avoiding selling out and becoming generic. In fact, his least liked moments critically are the records that strayed a little too close to the mainstream: most recently “Studio” from Oxymoron and Blank Face LP’s “Overtime.” Unfortunately for Q, CrasH Talk seems to sacrifice uniqueness for simplicity, and it’s most reflected in the lack of almost any enticing hooks and the generic instrumentals and features.
The album starts off as strong as any of Q’s projects, with “Gang Gang” being very reminiscent of “Gangsta,” the opening for Oxymoron (2014). The beat that accompanies the hook is ridiculous, and while it’s a shame that it disappears until the hook returns in the latter half of the track, it makes sense that the instrumental for the verse has a little more to it. Beat 1 leaves a lot of room for the “Whip clean, dope boy” hook that will instantly get stuck in your head but has immensely hard-hitting and successive kick drum patterns and hi-hat rolls. This is truly a great start to the record, but its short length leaves the listener wanting another verse and being let down.
The second track “Tales” is the first time of many on this record where Q gets in a reflective mood, looking back on his life as well as the larger consequences that come with the gangbanging that he is so familiar with. It serves as an interesting juxtaposition to the opening track, but this duality feels very off with the flow in which one track goes into the other. His verses are solid in “Tales,” but they’re certainly nothing we’ve never heard before from other artists or even Q himself.
“CHopstix (feat. Travis Scott),” the second single from the album, starts a pretty bad section in the album. As Sheldon Pearce from Pitchfork says, “ScHoolboy Q is never less interesting than when he’s trying to fuck something.” This song is incredibly generic and serves as the first example of the lack of quality hooks that plagues this project. Travis’ contribution is lifeless and uninteresting, and ScHoolboy’s flow is so lost and messy. Not surprisingly, the music video is equally ridiculous, as the artists channel an old ballet performance from the early 1900s , with Travis looking so high and bored as he unenthusiastically conducts the orchestra. Not to mention the metaphor of chopsticks being a woman’s legs is just stupid.
While “Numb Numb Juice” was a really exciting first single for this album, it’s in a really weird place in the track list: right in the middle of a very sexual and intimate section. Nonetheless, the opening a capella section is explosive, and his cadence is super dope. This track embodies ScHoolboy despite being on a more modern trap beat than he typically accompanies.
“Drunk (feat. 6LACK)” and “Lies (feat. Ty Dolla $ign & YG)” continue the intimate and polished sound set by “CHopstix” and fail to add anything of note to the album. “Drunk” only briefly mentions any drunk thoughts that go beyond his lust for a woman with the lines “Why my grandma couldn’t live? Gone way too fast, ayy / Cousin murdered in the field, gone way too fast, ayy.” 6LACK’s verse is soothing but short and unfulfilling, and the track starts off with a bizarre contrast between a high pitched woman (is that Noname?) and a low-pitched distorted male vocal that accompany a really low-key and sleep-inducing beat akin to something Bryson Tiller may excel on. “Lies” on the other hand opts for a classic west coast snap/clap instrumental that is instrumentally sound but, again, lacks a compelling story. ScHoolboy’s verse consists of him raving about his success and trying to shove off a woman who is trying to exploit his success for money. YG discusses a similar topic in his story of a woman who tried to get pregnant by him to receive child support; both these stories fall flat and feel immature and surface-level.
“X”…I mean “5200” is one of the better tracks on the album, but its quality is almost squandered by the fact that it sounds like a duplicate of “X” from the Black Panther album, a song which Q was featured on. Both tracks are produced by !llmind & Sounwave, two great producers who have very different backgrounds: !llmind working with everyone from early Jay-Z to modern Joell Ortiz and Sounwave being a part of the largely Black Hippy-oriented production crew Digi+Phonics. The instrumental consists of straight and heavy trap drums with significantly less bounce than those of “CHopstix” accompanied by a synth woodwind instrument. Q’s hook is one of the most compelling on the album, and his delivery finally sounds excited again after the brief lull experienced before this track.
“Black Folk” is one of the more unique tracks so far, addressing the larger issue of Black people wasting their talent and money on superficial things. ScHoolboy flows similar to that from Oxymoron’s “Collard Greens,” and his lyrics are over a relaxed hi-hatless drum pattern and some high-pitched synth bells. The dampened “wasted, wasted” hook goes over really well and fits with the overall vibe of the track. It’s another of the introspective tracks, with Q including lines like “Who knew failure make you better? / My adversities done turn me to a killer” and “Tryna stay positive out of negative energy / N***a, don’t play with me / You must think my loyalty slavery.”
The latter half of the album is significantly stronger than the first half, but it still suffers from the lack of a coherent organization in the track list.
The 21 Savage-assisted “Floating” and “Water (feat. Lil Baby)” are cut from a similar cloth of the SoundCloud rap wave that has become ubiquitous over the last few years. Both songs feature deep, oscillating 808s, a repeating melody (on keys for the former and strings for the latter), and a repetitive, generic hook that feeds right into the druggy trend of rap as of recent. Neither of these collabs are expected or preferred, but Lil Baby ultimately fits better on his track than 21 does on his. Q actually comes through with a good performance on “Water” in terms of delivery and cadence, but his lyrics remain very superficial and lack anything poignant or new.
Kid Cudi offers a great contribution to the album for his eerie vocals on “Dangerous.” The rock-adjacent instrumental works wonders for the ‘phrase, break, phrase’ flow that ScHoolboy employs, with the drums dropping out in favor of a distant and distorted vocal at the end of each phrase. This is definitely one of the highlights on the record, and the only thing it lacks is a defined resolution to the gradually increasing volume; the entire track feels like it’s building to a ‘beat drop,’ but it never seems to get there.
“Die Wit Em” is a pretty decent track, utilizing some pretty bouncy trap drums with pitch-changing hi-hats and a booming sub bass. The track is Q warning everyone not to mess with him because he is not afraid of inflicting violence on those who threaten him. It’s ultimately nothing particularly new for Q, but it’s certainly a solid cut.
Perhaps one of the most well put together tracks overall is the third single “CrasH.” The instrumental, the hook, the flow, and the subject matter all fit perfectly together. It’s perhaps Q’s most reflective song next to the closing track “Attention,” which is essentially, although more of a song, his version of Cole’s “Note to Self” or, more recently, Logic’s “Last Call.” “CrasH” just sounds like a track to bump to in the car while you’re driving through your home city and reminiscing about where you came from and how you got to where you are now, which is exactly what Q goes for in his lyrics. Q discusses how his life has evolved with “Rich, still dodgin’ that bus ride / From the west side where don’t shit slide, we on trip time” and “Got my daughter that mansion / Gave my mother that million.” The final track of the album, “Attention,” works to sum up the introspective side of the album while still sticking true to his gangsta rap style, with the instrumental being very reminiscent of the deep bass and simple boom bap we heard on Blank Face LP’s “Groovy Tony.”
ScHoolboy’s newest effort, while not terrible by any means, falls flat on delivering the much anticipated project that listeners thought they’d see after an almost three year solo absence from one of the TDE favorites. It’s certainly Q’s safest and most mainstream album, and while that’s not inherently bad, he wasn’t able to pull it off while still keeping it interesting. The album has some pretty strong points in his overall discography, but a lot of the verses, hooks, and features felt phoned in and half-assed. There’s little to no organization or care put to the track list, which is a shame because there are pretty clear themes presented throughout the album that should have signaled some order. However, despite the underwhelming nature of the album, there aren’t many horrible moments, just a lot of mediocre ones that we have grown not to expect from Groovy Q.
6/10
