ScHoolboy Q - Blank Face LP

ScHoolboy Q
Blank Face LP
2016
Spotify

Schoolboy Q's newest record Blank Face LP has been positioned to be the new big thing from Kendrick Lamar's record label in hopes that it will be the same level as when Kendrick released To Pimp a Butterfly. That expectation of course is ridiculous and is one that Schoolboy Q really would never be able to live up to. What we get however is something super dark, and incredibly gritty in an attempt to harness everything that has brought Schoolboy to this point and spit it all out track after track. You can tell that Schoolboy Q takes this music very seriously, and leaves little room for lightness. The single with Kanye "That Part" is perhaps one of the better tracks on the album, and for the most part his features really do steal the show throughout the record. "Ride Out" comes on as an extremely aggressive song, but the beat is such a joke that anything that Schoolboy or Vince Staples say just comes across as really corny. That seems to be the norm throughout the whole record, something really good is there, but it is covered with a bunch of bullshit and gets pushed down. A really good producer would have been able to cut through all this and bring us something much more concise and much more direct.

Schoolboy Q definitely has a point of view, and a strong one at that, but He takes so much time getting there and covers it in so much fluff that eventually you are just happy it is over. The use of Jazz and piano like on "Blank Face" are great, but when Anderson .paak totally takes over one of your songs and makes it totally his own, maybe it is best not to include that one on this already well over bloated record. For a lot of the album it almost feels like Schoolboy Q is taking a stab at different styles of hip hop in hopes that one or the other will stick. It may be that He feels like He is better than everyone else and thus can master all these styles, but He never really does. The record comes across as perfectly fine, but you really can't imagine yourself coming back to many of these tracks more than a few times. Those songs that are classics get so buried that going on a hunt to find them just is not worth it. "Str8 Ballin" is one of these tracks, it is on the verge of transcendent but sitting at track 13 it's doubtful many people will wait that long to find it. There are a ton of great ideas here, but Schoolboy Q needs someone to reign him in and direct his focus, because when that happens gold ensues. Unfortunately that just doesn't happen here.

5.9 out of 10