By KEVIN JACOB
Staff Writer
So last Saturday Schoolboy Q dropped his long awaited project Habits & Contradictions and being a supporter of the TDE camp I decided to check it out. I had heard Q’s last project Setbacks and it’s still getting burn on the iPod to this day. His verse on A$AP Rocky’s Brand New Guy was a really great track so I decided to check it out.
The project starts out with a really nice track called “Sacrilegious” with a really spacey beat and deep, dark lyrics start the project off nicely. The project continues with “There He Go” which has Q sort of using a Niki Minaj British accent for the chorus with some nice raps to go along with it, as well as a beat with a mellow piano and haunting horns sounding throughout it.
The next track (which definitely was one of my favorites) was “Hands on the Wheel” which features A$AP Rocky. Now, I am a pretty big fan of Rocky and he and Q both rip this track. This song pretty much sums up what you’ll hear on the album with most songs dealing with drugs, sex, violence, alcohol, and really just not caring.
Some other tracks I was into were: “Groove Line Pt 1” which features DOM Kennedy and Curren$y (with a soulful beat by Lex Luger…and yes your reading that right— A SOULFUL BEAT BY LEX LUGER who is the king of Waka Flocka and Rick Ross B.M.F.-type beats), “My Homie”, and “Blessed” which features a great verse by Kendrick Lamar.
With all solid projects you will find your problems. Some songs like “Sex Drive” which featured Jhene Aiko (which sounds like a rehash of a Kendrick song on Section 80 called “Tammy’s Song”) and “How We Feeling” just feel forced and out of place on this record. I also wasn’t too crazy about “Druggy’s with H*** Again” but even that track wasn’t terribly unlistenable.
In the end I kind of liked this project. I’m not going to say I loved it because, quite frankly, I didn’t. I do think that Q’s rhymes have improved much more than when his first full length project Setbacks dropped. I don’t know if his beat selection on this one was better than Setbacks, but I still liked the overall dark theme of Habits & Contradictions. In my opinion, this guy is the West Coast version of A$AP Rocky and they both are really similar.
So if your looking for something A$AP Rocky-esque with good, dark, solid production with some solid lyrical ability, then by all means this project is definitely for you. If you’re looking for something a little more lyrical and a better-known project, then I would check out Rick Ross’s new project Rich Forever. But, until then, go expand your rap horizons and support Schoolboy Q’s Habits & Contradictions.
Rating: 7.5-8/10
