Stream Schoolboy Q’s 4-Star Record ‘Oxymoron’
Rapper Schoolboy Q’s star-studded major-label debut, Oxymoron, is now streaming on iTunes Radio. The album, which Rolling Stone gave four stars, contains 15 tracks and about half as many guest appearances by the likes of Raekwon, 2 Chainz, Tyler, the Creator, Kurupt and, of course, his Black Hippy classmate Kendrick Lamar. The album officially comes out tomorrow.
Schoolboy Q’s ‘Oxymoron’ and 60 More Reasons to Love 2014
Although iTunes didn’t include them in the stream, the online store’s “iTunes Deluxe” version of the record comes with two bonus tracks – “Gravy” and “Yay Yay” – while another version, exclusive to Target, includes two different bonus cuts, “Pusha Man” and a track featuring A$AP Rocky, “Californication.” (That latter song, of course, should not be confused with the Red Hot Chili Peppers album and song of the same title.)
In addition to posting the stream of Oxymoron, Schoolboy Q also launched a website where fans can “Q-ify” themselves. In an effort to make his jawline beard, various chains and the Gilligan hat that he wears in the different versions of the Oxymoron cover cause fashion waves, he has included them as cartoony add-ons to paste over photos. Fans can also add words like “#oxymoron” and “#selfie” to their photos, but, surprisingly, not the white ski mask he wears on the cover of the deluxe edition.
Our four-star review of Oxymoron noted the album’s “tough-as-nails beats and boundless energy” that positioned the rapper “as the hardened triggerman in Kendrick Lamar’s Black Hippy crew,” adding, “It helps that his voice is simply elastic – reminiscent at times of everything from Pusha T’s steely grimace to T.I.’s effortless assonance to Eminem‘s giddy singsong: a finessed tool consistently going ‘hamhock’ on some of the hardest beats this side of Illmatic.”