[Video] ScHoolBoy Q Says Kendrick Lamar Has Left Him No Choice But To Make A "Classic"
Now that it is official that Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city has sold nearly a quarter million albums in its first week and received nothing but critical acclaim (aside from Shyne), one has to wonder how high the bar has been set for the rest of the TDE crew. In the first part of TheWellVersed and 2DopeBoyz sit down with ScHoolBoy Q during the LongLiveA$AP tour, Q explained that he felt that only Kendrick had made it and the rest of the crew had to continue working hard (watch here). In the second part of our conversation, Q says that Lamar’s critically acclaimed album has put him in a position that he can make nothing less than an album that he wants the world to call a classic.
“Every time we drop an album it raises the bar for the rest of us,” Q explains while citing that his album Habits & Contradictions and Ab Soul’s Control System helped raise the bar for Kendrick Lamar. “Kendrick left me no choice but to make a classic record. I’m not about to put an album that’s just okay. Top Dawg is not going to let me do it. It’s impossible for me not to drop — I don’t want to say classic — but a hell of an album that I’ll let you all say if its classic. Kendrick raised the bar that high.”
Ever since the beginning, the TDE crew has said they would be taking the rap game over. Now that it’s coming into fruition, Q explains that it took speaking it into existence for it to happen.
“Me, Soul, Jay Rock and Kendrick used to sit in the studio talking about what would happen when we got there,” Q says as he takes another pull of the herbal pleasure. “We were speaking it into existence. We knew this shit was going to happen. You’ve got to have that confidence. I say it all the time that rappers are too nice. They don’t have the cockiness in them. Everyone takes the cockiness as being big headed but you gotta know you’re the shit to be the shit.”
Q explains that the success comes with hard work. While he’s on tour with A$AP Rocky (where he reveals Ab Soul will join them for the rest of the tour), he believes Kendrick is likely in a studio somewhere working despite putting up a monster first week. “He deserves it because he works hard,” Q says.
The “Yawk Yawk” rapper’s work ethic is nothing to thumb your nose at either. His vigorous tour schedule is couple with long days and nights in the studio. It’s one that take him away from his primary inspiration, his daughter. Among the chaos of the tour bus, that is littered with video games, weed and clothes, sits a delicately placed picture of Quincy Hanley and his daughter Joy Hanley.
“She knows daddy loves her,” Q says about being on the road and the photo being the only means to see his daughter. “Daddy is taking care of her and making sure she can stay in school. School costs money!”
In the end, those sacrifices that he’s willing to make are the reason that he feels that he’s earned his keep.
“There are sometimes three nights in a row where I don’t see my daughter. I deserve success. That’s how I feel right now.”
