Album Review: Blue Lips – Schoolboy Q
The TDE rapper released his sixth studio album.
Words by Danique Lorian Photo by TDE
ScHoolboy Q’s very long awaited and heavily anticipated sixth studio album is finally here.After setting an official countdown in February, Q released his most experimental album to date, Blue Lips, on March 1st. Now that we’ve had some time to sit with the record, it might be safe to say that we have an early (and very viable) contender for Album of The Year.
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Blue Lips brings us Q’s familiar unruliness but what we’ve loved most is how willing he is to explore duality, a major theme throughout the album. “I know the feeling of being trapped from all the things that you built,” he raps on Cooties. A few verses later he boasts "I'm fully embedded, still building my leverage," toeing the line between contentment and angst.
"The sheer amount of modes Q is capable of switching between remains astounding. But Blue Lips never feels gaudy or overly concerned with elegance... These are aggressive, revealing, and occasionally messy songs about the intersection of success and the underlying hurt from a sordid it's often used to conceal," Daniel Green writes for Pitchfork.
“Part of why Blue Lips is compelling is that it seduces the listener enough to accept ScHoolboy Q on his own terms.” Five years after his last album release, and he hasn’t missed a beat.
Danique Lorian
Senior Editor, Frasspot
Danique Lorian is the senior editor for Frasspot. She oversees music curation, recipe development, and digital food content across Frasspot and has contributed as senior editor since December 2019.
March 15, 2024
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