Album Of The Week: Schoolboy Q Oxymoron

If you've ever seen Schoolboy Q live, you've probably seen him doing the dance he does: Both hands up, pogoing sideways, spinning, careening, head bobbling madly in every direction. It's a chaotic, all-over-the-place dance, and I'm amazed he doesn't accidentally whirl off the stage at least once a show. (Q started out as Kendrick Lamar's hypeman, and I have to imagine he was a fucking great hypeman.) But when Q is doing that dance, his face tends to be blank, impassive, even thoughtful. He's not losing himself; he's merely conveying the impression that he's losing himself. It's calculated, theatrical performance. And he takes the same sort of approach to his rapping. Listen to the way he raps on "Gangsta," the first track from his new album Oxymoron. His voice is strained and urgent, madly fluctuating among different pitches and cadences. Deep in the track, he makes a hilarious array of dizzy noises: Croaks, screeches, yips, growls, echoing back-of-the-throat grains. But all this surrounds a technically fluid, lyrically sharp I-will-fuck-you-up rap song, one that hits all the fundaments and never loses the thread. Q isn't an Ol' Dirty Bastard-style agent of chaos, but sometimes he wants you to think he is. And with Oxymoron, he's devoted impressive levels of craft into making the greatest staggering-drunk rap album in recent memory.