Kaelyn Gundrum
12 February 2014Celebrity Profile
From “Banger” to “Blessed” ScHoolboy Q has long since proved himself to
underground Hip Hop, and is on the verge of showcasing his talents to the rest of the world. He managed to break loose from his quiet beginning and fall into a world of trouble before landing in a spot in one of Hip Hop’s hottest upcoming labels, Top Dawg Entertainment.
Born Quincy Matthew Hanley, one thing that caught my attention and saw in myself about ScHoolboy Q was him being born into a military family and having a peaceful start, but wanting to escape that, and there is no doubt that he found himself his share of trouble. Q was born in Germany on October 26th, 1986. After his parents split up, his mother soon moved him to Texas for three years, then after, they found themselves settling in Los Angeles, California where he was raised. Despite the fact that he played three sports, football, basketball and swimming, and maintained a 3.3 GPA in high school, Q could not manage to resist his surroundings and he soon found himself submerged in a life of gangs and drugs. But by leading a double life, about his books by day and streets by night, he earned the name “ScHoolboy Q”.
The only outlet Q found to the madness going on around him was music. In his interview with the Hot 97 Morning Show, ScHoolboy Q explains how he feels about his gangbanging now, “Once you adapt to all of that, you get numb. It’s embarrassing for me to even really be talking about it in detail.” And goes on to further explain that he couldn't justify that kind of thing while having a daughter. After being arrested at the age of 21, Q realized that he had to do
something with himself. This was the time when he became serious about music, and managed to go from banging off of 51st & Figueroa, to touring around the world.
underground Hip Hop, and is on the verge of showcasing his talents to the rest of the world. He managed to break loose from his quiet beginning and fall into a world of trouble before landing in a spot in one of Hip Hop’s hottest upcoming labels, Top Dawg Entertainment.
Born Quincy Matthew Hanley, one thing that caught my attention and saw in myself about ScHoolboy Q was him being born into a military family and having a peaceful start, but wanting to escape that, and there is no doubt that he found himself his share of trouble. Q was born in Germany on October 26th, 1986. After his parents split up, his mother soon moved him to Texas for three years, then after, they found themselves settling in Los Angeles, California where he was raised. Despite the fact that he played three sports, football, basketball and swimming, and maintained a 3.3 GPA in high school, Q could not manage to resist his surroundings and he soon found himself submerged in a life of gangs and drugs. But by leading a double life, about his books by day and streets by night, he earned the name “ScHoolboy Q”.
The only outlet Q found to the madness going on around him was music. In his interview with the Hot 97 Morning Show, ScHoolboy Q explains how he feels about his gangbanging now, “Once you adapt to all of that, you get numb. It’s embarrassing for me to even really be talking about it in detail.” And goes on to further explain that he couldn't justify that kind of thing while having a daughter. After being arrested at the age of 21, Q realized that he had to do
something with himself. This was the time when he became serious about music, and managed to go from banging off of 51st & Figueroa, to touring around the world. In 2006, Q first started working with Top Dawg Entertainment, although he released a mixtape in 2008 titled Schoolboy turned Hustla, he did not sign with TDE until 2009. He spent three years in the “mixtape phase” before finally releasing his first album Setbacks in 2011.
“The concept behind Setbacks was to talk about all of the reasons why I can’t rap. The reason I can’t accomplish what I want to accomplish is because I’m doing all of this dumb stuff.” Q admitted to Complex Magazine in a 2012 interview about his first official album. This time seemed to be when ScHoolboy Q was fully realizing his potential and how great he could be if he just got serious about things.
After realizing that he had a talent, Q decided to put challenge himself and his career has taken off since then. In 2012 he released his second studio album Habits & Contradictions. The album had generally positive feedback with comments on the album such as “truly genuine” “intoxicating” “full of aggression and hurt” and “an impressive establishing trademark” from reviews in Rolling Stone, XXL, and Complex Magazine. Jayson Green writes in a review on Pitchfork.com “This lily-pad hopping means that it takes a while for buried emotion in Habits & Contradictions to surface.” And this is no secret, the erratic content of each song gives it away. In this album it is noticeable that Q is still semi-serious about some things, but at the same time, he gives us a glimpse of what he can really do and a little bit of his emotions. In an odd way, ScHoolboy Q’s life really relates to my own, strangely at this particular time. The way he’s procrastinated and struggled with taking advantage of his full potential in his life is something that I deal with everyday. Like Q, I play around and don’t take things seriously, but when I do, they’re not the things that should be my first priority and I take the chance of jeopardizing my future. That is why he is such an inspiration to me, because he came to his senses and put his talents to use, with nothing but greatness coming from his efforts. With his third album Oxymoron due to release this year on February 25th, ScHoolboy Q’s fans, especially myself, are nothing less than thrilled to see what else he has in store for us.
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