Review Summary: A moron on oxy.
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle was the first to note that the 'the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts'. What didn't become apparent until 2014, with the release of Black Hippie's most overrated artist Schoolboy Q's
OxyMoron, was that the whole can be worse, much worse, than the sum of its parts. Perhaps aware that he was making history in this way, Schoolboy Q decided to name his album after the Ancient Greek concept of an
Oxymoron for an album that can only be described as outstanding trash. Meaning that while the album is frankly awful and nearly impossible to digest as a whole, there are a number of quality tracks on the album that make it worth a skim through.
OxyMoron features an excellent display of ingenuity and production savvy, but as a whole the album is a chore to listen to and becomes mindlessly repetitive before it is finished. Schoolboy Q has a catchy voice, an adequate flow, and the beats in general, especially on
Collard Greens,
Los Awesome,
Studio,
Blind Threats,
Hell of a Night stand out on their own and can divert attention from the questionable lyricism. The beats rely on the simple playing of various instruments with a bass that is not overbearing and allows the other softer instruments to be the main focus while still adding an addictive rhythm to the tracks. Most of the tracks have a type of futuristic dance atmosphere that somehow make the lyrics sound good regardless of what they are actually saying. Some of the tracks like
Hoover Street succeed with interesting story telling of Q's early life. Yet this track is hurt by being nearly seven minutes long and dragging on with a hook that becomes old before the end of the song, which becomes a theme in the album. Tracks like
Blind Threats succeed in basically every measurable aspect of rap by combining well-written raps with a smooth nostalgic beat from the simple playing of a xylophone and drum. That is to say the song succeeds until the living oxymoron known as the four foot eleven tough guy Raekwon The Chef shows up, who has not cooked anything except food for him and his three chins in the twenty years since
36 Chambers.
While the forte of this album is clearly the beats, they all suffer from a sense of artificially trying to inject energy into a relatively un-charismatic artist that is over-relying on beats and feature artists. The major problem that makes this album boring as a whole is the repetitive lyrics. It's not that the subject matter of bragging about being rich and ***ing are abrasive or sloppily done, it is that they become banal before the album is even halfway over. It makes the idea of listening to the entire album seem daunting, because the highlight tracks like
Hell of a Night make the poorer tracks seem all but pointless, because they are about the same topics but sound outright worse. Yet this shouldn't be written off as idiotic music as the review summary humorously suggests, but digesting this entire album in one sitting is inconceivable unless you are on some sort of hard drug. If you are debating listening to this album, skip it and listen to the highlight tracks like
Collard Greens ,
Hoover Street and
Hell of a Night . On the whole, after listening to the full album it seems like a useful waste of time to discover the 2-3 best tracks that are still only 4/5 star tracks at best.
