As his new album Blue Lips inches closer to its long-awaited release date, Schoolboy Q has upped his productivity, following the dual release of “Back In Love” and “Blueslides” with another new video. This time, it’s the anxious, confrontational “Yeern 101” getting the video treatment with a clip that finds Q defying the status quo before outright blowing it to smithereens by the end.
Over an twitchy, anxiously clipped bass drum loop, Q raps at lightning speed with nary a hook in sight, detailing the drastic changes in his life from his days running around on Figueroa in Los Angeles (Fiftieeees) to flexing a “Fo’-fifty-four, I’ma keep it on stock” and a “Cognac bezel with the ticker on rocks.” He also shows off his golf game in the video, alongside scenes of Hollywood shoots, bringing goons to the opera, and basically taking up space in spaces where he wouldn’t traditionally belong. You can watch the video above, and find out more about Blue Lips below.
Schoolboy Q is gearing up to release his new album, Blue Lips, which will be his first studio release since 2019’s Crash Talk. And to build anticipation, he recently revealed that the entire project will be available for streaming at the same time, rather than putting any of the songs up early as singles. Instead, he provided “Blueslides,” “Yeern 101,” and “Back In Love” (feat. Devin Malik) to listen to on YouTube. (The last one isn’t on the official tracklist, at least for a standard version.)
With just a few more weeks until Blue Lips officially drops, here’s everything to know about Schoolboy Q’s upcoming record.
Schoolboy Q’s Blue Lips Release Date
Blue Lips is out 3/1 via Top Dawg Entertainment/Interscope. Find more information here.
Schoolboy Q is back and in full-on album mode after announcing his new album, Blue Lips, is coming soon. Last June, he said that the album was being mixed, and it looks like he spent the remaining time between then and now making sure the rollout would be immaculate.
Last week, he shared a trailer revealing the album’s title, tracklist, and release date, and today, he dropped two of its songs, “Blueslides” and “Back In Love” featuring Devin Malik. However, according to a press release, the songs will only be available online for 24 hours, when they will presumably disappear until the album’s release on March 1.
In the “Blueslides” video, which you can watch below, Q raps in split screen over a very low-key, jazzy beat, sharing his hustler’s mentality and the challenges of balancing his family man outlook with the demands of being an international rap star.
Meanwhile, “Back In Love,” which you can watch at the top of the page, certainly seems to be going the other way despite its title, employing a thundering, menacing beat and old homie movies of a very young Quincy playing outside. A title card defines Blue Lips, offering a few definitions that probably don’t show up in a dictionary.
Check out Schoolboy Q’s new videos (for a limited time only) above.
Blue Lips is due 3/1 via Top Dawg Entertainment / Interscope. Get more info here.
At long last, ScHoolboy Q announced that his highly anticipated sixth studio album will be released next month. Blue Lips, his first album in about five years, arrives March 1. The project’s teaser trailer reveals a 17-song tracklist written on a wall. As of now, no other details about the album have been officially revealed. Q’s last album, CrasH Talk, dropped back in 2019. Since then, he has mostly remained quiet on the music side of things, aside from the occasional guest verse. ScHoolboy Q featured on songs from Freddie Gibbs, Isaiah Rashad, Roc Marciano, Conway The Machine, Black Thought, and Reason.
In 2022, he dropped the standalone single, “Soccer Dad” and contributed “Clip In A Tray” to The Alchemist’s Sandwich compilation. In the five years since CrasH Talk, anticipation for ScHoolboy Q’s next album has grown immensely, setting expectations quite high. As we inch closer to March 1, here are five things we want from ScHoolboy Q’s Blue Lips.
A Conceptually Sound Album
Each of ScHoolboy Q’s previous albums delivered skillfully crafted music surrounding some sort of loose concept. Albums like Oxymoron and Blank Face LP are meticulously sequenced to tell a story. Blue Lips hopefully has a unique perspective that captures a new chapter in ScHoolboy Q’s life and career. His albums often balance hard-hitting bangers with transparent moments of introspection. We hope for Blue Lips to offer a conceptually sound album that stacks up to his past releases.
PHILADELPHIA, PA – SEPTEMBER 01: (L-R) Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock, Schoolboy Q and Ab-Soul backstage during the 2013 Budweiser Made In America Festival at Benjamin Franklin Parkway on September 1, 2013 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images)
ScHoolboy Q is more than capable of making an excellent album without any features. Still, his track record shows how well he works with others. While the album’s only known details are its title and tracklist, we can hope for some exciting guest features. As revealed during a 2021 livestream, Rico Nasty supposedly features on the song “Pop.”
ScHoolboy Q has proven to be an adventurous collaborator. He worked with Travis Scott, Kid Cudi, and Lil Baby on CrasH Talk. Ideally, fans hope to see reunions between him and his frequent collaborators, including his TDE label-mates. A Black Hippy reunion is highly unlikely, but listeners can be optimistic that the album will include a possible feature from Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, or SZA. Other dream features for Blue Lips include new collaborations with fan favorites like A$AP Rocky and Tyler, The Creator.
Musical Variety
INDIO, CA – APRIL 13: ScHoolboy Q performs with Sir at Gobi Tent during the 2019 Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival on April 13, 2019 in Indio, California. (Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images for Coachella)
One can usually expect a host of different musicians to produce a ScHoolboy Q album, and Blue Lips appears to be no different. In a 2021 livestream where he premiered many unreleased songs, Q revealed that his next album sounds nothing like his previous works and that “nobody on this album did a record by themselves, this whole album is a collab.” With a lot of co-production, we can hope to hear ScHoolboy Q exploring new musical territory while providing his signature gangsta raps. Although he hasn’t confirmed anything yet, we imagine that Blue Lips will likely see contributions from Tae Beast, DJ Fu, Skhye Hutch, Kenny Beats, and The Alchemist, who reportedly produced the song “Lost Times.”
Over the years, ScHoolboy Q has teased a lot of new unreleased music that we hope sees the light of day on Blue Lips. He played “Pop” and other unknown snippets during the aforementioned livestream. Most notably, he premiered “THank God 4 Me” during Kal Banx’s Boiler Room set in LA last September. Based on the snippets that we have heard so far, Blue Lips is sounding promising. Hopefully, the majority of these unreleased tracks appear on the album.
“Blue Slides”
As the teaser trailer for ScHoolboy Q revealed the tracklist for Blue Lips, one song that stuck out to fans was “Blue Slides.” While not officially confirmed, many believed that this song could be a reference to Mac Miller’s Blue Slide Park. Due to their close friendship, we hope that this will be a tribute to the late rapper. Miller passed away back in 2018, causing Q to delay the release of CrasH Talk, which was almost finished at the time. With the two being such close friends and collaborators, one can hope for “Blue Slides” to be a touching ode to Mac Miller based on its title.
It’s been a minute since a new Schoolboy Q project, as his latest album, Crash Talk, was released in April 2019. That was nearly five years ago now, but Schoolboy is ready to end the drought soon: Today (February 1), he shared the tracklist for Blue Lips, his upcoming sixth album that’s set for release on March 1.
He made the reveal with a simple video that shows the tracklist written out on a giant tarp. The clip also highlights multiple dictionary definitions of the term “blue lips”: “speechless, especially as the temporary result of shock or some strong emotion,” “(of a person or mood) shocked, speechless, or embarrassed,” “a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something,” and, “become fully aware of (something) as a fact; understand clearly.”
Fans have been looking forward to the album (in a concrete way, anyway) since this past summer, when the Back On Figg podcast hosts declared, “We been in the mixing process of Schoolboy Q’s album. That sh*t is coming very, very soon.’
Check out the video above and find the Blue Lips tracklist below.
