FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER @MALKYMAYWEATHER "Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use." Oxymoron is the upcoming third studio album by American hip hop recording artist Schoolboy Q, scheduled to be released on February 25, 2014 by Top Dawg Entertainment and Interscope Records. Oxymoron will be his first album released under a major record label to music retailers, whereas his first two albums were released independently to digital retailers only. The album's recording took place from June 2012 until late 2013. Schoolboy Q enlisted collaborators such as Kendrick Lamar, 2 Chainz, Jay Rock, Tyler, The Creator, Suga Free and Kurupt among others. The album's production was handled by high-profile record producers such as Boi-1da, The Alchemist, Mike Will Made It, DJ Dahi and Pharrell, as well as others, including members of Top Dawg Entertainment's in-house production teams Digi+Phonics and THC. The album was supported by four singles, "Yay Yay", "Collard Greens", "Man of the Year" and "Break the Bank". "Collard Greens", which features a guest appearance from Kendrick Lamar, peaked at number 92 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Man of the Year" entered at number 81 on the same chart, becoming his highest-charting single on that chart. 1. "Gangsta" 2. "Los Awesome" (Feat. Jay Rock) 3. "Collard Greens" (Feat. Kendrick Lamar) 4. "What They Want" (Feat. 2 Chainz) 5. "Hoover Street" 6. "Studio" (Feat. BJ the Chicago Kid) 7. "Prescription/Oxymoron" 8. "The Purge" (Feat. Tyler, the Creator & Kurupt) 9. "Blind Threats" (Feat. Raekwon) 10. "Hell of a Night" 11. "Break the Bank" 12. "Man of the Year" 13. "His & Her Friend" (Feat. SZA) 14 "Grooveline Pt. 2″ (Feat. Suga Free) 15. "F**k LA" At a February 2014 listening session for the album, Schoolboy Q spoke on the album's opening track: "When I first made ['Gangsta'] all I wanted to say was that my grandma showed me my first strap. That's all I wanted to put in the song. I just thought that was so gangsta. It was kind of weird, too, now that I really think about it. She used to take her bullets out of the gun and leave the clip in her room and let me play with her gun. I was an only child so I probably got on her nerves that much that she finally gave me her burner, like, 'Here, get the fuck out my face.' [Laughs] I just wanted to say that so bad."."[41] He also added on how he incorporated one of his neighborhood friends on to the record: "[I was also able to] speak on my homeboy Rat Tone. He's one of my big homies from my hood. He showed me my first [AK-47] when I was like 11-years-old. I was amazed by it. I thought that shit was tight. They used to have all the shiny shit. That's how we talked. We would call a gun 'fly.' Like, 'Your dickies is cut super perfect and they got the right amount of dirt on them. That shit is fly."[41] In February 2014, during a Q&A; session for the album, at SONOS Studios in Los Angeles, California, Schoolboy Q described the song "Prescription/Oxymoron", as the most personal: "I came up selling OxyContin," he said. "The karma behind it was that I never took an OxyContin before but I did get addicted to Percocets, Xanax, Codeine—shit like that. When my daughter was one and two [years old], I used to get into sleep comas, like 'Xan comas'—just dead to the world and I put it into the music."[42] Schoolboy Q said he arranged the song to juxtapose the process of selling prescription pills and addiction: "I put the OxyContin and selling it at the end of the relapse or the addiction," he said. "I sold OxyContin and then I got addicted [to pills]. This way, I showed that I got addicted then I sold it. That was a crazy record. That's true shit—the first part of it when my daughter tried to wake me up and I was dead to the world. That was my little secret. I always had the cup with me. They just never knew I had a gang of pills in the other bottle. That was a little story about me and how I was addicted, too.

• published: 20 Feb 2014
• views: 1460