ScHoolboy Q’s favourite rapper of all time: “It’s nothing against nobody”
As one of the most popular West Coast rappers since the 2010s, and one who keeps their feet firmly rooted in Los Angeles, many might expect ScHoolboy Q‘s biggest inspirations to be local. However, his favourite rappers actually hail from the opposite side of the country.
Q crowned Nas his favourite rapper on the Alchemist-produced song ‘Attention’, which appeared on his 2019 album CrasH Talk. He rapped, “Favourite rapper Nas been told me that I’m the best/ Had a couple sessions with Dre, knew I would win.”
During an interview with The Breakfast Club, ScHoolboy Q opened up about Nas calling him the “best,” but doubted the sincerity of his words. “Not lying,” he said. “Maybe because he’s my favourite rapper and he had to spit something back and he probably spit some cap at me. He probably gassed me up, I don’t know. But he said it.”
This isn’t the first time ScHoolboy Q had spoken about his love for Nas, discussing his East Coast influence during a conversation with B-Real on The Smokebox. While Nas will always be his favourite, he admitted that he thinks Jay-Z is the outright best rapper to ever do it.
“I was inspired by a lot of East Coast rappers, from Mobb Deep, Biggie, even 50 Cent,” he said. “Nas is my favourite rapper. I also think Jay-Z is the best rapper to ever rap, just because he’s at his age and what he’s doing and he still is relevant.”
He continued, “He’s been doing it for years and [he’s] consistent. You like his album or not. The people liked it. I didn’t like everything Jay-Z did. The majority of the people liked it, so that’s consistency.”
ScHoolboy Q noted that most artists from his area are mostly inspired by those on the West Coast, but not him. Instead, his cousin put him on to music that was happening a far cry from where he grew up.
“Everybody just expect me to say [2]Pac, [Tha] Dogg Pound, everybody else, Cypress [Hill],” he said. “It’s nothing against nobody from the Coast. I was just in the car as a kid coming up in the car with somebody who listened to East Coast music. My older cousin, all he would listen to was like East Coast stuff, like Nas and all them, so I had to get into that. I got into that first before I actually got into the other stuff.”
In another interview with SSENSE, Q touched on him and Kendrick Lamar being influenced by the people that came before them. “Snoop, ‘Pac, E-40, Too Short, goes on for days,” he said. “Cube, Dre, but even Biggie, Jay-Z, Nas. My favourite rapper is Nas.”
His dream became a reality in 2013 when Nas featured on the remix of ‘Studio’ alongside BJ the Chicago Kid, which originally appeared on his Oxymoron album. “Got a call from my dog Q for the G-Mix, now let’s groove,” he rapped in his opening verse.