The four West Coast legends ScHoolboy Q compared himself to
ScHoolboy Q’s fifth album, CrasH Talk, ends with ‘Attention,’ a great mellow track in which he raps about his successes and achievements in life.
He also specifically mentions some of the rappers he’s looked up to over the years, artists both from the East Coast and his own West Coast. Q, though born on a US air base in what was then West Germany, grew up in Los Angeles, and he was even a member of the Crips by just 12. My homies were doing it and I wanted to do it,” he told Complex once, speaking of his decision to join the Crips so young. The West Coast scene was obviously really close to Q’s heart, but he wasn’t blinded to what else was out there, and ‘Attention’ makes that clear.
“Front row at the Grammys, I’m getting praises from Jay,” he raps early in the song. “Fuck about this award, I’m happy he know my name”. Q has expressed his love for Jay-Z in interviews, too, including one he gave Complex where he claimed Jay’s specific style of rapping had greatly shaped him as an artist. “If you really listen to Jay-Z,” he noted, “he has a new sound every time he raps. It’s never the same. He might use a little swag, but it’s always like a different flow. So that’s all I try to do.”
In that same interview, he also singled out artists from East and West. Nas, 50 Cent, Mobb Deep, Kurupt, 2Pac, Biggie Smalls, Kanye West, Beanie Sigel and Wu-Tang Clan all got a mention, but it was Biggie, Nas and 50 Cent who were highlighted as his absolute favourites and the ones who inspired him most. Quite a few of those figures get a mention in ‘Attention’, too, “Favourite rapper Nas been told me that I’m the best,” Q raps, dropping, “Had a couple sessions with Dre, knew I would win”.
While ‘Attention’ doesn’t have room for a specific mention of 50 Cent, Q has name-dropped him several times in interviews over the years, noting once in 2012, for instance, that “what I get from 50 is a lot of aggression”, going so far as to say, “[He] had one of the biggest, biggest influences on me. He basically birthed my whole style”.
Towards the end of ‘Attention,’ Q deals specifically with some West Coast legends, and he compares himself to them, too: “From Pac, Snoop, Kurupt, Daz, bitch, I’m déjà vu”. He’s framing himself as a continuation in a long line of West Coast rappers, and, sweetly for him, two of those mentioned have thrown some love back to him, too.
Tha Dogg Pound rappers Kurupt and Daz Dillinger showed up on an episode of the show Drink Champs last year, where they mentioned their admiration for Q, whom they had worked with before. “He always showed me love,” Kurupt said, “I fuck with ScHoolboy ’cause I fuck with Top Dawg”.
It must feel pretty good to have some of one’s own heroes give you praise like that. ScHoolboy Q is among the few to say he knows exactly how it feels.