ScHoolboy Q talks about the Radio, praises Jay-Z, Nas, K.Dot, Calls Eminem "the best rapper with words". “We never chase radio,” Schoolboy Q told DJ Buck and Nancy B. “We chase the fans.” “You have to get a [fan] base first,” he continued, explaining that building one should be every artist’s first priority– even before having a hit in heavy rotation. “You see rappers come out with the big singles, but they don’t have a mixtape, fan base, or following… You [will have] this big record, but then you’ll have a show and there will only be thirty people there!” The rapper emphasized the importance of sticking with your original fan base, and having the ability to fill up the room with your true fans. He cited Kendrick Lamar’s success as an example to follow. “We didn’t know Kendrick would get this big,” recalled Schoolboy Q. “He didn’t get on the radio until [Good Kid, M.A.A.D City] was about to drop. [But] Kendrick had been touring since 2009…” Schoolboy Q is looking to build his following in the same way. “It’s the ground work,” he said. “We started with our first ten fans, and we grew with our first ten fans. We worked withour ten fans, and those ten fans turned into ashow, and that show turned into a bigger show. We are doing what we like [and] we are not trying to cater to radio. That is not the way to get it.Don’t get me wrong, you need radio once you get to a certain level, butuntil you get to that level, you don’t need to touch the radio. You need to touch the fans.” The rapper does believe it’s easier to reach fans in the modern day, now that we’re no longer living through the East Coast/ West Coast days of the past. But Schoolboy Q still believes artists like he and Lamar are still paying tribute to their legends with a resurgence of the Gangsta Rap sound that made them famous. “It’s Gangsta Rap in 2013,” said the rapper ofhis music. “You haven’t heard anything like Snoop Dogg, or The Game when he first cameout… hardcore Gangsta Rap like Eazy-E or Dr. Dre, you haven’t heard none of that since.” “Nas is my favorite rapper, Biggie had the biggest influence on me, I wish I could rap like Biggie,” he continued. “I think Jay-Z is thebest rapper ever to do it, I think Eminem is the best rapper with words, I think Tupac is the most boldish rapper to ever do it. He’d talk about pimping and gang banging… the message he was sending was so real, it wasn’t like he was trying to make this song to get the girls, he made this song because he ‘wondered why they called you b****.’ He wanted ‘to live and die in LA,’ but he’s not even from LA, he just got embraced so much… it was a whole different thing for him. Everything he said was true, right on.” The rapper believes now is the time for that truth and urgency to come back to rap music,and he feels artists like he and Kendrick Lamar are more than ready for the task. “They turned all soft, especially LA,” he said ofthe modern music game. “It’s all partying, everybody’s taking Molly at this party, it’s crazy, it’s all ratchet music.” Schoolboy Q is not the anti-Molly crusader that Lamar is, although he does blame Lamar’s “Death To Molly” message as a source of confusion for his own next single. “I’m not against Molly. Don’t get me wrong, I put it in my new single because Kendrick put Death To Molly out,” he explained. “Everybodythinks that’s my single [because] I had a songat the end of ‘B**** Don’t Kill My Vibe.’ At the end of it, it said ‘Death To Molly,’ but everybody thought it was my song title. It was Kendrick’s message.” @Nvgt
Posted on: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:32:43 +0000
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