Written by: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Carson, California label Top Dawg Entertainment has a powerhouse roster. Kendrick Lamar, ScHoolboy Q, Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, Isaiah Rashad, and SZA each represent some of the most skilled and significant voices in new-school hip-hop, and so too does each call the label home.
For all the incredible talent on their payroll however, TDE hasn’t been able to stick to a consistent release schedule. In this day and age, very few artists — especially rappers — can get away with multi-year gaps between projects; it speaks to just how compelling each artist is that they still manage to create a huge amount of buzz whenever they step back into the spotlight.
That much is evidenced by the fact that the video ScHoolboy Q’s latest single, “Groovy Tony,” has already racked up about 1.5 million views on YouTube despite A) only being out for 24 hours, B) serving as his first solo track in over two years, and C) being thoroughly, almost shockingly uncommercial.
To that last point, “Groovy Tony” is one hell of a chin check. It only stands to reason that Q would make a grand reentrance after such a long absence, but I don’t know who could have possibly predicted such a vicious comeback.
The song is as dark and violent as can be, and Tae Beast’s paranoid synths, eerie vocal samples, and hectic, quavering drums provide the perfect blooddrunk backdrop.
It goes without saying that Groovy Q’s bars here are absolutely venomous from the moment he starts, rapping “Blank face, tre 8 / Kill everybody, fuck an AK / Sell narcotics and push my dollars up to Bill Gates / Push all limits, you lookin’ timid.” The start of his next verse might be even grittier: “Clear everything out the safe / Crack the pig bank / Robbin’ your kids too / My heart an igloo / Die now to go to heaven or bring ‘em through.”
This track is dark as all hell, and the stunning video grisly. Shot mostly with head-mounted point-of-view cameras, the video’s most striking image comes as ScHoolboy casually emerges from a car wreck and notices he’s on fire, only to use the flames to spark up the blunt he dropped. That’s the coldest shit ever.
