ScHoolboy Q Says Black Hippy Album Remains on Hold

ScHoolboy Q, Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul, and Jay Rock have been fielding questions about their Black Hippy collaborative album for years. But fans will have to keep waiting.

According to Groovy Tony, the highly-anticipated project remains on hold as he readies his third solo album. “Everybody keeps asking that question. Y’all have been asking that question for like four years,” he told Montreality. “Come on, man. I don’t know, man. I can’t say that. I’m already working on the next joint. I don’t see the time. People don’t understand. When you’re working on an album and you get into a groove, it’s hard to stop that groove and that zone you in and that vision you got, to jump into a whole new thing and restart from a blank sheet.”

Q went on to say that Black Hippy’s attention to detail would require extra time from each member, time that they might not have right now. “We don’t just put albums out and call it something and it’s just a bunch of dope songs,” he added. “Everything we do over there is like a concept. We never sat down like, ‘We all gotta do concepts.’ It’s just something that we’ve all done as artists. That’s why we click so much. We’re all pretty much the same mellow dudes and we’re all focused on our crafts and on conceptual shit so I can’t say that we’ll be in the studio getting a Black Hippy album ready.

Fans aren’t the only ones who’ve been clamoring for a Black Hippy LP. “No matter how much [TDE CEO] Top [Dawg] want it to happen, no matter how much [TDE President] Dave [Free] want it to happen, the chances of us getting into the studio together, working on Black Hippy is slim,” said Q. “There’s too much going on.”

Currently, Groovy Tony is spending time working on his third album and being a father to his daughter Joy, who has been a constant muse in his music and life. “I love being a daddy,” he explained. “Any time I can get to spend time with my daughter — because I’m always moving — I wanna spend that time with her. If we can make it work, I’m down to do it. It’s not even about us… Those are my homies. Of course I wanna do an album with them. It’s just the time. It’s just a lot of time put into albums. We’re not just gonna go in the studio and finish an album in a month. Maybe some of these other rappers do they music like that but we don’t.”

As the Black Hippy quartet, Kendrick, Q, Soul, and Jay Rock have unleashed a slew of collaborations throughout the years, including “Say Wassup,” “Rolling Stone,” “Constipation,” “Black Lip Bastard (Rmx),” “THat Part (Black Hippy Remix),” and “Vice City.”

ScHoolboy’s next album, which might follow SZA’s forthcoming Ctrl, will be the follow-up to last year’s Blank Face LP. The project is set to showcase a “different side” of the TDE/Interscope MC.

“This is more so my life after I made it to the point of ScHoolboy Q,” he recently told Beats 1. “I gave you me [on past projects], but I never gave you the other side of me, the father, the dude that’s actually happy, the dude that doesn’t be in the hood just hanging out, the dude that’s trying to put his homies in position now.

“I’m not a deadbeat father anymore,” he added. “I’m in my daughter’s life. She lives with me, I’m in actively, I pick her up, take her to school every morning. It’s just a whole different Q. I want to give people a whole different side of me.”