Crafted with Nas in mind, Toronto’s LordQuest never expected ScHoolboy Q to stray away from his usual hard-hitting vibe and use the understated beat for “Blind Threats” as a backdrop for his accounts of anarchy. Now out and praised, the track is arguably the highlight of Oxymoron. Subsequent to another key placement on Talib Kweli’s Gravitas (“Demonology” and “State of Grace”) the twofold achievement has shifted the Toronto-based producer and emcee into a trajectory of rapid ascent.ScHoolboy’s studio debut was not the first time Quest connected with a member from Top Dawg Entertainment; he became an early adopter after a friend tipped him off to Kendrick Lamar’s potential around early 2009. Once he reached out to the TDE front man, the two sent records back and forth, with it eventually leading to the producer’s placement on ScHoolboy’s Setbacks mixtape. “Q heard my stuff through Kendrick, and personally hit me up for some beats, so I sent him a whole bunch of stuff. I actually had no idea he used the track till after "Figg Get Da Money" dropped. It was a dope surprise.”Quest’s work behind the boards has moved him to the forefront as of late, but he can still hold his own on the mic. “I started rapping when I was about 14, and made beats out of necessity. It wasn’t really planned, I just couldn’t get any beats and was tired of rapping over industry ones”. After the drop of his first official solo project Still Shopping however, he temporarily dropped his efforts as an emcee to take a break. “I just felt like there was so much music out there and things were oversaturated. As far as production, it was moving faster for me at the time. After I worked with Isaiah [Rashad], he really inspired me to rap again.”Since he’s back recording in the studio, we spoke to Quest about working with TDE, making the transition into rapping, and how it feels to work with your legends.Noisey: How was your experience working with Schoolboy Q in the studio?
LordQuest: It was cool. He’s one of those people whose energy you have to really read. He’s a very laid back person. The way you see him on stage is not how he really is. He’s really chill and jokes a lot. If he doesn’t like a beat, he’ll just start doing other shit. He’ll start like rolling or talking to somebody, but when he actually likes a record he’ll start mumbling or rapping to himself. That’s when you know he’s interested. He’s a really dope person.Explain the style of your music.
I don’t want to say backpacker. That’s a lot of stuff I grew up listening to, like the whole Justice League movement, I was huge on that stuff in highschool. I would just call it soul music for me because it’s stuff that I identify with. I always try to make it a point to be honest with my music. I remember when I was in high school there was this song that me and one of my homies did. Everybody was like “Yo this was dope” but it wasn’t honest. We were talking all this shit about shooting niggas and selling drugs and all this crap. One of the older cats at this school was like “Yo you shouldn’t talk about that shit because if you don’t really do that, then you’re not portraying your true self. There are people out there that look for stuff like this and they’ll test you. They’ll check you on all that to see if you’re really about that, and if you’re not, you’ll look like a clown.” I never forgot that. A lot of the stuff on "Still Shopping" is just real. I won’t talk about drugs, I won’t talk about shootings. I’ll talk about girls to an extent because obviously everyone’s had their experiences, but I’m not gonna be like 'I’m pimpin, I got hoes.' That’s not me, that’s not my character.How did your beats sound back then, compared to now?
Wack! They sounded amazing to me. The way people viewed My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, or “Niggas In Paris”, that’s how my beats sounded like to me. When I hear some of my earlier beats now, I’m like, what was I thinking?! These sound like Nintendo beats, very one-dimensional, no depth, no texture. You know when I first I tried to teach myself on FL Studio, which I still use to this day, I deleted it out of frustration. I just gave up. Five months later I heard 9th Wonder’s work on that Little Brother album [The Listening]. I was like, this is dope, and he became my biggest inspiration at that time. I downloaded FL Studio again and I've been doing it ever since.How did you realize that the journey wasn’t going to be easy?
As things progressed and I met more people, that’s when I realized that things were a lot more complex than I thought they were. In grade 11, I was a part of this community program called Block Headz that was based out of Sony BMG. I had a chance to sit down with the president at the time, Lisa [Zbitznew], and told her I wanted to become a rapper and get signed. She then broke it down and explained to me how the labels worked. She was like, “You don’t want to be signed to a major label, because there are only five companies that control all the music you hear. Why would you want those people to dictate what’s good and what’s not? Why not just do your own thing, and shine through that way, so people know that you are good because you are actually good, not because a label backs you and says you are?” That’s when I started producing more heavily. I met Boi1da through that program. Nobody knew him at that time; he was just Mathew and was still working his way up. He would show me beats and I would show him beats and I got really into it and decided that’s I wanted to do.Out of all the artists you have worked with, which have had a significant impact on you?
ScHoolboy for sure. Being a part of Oxymoron was dope in itself but seeing him work and understanding the person who he is was awesome cause it’s like you get to see and understand a side of him you don’t normally do. Even when I first started working with him I just thought he only did trap music. Doing that hard stuff and gangsta stuff and what not, but it was bigger than that. His music has a lot of depth and texture and a lot of people don’t see it as that. He has feelings, he has emotions, he has problems, and he has vices. That was dope because it kind of reaffirmed the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover”.My brother Promise, who I met when I was finishing high school. He’s one of the only people I know to this day that does music full time, and that’s how he lives; from when I met him, till now. I’ve never ever heard of him working a job. All he does is make music and he’s surviving. That inspired me and I remember telling my pops that I’m not going to college, and just do music full time. He said 'cool, as long as you can pay your bills.'Isaiah [Rashad], I love that kid. That’s my brother. He’s an amazing person with a great heart. He’s very creative and his energy is infectious. He’s really pure—that’s the thing I love about him. He’s mad pure, mad honest. Unfiltered, raw. We were in the studio and he was writing a song about some stuff I don’t want to say (laughs), it was just real because it was like 'yo who writes a song about that?' He was talking about some real stuff and it was like damn dawg, everyone in the studio had experienced it but to put it out there on a song, it was just like wow nobody would really put themselves out there like that. He was raw, keeping it 100. He’s really inspired me to start rapping again.What’s next for you?
My personal project - an EP - coming out later this year and some new production stuff; new placements I can’t really say. I’m also working on Wolf J McFarlane’s Live Your Live Vol. 2 and collaborating with my man Junia-T on a project called Chef’s Plate, which gives a medium for producers who want to DJ and showcase remixes & beats they’ve done in a party kind of atmosphere.Shaheena Azmatullah is a writer living in Toronto. She's on Twitter.---JD Era is living proof that you need more than a co-signDerek Wise has stories he'd rather not keep secretbiZzarh are keeping Toronto weird
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LordQuest: It was cool. He’s one of those people whose energy you have to really read. He’s a very laid back person. The way you see him on stage is not how he really is. He’s really chill and jokes a lot. If he doesn’t like a beat, he’ll just start doing other shit. He’ll start like rolling or talking to somebody, but when he actually likes a record he’ll start mumbling or rapping to himself. That’s when you know he’s interested. He’s a really dope person.Explain the style of your music.
I don’t want to say backpacker. That’s a lot of stuff I grew up listening to, like the whole Justice League movement, I was huge on that stuff in highschool. I would just call it soul music for me because it’s stuff that I identify with. I always try to make it a point to be honest with my music. I remember when I was in high school there was this song that me and one of my homies did. Everybody was like “Yo this was dope” but it wasn’t honest. We were talking all this shit about shooting niggas and selling drugs and all this crap. One of the older cats at this school was like “Yo you shouldn’t talk about that shit because if you don’t really do that, then you’re not portraying your true self. There are people out there that look for stuff like this and they’ll test you. They’ll check you on all that to see if you’re really about that, and if you’re not, you’ll look like a clown.” I never forgot that. A lot of the stuff on "Still Shopping" is just real. I won’t talk about drugs, I won’t talk about shootings. I’ll talk about girls to an extent because obviously everyone’s had their experiences, but I’m not gonna be like 'I’m pimpin, I got hoes.' That’s not me, that’s not my character.
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Wack! They sounded amazing to me. The way people viewed My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, or “Niggas In Paris”, that’s how my beats sounded like to me. When I hear some of my earlier beats now, I’m like, what was I thinking?! These sound like Nintendo beats, very one-dimensional, no depth, no texture. You know when I first I tried to teach myself on FL Studio, which I still use to this day, I deleted it out of frustration. I just gave up. Five months later I heard 9th Wonder’s work on that Little Brother album [The Listening]. I was like, this is dope, and he became my biggest inspiration at that time. I downloaded FL Studio again and I've been doing it ever since.How did you realize that the journey wasn’t going to be easy?
As things progressed and I met more people, that’s when I realized that things were a lot more complex than I thought they were. In grade 11, I was a part of this community program called Block Headz that was based out of Sony BMG. I had a chance to sit down with the president at the time, Lisa [Zbitznew], and told her I wanted to become a rapper and get signed. She then broke it down and explained to me how the labels worked. She was like, “You don’t want to be signed to a major label, because there are only five companies that control all the music you hear. Why would you want those people to dictate what’s good and what’s not? Why not just do your own thing, and shine through that way, so people know that you are good because you are actually good, not because a label backs you and says you are?” That’s when I started producing more heavily. I met Boi1da through that program. Nobody knew him at that time; he was just Mathew and was still working his way up. He would show me beats and I would show him beats and I got really into it and decided that’s I wanted to do.
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ScHoolboy for sure. Being a part of Oxymoron was dope in itself but seeing him work and understanding the person who he is was awesome cause it’s like you get to see and understand a side of him you don’t normally do. Even when I first started working with him I just thought he only did trap music. Doing that hard stuff and gangsta stuff and what not, but it was bigger than that. His music has a lot of depth and texture and a lot of people don’t see it as that. He has feelings, he has emotions, he has problems, and he has vices. That was dope because it kind of reaffirmed the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover”.My brother Promise, who I met when I was finishing high school. He’s one of the only people I know to this day that does music full time, and that’s how he lives; from when I met him, till now. I’ve never ever heard of him working a job. All he does is make music and he’s surviving. That inspired me and I remember telling my pops that I’m not going to college, and just do music full time. He said 'cool, as long as you can pay your bills.'Isaiah [Rashad], I love that kid. That’s my brother. He’s an amazing person with a great heart. He’s very creative and his energy is infectious. He’s really pure—that’s the thing I love about him. He’s mad pure, mad honest. Unfiltered, raw. We were in the studio and he was writing a song about some stuff I don’t want to say (laughs), it was just real because it was like 'yo who writes a song about that?' He was talking about some real stuff and it was like damn dawg, everyone in the studio had experienced it but to put it out there on a song, it was just like wow nobody would really put themselves out there like that. He was raw, keeping it 100. He’s really inspired me to start rapping again.
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My personal project - an EP - coming out later this year and some new production stuff; new placements I can’t really say. I’m also working on Wolf J McFarlane’s Live Your Live Vol. 2 and collaborating with my man Junia-T on a project called Chef’s Plate, which gives a medium for producers who want to DJ and showcase remixes & beats they’ve done in a party kind of atmosphere.Shaheena Azmatullah is a writer living in Toronto. She's on Twitter.---JD Era is living proof that you need more than a co-signDerek Wise has stories he'd rather not keep secretbiZzarh are keeping Toronto weird