ScHoolboy Q

Quincy Hanley arrived at rap by a long route: born on a US Army air base in Wiesbaden, raised in South Central Los Angeles, a teenage gang member and drug dealer before music took hold in his early twenties. As ScHoolboy Q he became one of the West Coast's most recognisable voices, a Top Dawg Entertainment mainstay and a member of Black Hippy alongside Ab-Soul, Jay Rock and Kendrick Lamar. He also played American football until he was 21, a detail that sits oddly beside the hard-edged, street-level storytelling he is known for.

His first two mixtapes, Schoolboy Turned Hustla (2008) and Gangsta & Soul (2009), won local attention, and the independent albums Setbacks (2011) and Habits & Contradictions (2012) drew positive reviews. The move to Interscope produced Oxymoron (2014), which reached number one on the Billboard 200 and spawned "Collard Greens" with Kendrick Lamar and "Studio" with BJ the Chicago Kid. He also guested on Macklemore and Ryan Lewis's "White Walls" and Tinashe's "2 On". Blank Face LP (2016) and Crash Talk (2019) both reached the top three, Blue Lips followed in 2024, and Thank Que is slated for 2027. Five Grammy nominations sit on his record.