At long last, ScHoolboy Q announced that his highly anticipated sixth studio album will be released next month. Blue Lips, his first album in about five years, arrives March 1. The project’s teaser trailer reveals a 17-song tracklist written on a wall. As of now, no other details about the album have been officially revealed. Q’s last album, CrasH Talk, dropped back in 2019. Since then, he has mostly remained quiet on the music side of things, aside from the occasional guest verse. ScHoolboy Q featured on songs from Freddie Gibbs, Isaiah Rashad, Roc Marciano, Conway The Machine, Black Thought, and Reason.
In 2022, he dropped the standalone single, “Soccer Dad” and contributed “Clip In A Tray” to The Alchemist’s Sandwich compilation. In the five years since CrasH Talk, anticipation for ScHoolboy Q’s next album has grown immensely, setting expectations quite high. As we inch closer to March 1, here are five things we want from ScHoolboy Q’s Blue Lips.
A Conceptually Sound Album
Each of ScHoolboy Q’s previous albums delivered skillfully crafted music surrounding some sort of loose concept. Albums like Oxymoron and Blank Face LP are meticulously sequenced to tell a story. Blue Lips hopefully has a unique perspective that captures a new chapter in ScHoolboy Q’s life and career. His albums often balance hard-hitting bangers with transparent moments of introspection. We hope for Blue Lips to offer a conceptually sound album that stacks up to his past releases.
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Adventurous & Reliable Collaborators
ScHoolboy Q is more than capable of making an excellent album without any features. Still, his track record shows how well he works with others. While the album's only known details are its title and tracklist, we can hope for some exciting guest features. As revealed during a 2021 livestream, Rico Nasty supposedly features on the song “Pop.”
ScHoolboy Q has proven to be an adventurous collaborator. He worked with Travis Scott, Kid Cudi, and Lil Baby on CrasH Talk. Ideally, fans hope to see reunions between him and his frequent collaborators, including his TDE label-mates. A Black Hippy reunion is highly unlikely, but listeners can be optimistic that the album will include a possible feature from Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, or SZA. Other dream features for Blue Lips include new collaborations with fan favorites like A$AP Rocky and Tyler, The Creator.
Musical Variety
One can usually expect a host of different musicians to produce a ScHoolboy Q album, and Blue Lips appears to be no different. In a 2021 livestream where he premiered many unreleased songs, Q revealed that his next album sounds nothing like his previous works and that “nobody on this album did a record by themselves, this whole album is a collab.” With a lot of co-production, we can hope to hear ScHoolboy Q exploring new musical territory while providing his signature gangsta raps. Although he hasn't confirmed anything yet, we imagine that Blue Lips will likely see contributions from Tae Beast, DJ Fu, Skhye Hutch, Kenny Beats, and The Alchemist, who reportedly produced the song “Lost Times.”
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Previously Unreleased Tracks
Over the years, ScHoolboy Q has teased a lot of new unreleased music that we hope sees the light of day on Blue Lips. He played “Pop” and other unknown snippets during the aforementioned livestream. Most notably, he premiered “THank God 4 Me” during Kal Banx’s Boiler Room set in LA last September. Based on the snippets that we have heard so far, Blue Lips is sounding promising. Hopefully, the majority of these unreleased tracks appear on the album.
“Blue Slides”
As the teaser trailer for ScHoolboy Q revealed the tracklist for Blue Lips, one song that stuck out to fans was “Blue Slides.” While not officially confirmed, many believed that this song could be a reference to Mac Miller's Blue Slide Park. Due to their close friendship, we hope that this will be a tribute to the late rapper. Miller passed away back in 2018, causing Q to delay the release of CrasH Talk, which was almost finished at the time. With the two being such close friends and collaborators, one can hope for “Blue Slides” to be a touching ode to Mac Miller based on its title.
