Schoolboy Q: Oxymoron review – not quite competition for Kendrick Lamar

Earlier this month, a website asked Schoolboy Q to list his 25 favourite albums. In the top spot was his major label debut, Oxymoron: "I'd call it a classic," he suggested, helpfully. It goes without saying that Oxymoron isn't as good as its author thinks. If it seems unfair to find it wanting compared to his fellow Black Hippy alumnus Kendrick Lamar's wildly acclaimed Good Kid, MAAD City, it's a comparison Schoolboy Q virtually demands the listener make: "Tell Kendrick move from the throne," he suggests at one point. The production is usually fantastic, from the wall of elastic electronic noise conjured by Pharrell Williams on Los Awesome to the reggae-influenced bassline of single Collard Greens, but guest verses from old hands Kurupt and Raekwon show up the star turn's limitations as a rapper: you're occasionally struck by the sense of gangster rap boxes being ticked. Still, when it hits home – as on Hoover Street's vivid depiction of his uncle's drug addiction, or Prescription/Oxymoron's saga of depression and painkiller addiction – it hits hard.