If there’s a name that Quincy Hanley, AKA Schoolboy Q, could justifiably feel tired of hearing in connection with his own then it’s that of Kendrick Lamar, a fellow founder member of west coast supergroup Black Hippy, who has since become a global superstar. Yet it’s Lamar’s MAAD City that the DJ plays to prime the crowd before the South Central LA rapper rolls on stage to the quaking Gang Gang, suggesting that Hanley feels neither eclipsed by his friend’s successes nor incapable of rising to them. Hanley’s raps still lack the gravitas and invention to do that – rooted as most of his rhymes are in the trite gangster stuff of drugs, guns and girls for hire. But his easy way with a hook never lets him down, and his performance is energetic and focused in an atmosphere enhanced by the omnipresent pong of CBD oil.
“My shirt’s drenched with sweat!” Hanley proclaims after shimmying hard in oppressive heat to his old-school ode to being a school-age gang member John Muir. He should have spared a thought for the two men in black with paper bags on their heads propped sternly unmoving on stools behind him for the show’s entire 75 minutes – a nod to the artwork for his latest album, Crash Talk. Think a surrealist answer to Public Enemy’s security personnel S1Ws.
Hanley’s bacchanalian collaboration with 2 Chainz and Saudi, X, and the hard-hitting Floating, featuring 21 Savage, underscore why he remains a man in demand. He drops the tempo with Crash before opening up a pit for the shuddering Numb Numb Juice. Invoking Hanley’s still best album 2014’s Oxymoron, the haunted rave of Hell of a Night is a final chance for everyone to wave their vapes in the air like they just don’t care.
• At Academy, Brixton, London, 28 January. Touring UK until 30 January.
