If Top Dawg Entertainment—the California-based record label that recently signed a joint venture with Interscope/Aftermath—were a basketball team, they’d be the Oklahoma City Thunder. Kendrick Lamar, the lyrical sharpshooter and franchise player, would be Kevin Durant. Schoolboy Q, the brash, at times unpredictable, franchise-player-on-any-other-team, would be Russell Westbrook. And Ab-Soul, the sixth man who's a starter anywhere else, would be James Harden.
Although the Thunder fell to the Heat in five games in this year's NBA Finals, there’s absolutely no doubt that the young team will be back sometime soon. So even if TDE doesn’t sell millions of records or rack up tons of hits in 2012, they've got next.
Why is that such a certainty? Consider that they have three of the best rappers 25 and under on their team. Then consider that they’re already on an unbelievable streak of excellent releases from their three all-stars. Kendrick’s Section.80 was one of the best albums of 2011, and Schoolboy’s Habits & Contradictions is one of the best albums of 2012. As if that weren’t enough, Ab-Soul’s recently released independent album, Control System, is excellent.
Since we’ve gotten down with Schoolboy and Kendrick in the past, so we figured it was the perfect time to find out Who is Ab-Soul? The Black Lipped Bastard (as he likes to call himself) told us about why he's not voting this year, the themes of vision and light in his music, and why he thinks Joe Budden’s debut album is a classic.
As told to Insanul Ahmed (@Incilin)