Schoolboy Q's knows as well as anyone that the best way to get people to listen to your music is to give it to them for free. However, that philosophy normally applies to streaming on the internet, or huge concerts. Schoolboy Q is giving a free performance of the entirety of his forthcoming album, Oxymoron, but to a fairly limited audience. The emcee will perform the album at Le Poisson Rouge, a relatively small venue in New York City's West Village that is listed as having a "700 fully standing" capacity.
The concert might serve more as a test of fan loyalty versus free album preview. Oxymoron is due to drop two days after the show, and with the state of the internet, odds are a good portion of it will leak one way or another. Casual fans can wait the extra two days regardless. Entry to the concert isn't being doled out through a contest or registration however, meaning it will be handled on a first-come-first-served basis. Which of course means that if residents of the biggest hip-hop city in the world want to guarantee a seat, they're going to need to camp out early.
The concert will be part of Le Poisson Rouge's "First Listen Live" series, which hosted Cibo Matto performing its new album Valentine Hotel February 14. If you don't think you have it in you to wait all day for entry, tickets are still available for Kanye West's performance at the Long Island Coliseum that same night (but it's not at all free).
Schoolboy Q is far from a new face in the hip-hop scene, but hype for his third record has been amplified-along with hype for all Top Dawg Entertainment performers-by Kendrick Lamar's 2013 explosion to the fore of the genre.
