Last Sunday night marked the first show of Schoolboy Q’s Oxymoron World tour, debuting at a packed and sold out Wilbur Theater, an impressive turnout for an album that at that time, had dropped less than a week ago.

Schoolboy Q, full name Quincy Matthew Hanley, is a member of the West Coast rap group Black Hippy, featuring esteemed rappers such as Jay Rock, Ab Soul, and of course – Kendrick Lamar. Q was supported by Isiah Rashad and Californian emcee Vince Staples, who has worked with Earl Sweatshirt on albums such as Doris and EARL, and recently threw down in Boston with Earl for a free House of Vans show. The audience was dominated by bros in bucket hats, who were constantly under surveillance by the hawk eyed tightened security of The Wilbur. Some of Boston’s proudest were in the crowd that night, as the announcer entertained the crowd with a few inside jokes about Boston sports, and proceeded to ask “Who here is Irish?” to which somebody cheerfully cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Yeah baby, fuck New York!”

I’ve seen a lot of people excited to see the performer at the show, but it’s nothing quite like people losing their shit over seeing the rapper at a rap show. The rapper is literally idolized by the crowd. This was exhibited in many ways: no matter what was going on on stage, somebody would begin pumping their fist while lapsing into a chant of , “Schoolboy schoolboy schoolboy.” Q entered the stage to a single spotlight shining on his face, and the fans literally throwing their bodies at him in a way that made me finally understand the origin of the church of Yeezianity. At one point a cheetah print bra ended up around Q’s neck (I know right? Yeah, people still do that) and there were times where he would pause his set to let awed fans photograph him. Perhaps the biggest act of that infamous rapper notoriety was when Q would sip from a water bottle and then spray the contents onto the exhilarated audience. But real talk now – I’d be lying if I said the hype wasn’t deserved.

Q’s set began rather slowly, with Mack Wop the Zanzilla, also of the Top Dawg Entertainment label, on the tables spinning some heavy and easily crowd pleasing bass. Of course the crowd was stoked to see Q, but his beginning songs were just missing something: the opening hooks were tight and enticing, but only a few of the songs manage to sustain this level of excitement throughout. In an obvious attempt to engage the crowd more, Mack Wop turned the chorus of one song into a generic, fist bumping and rave like repeating electronic untz. It certainly got the crowd to bounce, but it was gimmicky. The show really got going when Q dropped his two classic hit songs one right after another – ‘There He Go’ and ‘Hands on the Wheel’ from his sophomore album, Habits & Contradictions. I saw Q once before, two years ago at Rock The Bells in California, and the same thing happened to me then – the chorus of Hands on The Wheel is just too damn catchy, and of course Q’s voice was drowned out by the chorus of the excited bros surrounding me, yelling along to the words.

But Q truly shone in the singles off of Oxymoron. ‘Collard Greens’, ‘Break The Bank’ and ‘Man Of The Year’ these live performances were great examples of Q’s signature style: that groovy Q stirring hook and backbeat, as he remained cleanly spitting bar after bar; with a nice and strong enunciation of all of the words, not falling prey to what has been known to happen to rappers who start to mumble when they perform live. A special treat was Q covering Kendrick’s ‘m.A.A.d city’, which some have said was even better than when Kendrick throws it down himself.

In between songs, Q would take a moment to address the crowd with heavy lidded eyes, “I’m so grateful for ya’ll….I say this to every show…but I’m really grateful for you guys.” He also took a moment to marvel over how far he had made it, from picking himself up from the days of pimping and pill addictions to making it onto the stage that night. I’ve been following Q since Habits & Contradictions, and it’s undeniable that he is growing and constantly upping and varying his game. Setbacks and Habits and Contradictions were stellar albums that introduced the refreshing combination of Q’s hard hitting flow and some seriously dope production, defying the dilemma that most rappers succumb to of either having weak flow and strong production or vice versa. But Q exhibits true growth with his junior album of Oxymoron. Oxymoron is the darkly layered, and at times, an almost rehabilitory sequel to the prior two albums. Respect goes to how Q is able to hit all of the main criteria for gangster rap – sex, drugs and violence, but yet also calls out the underbelly of this lifestyle with the same amount of shocking bluntness, such as the use of his four year old daughter Joy on Prescription/Oxymoron, a confessional song about the rapper’s prescription pill problem in the melancholic chorus where she says in a dazed voice, “What’s wrong, daddy? Wake up..”

A lot of the music that I choose to listen to (ahem indie music) is mostly based on beautiful lyrical content. The politically correct, and of course the female part of me, finds obvious difficulty in taking Q’s lyrics to heart and fear that people actually view women in that way, but in other regards, he really is an incredibly skilled musician. The thing that always amazes me about seeing a rapper is noting how their face is absolutely soaked in sweat at the end of their set. Aside from it being a brilliant display of how gross the human body can be in regulating heat, it shows just how damn hard they are working up there – seriously, imagine being on a heated stage for over an hour, wearing full cool rapper swag which means nothing ventilated I’m sure, and just spitting, practically yelling line after line. With mosh pits and gangster rap, and all the other things that your mother warned you against, it’s a lot of things but it’s also just fun. It’s a release that gets your heart racing and provides a sense of unity with the crowd in this sensation of feeling resilient and tough, no matter how little or how much you’ve been through. Sometimes people really need that, and Q delivered.