Ab-Soul touched on Black Hippy’s future plans during his SKEE Live appearance this week (June 17). When host DJ Skee asked the TDE-emcee about the collective’s next release, Soul said, “I’m trying to tell [Top Dawg] to tell Dr. Dre to just let us make Detox. Wouldn’t that be crazy? The Black Hippy album should be Detox.”
Along with Ab-Soul, Black Hippy consists of Kendrick Lamar, ScHoolboy Q, and Jay Rock—each of whom are signed to Top Dawg Entertainment. The #controlsystem-emcee revealed that ScHoolboy Q came up with the name “Black Hippy,” but it was TDE CEO, Top Dawg’s decision to create the group.
“[Black Hippy] is just an idea to bring all of our audiences together and creating a collective that would trap all of our fans [into one group],” he said, after detailing how he was first signed to TDE.
“Sounwave, my producer—my first recordings were over his beats,” Ab-Soul said. “We were doing that and then we got older. I guess he eventually linked up with [TDE]. We linked back up and he just brought me through. It just kind of fell in line. I had a good conversation with Punch that night and the next day, me and Jay Rock and [Kendrick Lamar] were working on a joint and it just fell in line.”
During the interview, the Carson, Californian credited his label’s success to being “a little bit more than just a company.”
“We’re really brothers,” Soul said. “We all really want to see each other do well. As much as it is friendly competition—I do want to be the best rapper in the world, too—it’s in the same way I want Kendrick to be the best, I want to see Q be the best. It’s a real interesting feeling but I think that’s what kind of keeps us all in line.”
When asked for what he would artistically most like to be remembered, Ab-Soul said, “Balance. I want to be just as light as I am dark.”
Earlier this week (June 17), Ab-Soul released “World Runners” featuring Lupe Fiasco and Nikki Jean, which is included on his next album, These Days… The project will be available June 24.
The full interview will air on SKEE Live this Friday (June 20) at 8PM EST on AXS TV.
