Black Woolboy Q Character Analysis

Herbert “Ab-Soul” Stevens IV was born in Los Angeles, California. Like ScHoolboy Q, he is the son of a man who was in the Army, so not long after his birth his parents relocated to a base in Germany for four years until they separated. He and his mother then moved back to the United States to live at his grandmother’s house in Carson, California. Ab-Soul’s upbringing was slightly different than the other members of Black Hippy; as he puts it, “They're all from the hood and I'm from the suburbs so I'm kind of an outcast. I can't really relate as much with them.” Rather than electric gangsta rap and hard-hitting radio tracks often released by his Black Hippy crew mates, Soul tends to write lyrics and create music that is veraciously witty

His lips are noticeably effected by the condition due to their very dark purple color (hence his nickname, Black Lipped Bastard), and he almost always wears sunglasses due to his extreme sensitivity to light which was caused by the disease. Soul was teased about the appearance of his lips; however, he uses the experience and the lasting effects of the disease to strengthen his character. “That's another thing that hip-hop teaches you too. Guys like Kanye West and Eminem, they teach you that it's cool to be yourself even if it's not necessarily cool. I learned that. I learned to use my disadvantages to my

During that time, Soul attended a single semester of community college two separate times, and both times did not continue due to lack of motivation. It was around this time that he decided to pursue music as a full-time career, and began building a relationship with Top Dawg Entertainment. Similar to the story of ScHoolboy Q, Ab-Soul was introduced to T.D.E. in 2006 by a producer friend named Sounwave who invited him to T.D.E.’s studio; he was officially signed to the label less than a year later. Soul was the third of the four Black Hippy members to join T.D.E. (after Kendrick Lamar and Jay Rock), and because it was his first experience working with other extremely talented artists, he was quickly motivated to improve his skills. “When I first came we were just in the process. I thought I was the best rapper in the world before I came to T.D.E. I got to T.D.E. and realized that I might not be the best rapper in the world.” He describes the feeling of inspiration as adrenaline as opposed to pressure. He recognized the energy of his label mates, and his intention was to contribute his unique style and help the group