Break the Bank

Album: Oxymoron (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • This dark tune finds Schoolboy Q predicting that he's about to blow up:

    "Good grades and skipped school, this life gon' catch up soon
    Sure 'nough that s--t did, 20 year old kid
    Got off my behind, write me some sweet lines
    Cause one day my story gon' pay."

    Q also takes a playful jab at label-mate and Black Hippy cohort Kendrick Lamar, spitting, "Tell Kendrick move from the throne, I came for it."
  • Q told MTV News that this cut is one of his earliest recordings from Oxymoron, which was two years in the making. "I haven't dropped nothing since 2012, the top of 2012. A bunch of stuff. I still got songs on my album that I recorded in 2012, but the records are so great to me," he said. "'Break the Bank' is a record that was recorded in 2012. That was old. That was right when Kendrick's album dropped. It just so happened that he's nominated for seven Grammys right now."
  • The song's music video was directed by Jason Goldwatch, whose other credits include the clips for Nas' "Nasty" and Kid Cudi's "Erase Me." We see Q contemplating richies as he hangs out with his homies and his four-year-old daughter Joy Hanley also makes a cameo appearance. The rapper's little girl also features on the cover of the standard edition of Oxymoron.

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