Herbert Anthony Stevens IV (born February 23, 1987), better known by his stage name Ab-Soul, is an American rapper. Raised in Carson, California, he signed with the indie record label Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) in 2007, where he formed the West Coast hip-hop group Black Hippy alongside fellow California-based rappers Jay Rock, Kendrick Lamar and Schoolboy Q. His third album, These Days... (2014), peaked at number 11 on the Billboard 200. He is Black Hippy's sole member to remain an independent artist.
Herbert Anthony Stevens IV was born on February 23, 1987, in Los Angeles. He spent the first four years of his life in Korea while his father was in the military, until his mother moved back to his grandmother's house in Carson. He once recalled being five years old: "I was serious into video games and basketball, at five. But video games for sure. Five... What was that, Nintendo? Sega. Sonic the Hedgehog. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on TV. But I know early on, I really, really liked Michael Jackson, like we all did. Newborn babies loved Michael Jackson." At the age of 10, Stevens contracted Stevens–Johnson syndrome, which caused him to be hospitalized and is the origin of his dark lips and light-sensitive eyes. In his adolescent years, Stevens was severely teased about his condition.
Stevens encountered music at a very young age, due to his family owning a record store. Stevens also began crafting his rapping skills at an early age: "I was on BlackPlanet freestyle chat, rapping my ass off. Text battle. It is a very interesting world. I think that it still exists online, where you freestyle but you type it. They call it keystyle. I think that is where I developed my rhyming skills. I had been rapping a little earlier, maybe around 12 [years old], but when I hopped online and into that culture, that textcee culture. It really got me going as far as being a rapper."
Stevens claims to have written his first verse when he was 12 years old, to the beat of Twista's "Emotions". Rapping continued on as a hobby for Stevens, whose parents "saw a bright, college-type future" for him and enrolled him in advanced classes. It was not until Stevens graduated from high school that he began to take a career in music seriously. Stevens is also associated with a clique of high school friends known as Top Notch, which he has described as his "first real clique" and commemorated with a hand tattoo.
2002–2010: Career beginnings and signing to TDE
In 2002, Stevens recorded his first song. In 2005, he signed a recording contract with StreetBeat Entertainment, but just a year later, in 2006, he met Punch, President and Chairman of Carson-based indie record label, Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE), who as Stevens says, "saw more in his music than metaphors and punchlines". Before signing to TDE, Stevens was a part of a rap group called Area 51, alongside Brooklyn-native and fellow American rapper Snake Hollywood.
In 2007, Stevens officially became part of the TDE roster. In 2008, Stevens made a brief cameo appearance in the music video for his TDE-mate Jay Rock's commercial debut single, "All My Life (In the Ghetto)". Also in 2008, he began recording music for his debut mixtape, at the TDE Recording Studio: House of Pain. In December 2008, Stevens released his first music video, for a song from the mixtape, titled "A Day in the Life", through YouTube. The mixtape, entitled Longterm, was released in January 2009. It was the first in a series, that Stevens claimed would have four installments: "When I did the first Longterm I knew that there would be four of them. When I did the first one. So there will be four of them: Longterm 1, 2, 3, and 4. So right now we're at two. You'll have to wait for the next one. That's for the next Ab-Soul interview.".
In 2009, he formed supergroup Black Hippy, with his frequent collaborators and TDE label-mates Schoolboy Q, Jay Rock and K-Dot. Stevens released his second mixtape, and the sequel to his first, on June 28, 2010. The tape, titled Longterm 2: Lifestyles of the Broke and Almost Famous was highly acclaimed and featured Stevens singing on several songs.
2011–2012: Longterm Mentality and Control System
In February 2011, Ab-Soul revealed he was working on an album titled Longterm Mentality, and subsequently released "Hell Yeah", a track featuring Schoolboy Q. On February 22, 2011, Stevens released another promotional recording taken from the album, "Moscato", a collaboration with another fellow Black Hippy, Kendrick Lamar. In February 2011, Stevens also embarked on the "Road to Paid Dues" concert tour, after being enlisted by fellow American rapper Murs.
On March 21, 2011, Stevens released the music video for a song titled "Nothin' New", in promotion for the album. On March 25, he released "Gone Insane", the fourth track liberated that was taken from the album. On March 30, a trailer for Longterm Mentality, was released via Top Dawg Entertainment. On April 1, 2011, he released the music video for "Gone Insane", directed by Top Dawg in-house directors Fredo Tovar and Scott Fleishman.
Stevens has stated the respective independent albums of his label-mates partly inspired material on Longterm Mentality: "I compare [the process behind] Longterm Mentality to the process with all of my joints. Kendrick's OD had come out and Q's Setbacks had come out. I had these bodies of work to go off of as references, as inspiration. I hear what Kendrick is talking about, I hear what Q is talking about, I heard what Jay Rock was talking about. So how am I going to piece this all together and add my own two cents, too? How do I continue the sound but have my individuality as an artist? It's the same challenge every single time." Stevens released his first independent album, under Top Dawg Entertainment, exclusively through iTunes on April 5, 2011. The album subsequently peaked at No. 73 on the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. The album, although its title is Longterm Mentality, is not the third part of his Longterm series.
Soon after the release of Schoolboy Q's second independent album, Habits & Contradictions (2012), Stevens began promoting his second independent album, releasing a song titled "Black Lip Bastard", on January 17, 2012. The song was produced by TDE in-house producer Willie B. On February 28, 2012, Ab-Soul, alongside Schoolboy Q, appeared on Sway Calloway's #SwayInTheMorning radio show, where Ab-Soul called "Black Lip Bastard": "pretty much one of the title tracks", The first song that appears on the album, to be released was "Showin' Love", also produced by Willie B.
On March 24, Schoolboy Q announced #TheGroovyTour; a month-long tour with Ab-Soul accompanying him the entire way. The tour began on April 20, at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, California. On April 6, 2012, Ab-Soul liberated a song titled "Terrorist Threats". The song features frequent collaborator Jhené Aiko and fellow American rapper Danny Brown, who proclaimed on Twitter that "Black Hippy the new Beatles and I'm Harry Nilsson". On April 17, 2012, Ab-Soul revealed the album's title to be Control System and unveiled the release date to be May 11, 2012. That same day, he also released a music video for "Pineal Gland", a song inspired by the psychedelic drug DMT and of course the pineal gland, a small endocrine gland in the vertebrate brain. On April 24, 2012, Stevens released another song, "SOPA". The song, produced by Nez & Rio, references the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a United States bill introduced by U.S. Representative Lamar S. Smith, that would have allowed the U.S. government to control the Internet.
On May 1, 2012, Ab-Soul released another music video, for a new song titled "Empathy", the song features vocals from Stevens' late longtime girlfriend Alori Joh (December 16, 1986 – February 6, 2012), who had committed suicide earlier in February. Joh's death had a huge impact on Stevens and the recording process of Control System. On May 4, 2012, it was revealed "Black Lip Bastard" was remixed and would feature his Black Hippy cohorts, Rock, Lamar and Schoolboy Q. On May 8, 2012, his collaboration with Lamar, titled "ILLuminate", was released. The day before the album's release Ab-Soul revealed the track listing and released snippets from the album. The album, as written on the back cover, is "Dedicated to the beautiful soul of Loriana Angel Johnson aka Alori Joh".