An in-depth review of the Def Jam debut from Long Beach rapper Vince Staples.

Paul Thompson doesn’t need extra cheese on that Sicilian You’re lying in bed, colorless. Liquor stores. Barbed wire. Jesus candles. There’s a pounding on the roof. It’s Vince Staples, sueded out and giving startlingly few fucks. Christmas comes in August, except the 19-year-old from Long Beach is jacking you for everything you own. If it […]

I’ve spent a significant part of the last few years taking the death of gangster rap for granted. The narrative that I’ve run with tracks the rise in popularity of artists like (duh) Kanye West, the explicitly fake Rick Ross, and Drake, and the concurrent fall of Young Jeezy, the disappearance of 50 Cent, the […]

The subject matter rarely changes in gangsta rap. Someone is getting high. Someone is getting smoked. Someone is getting screwed, literally or metaphorically. The streets and sets are often the same. Ravaged blocks get immortality through wars and martyrdom for muddled causes. The guns are the same, so is the slang. What’s different is the […]

Jonah Bromwich is a minivan veteran. “As a kid, all I wanted was to kill a man.  Cuz my daddy did it.” The inverse of the Odd Future pillars, Tyler the Creator and Earl Sweatshirt, many of Vince Staples’ problems come from a close relationship with his father. That’s the irony explored on “Nate,” a […]