Latest Release
- 24 MAY 2024
- 13 Songs
- dont smile at me · 2017
- FEELS · 2017
- While We Wait 2 · 2024
- Summertime '06 · 2015
- Dark Times · 2024
- Big Fish Theory · 2017
- Dark Times · 2024
- Big Fish Theory · 2017
- Dark Times · 2024
- I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU · 2024
Essential Albums
- “WE IN YEAR 3230 WIT IT,” Vince Staples tweeted of his second album. “THIS THE FUTURE.” In fact, he’s in multiple time zones here. Delivered in his fluent, poetic flow, the lyrical references reach back to 16th-century composer Louis Bourgeois, while “BagBak” captures the stark contrasts of Staples’ present (“I pray for new McLarens/Pray the police don’t come blow me down because of my complexion.”) With trap hi-hats sprayed across ’70s funk basslines (“745”) and Bon Iver fused into UK garage beats (“Crabs in a Bucket”), the future is as bold as it is bright.
- At 22, the rapper Vince Staples is already a hard-bitten realist, the kind of artist with the intelligence and poise to know that anger won’t get him half as far in hard times as tight-lipped reflection. “My feelings told me love is real / But feelings here can get you killed,” he warns on “Summertime”—a lyric as uplifting as the sinister, subtly adventurous Summertime gets. Weighty without getting preachy, tough without ever feeling cold, Staples is a rare voice.
Albums
- 2024
- 2016
Artist Playlists
- Raw storytelling combined with a clever mind for wordplay.
- Vince Staples joins Pharrell to discuss his creative process and his upcoming eponymous show.
Singles & EPs
Radio Shows
- Vince Staples broadcasts live from Los Angeles.
- Backstage adventures and special guests with Vince Staples.
- Vince and Westside Ty close out another season.
- Vince and Westside Ty on the creative mindset.
- Hip-hop patriots Vince and Westside Ty honor the 4th.
- Vince and Westside Ty detail the creation of a visual world.
- An interview with the rapper about his album Dark Times.
More To See
About Vince Staples
In the glitzed-out trap dream of 2010s hip-hop, Vince Staples feels like a grounding force. Raised in Long Beach, California, Staples (born in 1993) started rapping in his teens, aligning himself peripherally with the Odd Future crew. Released in 2015 on the heels of a series of increasingly impressive mixtapes, his first album, Summertime ’06, felt like an instant classic—a bleak, boast-free coming-of-age story that recalled ’90s gangsta rap without a whiff of nostalgia. (A sharp interview and endlessly entertaining personality, Staples once complained that he thought the ’90s were overrated and never much figured into his life because in the ’90s he was, y’know, a baby.) His second LP, Big Fish Theory, took a dive into dance and electronic music without sacrificing any of the frankness that made his early music so striking—proof that he wasn’t the throwback some had pegged him as. Plainspoken and fiercely independent, he introduced his 2018 project, FM!, through his own Apple Music show, RAMONA RADIO, with a backhanded apology: “We might not sell a gang of records,” he said. “We might not make millions of dollars. But y’all not nice like that. We nice like that.”
- HOMETOWN
- Long Beach, CA, United States
- BORN
- 2 July 1993
- GENRE
- Hip-Hop/Rap