Vince Staples has carved out a niche not only as a top-flight MC with incredibly sharp wordplay and a rhyme-stacking, rapid delivery, but—most importantly—also as a storyteller rooting himself in a type of hood reportage. In “Norf Norf”, he archives the dangers of his northside Long Beach neighbourhood, and he expands on those risks in songs like “Señorita”, leaning into his ability to paint textural descriptions of fear and danger. But he's also a lot of fun, connecting dots with colourful metaphor on “Blue Suede”.