Almost a year before the lead video from Vince Staples’ Summertime ‘06 was released he seemed to be hammering out the concept during interviews. “The way I look at music—especially urban music, Black-people music, whatever you want to call it—is that we’re all in the zoo, and the listeners are the people outside of the cage,” he told Pitchfork. “You got all these people sitting outside the glass and it’s cool to point at the lion and shit,” Staples said a few months later in an interview with HipHopDX. The video for “Señorita” is chilling: in black and white we get a terrifying close-up of an apocalyptic version of Staples’ Long Beach as he strolls along unfazed. At the end of the video, the camera pans out to show a Norman Rockwell fashioned white family watching the scene, smiling from behind a pane of glass. Staples seems consumed with the disconnect between himself and listeners and is avoiding palatability to seize the moment. Nowhere is he inviting us to live like him and he’s neither hamming it up or playing it down for the spectators.
Of course, Staples isn’t alone as a West Coast rapper refocusing America’s gaze on California gang life, and despite a track record building affiliation with Odd Future, his subject matter and ambitions seem as indebted to another recently looming figure 20 miles north of Long Beach in Compton. Like on Hell Can Wait, Staples’ short-form Def Jam debut released last year, the 22-year old emcee has a penchant throughout Summertime ‘06 to strip away the glory from gangster rap and uphold a matter-of-fact depravity. Outside of his music he’s fired off some non-confrontational “well actually” quips about the realities of drug dealing and gang life, and inside of it he plays things straight, avoiding preachiness and embracing his own stories as hopeless and traumatic instead of inspirational or ingratiating.
Staples’ unassuming character clashes with some of the tales of gang exploits, but the effect is of chilling believability. He Tweets about his Pokemon acumen or childhood ambitions of becoming a particular Power Ranger, but he shoots down pop culture sugar pills when it comes to his music about violence. “Ho, this shit ain’t Gryffindor / We really killin’, kickin’ doors,” he raps on “Lift Me Up.” Still, Staples bemoans, “All these white folks chanting when I asked’em where my niggas at.”
Together with Clams Casino, DJ Dahi, and Christian Rich, Def Jam VP and evergreen career-steerer No I.D. sets an anxiously spacious minimalism throughout a 20-song tracklist. On “Jump Off The Roof” No I.D. swathes together a rattly tin drum break with spooked vocals and the most industrial synth and drum kit at his disposal. Vince sounds appropriately paranoid, but the threat in the title almost seems self-inflicted. Christian Rich’s “Señorita” is the most ghoulish of the album, a horror-story ready piano riff floats atop constant bass and a piercing snare. Those are the only sounds on much of the track save Staples’ verses, each a remorseless and detailed account of murder, and a cower-inducing vocal sample from Future as a hook.
Staples trades in the angst of street life for the vulnerable angst of a budding relationship on the last song of disc one. (This after a more lusty track with a feature from Jhene Aiko.) But “Summertime” also peels away a layer and offers a drop of guard. “Hope you understand they never taught me how to be a man,” Staples sings competently, as he does throughout the song. Over the disc-break, he snaps back and quickly launches into “3230,” a brimming micro-biography that stirs up as much compassion as fear. The song is also a highlight in Vince’s technicality and he barrels through flows with a chaotic gymnastics. On “Like it Is,” a woozy No I.D. and DJ Dahi collaboration, Staples is at his most reflective, offering a wide-angle resentment and analysis. “You’ll kill me if it make you richer, what you screaming, you my brother for,” he raps, and then returning to a familiar despair, “We live for they amusement like they view us from behind the glass…in this cage they made for me exactly where you find me at.”
The news that Summertime ‘06 would come packaged as a double-disc signalled vaguely lofty ambitions and sparked worries of filler. Instead, a drawn-out runtime wasn’t the cause for the extra disc as much as an attempt at intentional pacing. (At 57 minutes the album is less than ten longer than YG’s Def Jam debut last year.) In an hour, Staples accomplishes plenty, roaming freely back through his formative crises and come-ups and grappling with how to present them to the world. No I.D. and company have helped him make music that’s both uncomfortable and lived-in, and Staples sounds more himself inside of it than ever before.
Sleep if you want to but please know Vince Staples is doing for HIP HOP what the average rapper just can’t do; elevating it.
Amazing album, one of the best to drop this year. Vince had so much variety yet it was so cohesive at the same time. All the features were utilized perfectly and Vince shows how versatile of a spitter he is. Vince really put on for his hometown and gave us a look into the life he has lived.
Love this album pre-ordered it on iTunes can’t wait for it to come out tomorrow
longbeach
Told yall it was double disc, and it was great
Vince took us on a dark journey through that summer and it was honestly amazing
Not a classic!
Who’s saying it’s a classic?
west coast classic, eazy-e would be proud
5/5 great album. Quite the debut.
Hey DX, did you guys get some Ciroq money or what?????! Fuck this sell out fucking site jesus fucking christ, couldnt even be selective with where the 10 fucking adds were placed, naw let’s just put ’em everywhere. Fuck this shitty site, I’m done.
nobody gon miss you
Nobody touching this guy right now. West coast badass shit.
Great album! Vince grew alot as an artist.
Great album. Not “out-there” in a bad way but kind of in a Kendrick Lamar type of way.
@jxbane
This album was alright to me. A 3.5/5 in my book. I wish it was a little more similar to Hell Can Wait. Glad Vince is getting all this attention tho. He truly deserves it.
Great
best
5/5
the user ratings are manipulated!
Yeah it’s absurd.
This dude is the truth!! Easily one of the best projects of the year.
Solid. Production is twisted.
What’s wrong with the user rating?
Definitely one of the best this year
fire
great!
People are buggin’ on the ratings. This bangs from front to finish.
dope
Classic Vince
VINCE!
favorite album this year.
3.9 or 4.0, has some songs I didn’t like too much. Good album, made me check out his earlier album as well!
Dope
One of the best albums this year.
It’s solid, not really a classic tho
Vince dropped the album of the year. TPAB was dope, and there are few others, but so far, it’s this/
lift me up, senorita bangs but everything else is ok to not really replayable. 4/5 and thats being really generous.
The production on this album whether it be NoID or Clams Casino is absolutely incredible. Giving all these great tracks to an m.c. like Vince Staples is a waste. The guy knows how to spit but give these to Jay Rock and you get an absolute classic.
Dude can spit but has the voice of a 16 year old teenager and the beats are boring.
You really should get your hearing checked…
beats are boring?? wtf??
Great album. Been fucking w/ Vince since Blue Suede dropped. This is the direction the industry needs to keep moving in.
the first half is not bad but the second one is pretty boring.
3/5
Not feeling it.
yup. this the word.
DOpe album beats are amazing
Amazing sound, great lyricism, just an amazing album I bumped all week
Classic
vince staples
Crazy!
Dope cd
Not bad, 4.5 is fair.
Lovin’ HHDX, but this is nonsense. It won’t be in top 15 in 2015, but 4.5 MIC makes it top of top5 ?! Com’on! Its RCP (Rec.Comp.Promo’). Now, KL is 7; Wale, AB, JB, LF, YW 6 at least, if that’s 4 and a half.
I give 4, but its 3.75 in its best. No digitsin.
One of the best albums I have heard all year!!
Street Punks, though!
My most heard rap album of 2k15, made me a huge Vince Staples fan
Fucking love this album, it’s already my most heard rap release of 2k15 and made me a huge fan of Vince Staples, dude is killing shit right now
Anybody want to talk shit about this album, let me know. I will smack tha living shit out ya mouth. Don’t believe me, enter your address in the reply so I can go to where you @ and smack you. I aing lying.
Seriously though, this is one of the best albums of the year and somehow it’s rated at 3.25? With 30 out of 59 giving it a five that mean the other 29 people rated it under 1.5 and that is crazy. Haters doesn’t even do it justice, half of this websites readers just plain can’t stand a young rappers success and it takes away all credibility of the ratings. Top 5 albums of the year, without question.
looks like the west coast (cali) is still on top 1. k-dot 2. ab-soul 3. vince staples 4. schoolboy q 5.game
I always kinda slept on Staples. I made myself listen to this album because I knew I was sleeping. I woke up
yea this is one of my favorite albums of the year.
Average ass shit. Vince Staples sleeping through dope production.
Fire af
4.5/5
5/5