Ay, I haven’t heard anything from Vince Staples in a while. Musically, that is.
In case you don’t remember, he did have his own Netflix show, but that only lasted 2 seasons and didn’t get renewed. But now, he’s back with a new album and it looks like this one is very conceptual.
From the singles released (“Blackberry Marmalade” and “White Flag”), you noticed the theme is… well, being black in America and how fucked society really is. This is further emphasized by looking at the music videos for both, with the former being a mass shooter killing everybody in a diner to and the latter painting the American flag white and then shooting it.
Yeah, you can tell this is going to be an album that requires you to really dive into what he’s saying, and while this album has a 35-minute runtime, this isn’t just an album to listen to once and do a first reaction video of.
First, let’s get this out of the way — yeah, the sound is so vastly different from Vince’s other albums a la The Big Fish Theory, except here he went with a more punk rock direction with actual instrumentation, and it does work out in his favor. It feels very dynamic and rough and it helps with what Vince is rapping about. Like I said, the whole album is all about the oppression and injustice that Black Americans face every day which, judging by recent events, is not slowing down any time soon. “Go! Go! Gorilla” speaks on police brutality towards black people and how society treats them as second class while white people, who do the same heinous shit, gets off scot-free or a slip on the wrist.
Damn, why you gotta be like that?
Slammed with my hands behind my back
I know my tags are not updated, but I don’t think you need that strap
Why can’t you just talk to me? My life is inside your hands
Can you protect it? Am I being harassed or arrested?
They gave wrist slaps to them and sentenced mines
We go into “The Running Man” and the theme of this song is… well, The Running Man: either the original Stephen King novel, the 1987 movie adaptation with Arnold Schwarzenegger or hell, even the most recent remake directed by Edgar Wright. The song mainly focuses on how networks broadcasting news heavily edit footage that makes most people look like criminals and the heavily armed government agents look like heroes (aka propaganda) and also making sure that most people trying to escape that and get the truth out often don’t make it out alive.
Speaking of that, it continues on with “TV Guide” with the message of how it’s easy to manipulate people with mass media and how it shaped our worldview.
I ain’t a toy, they wanna put a nigga up in a box
Richard Pryor with the fire, now they gettin’ me hot
They lookin’ at me like a joke, what’s all the laughin’ about? I ain’t no dumbo
Jim Crow swearin’ he fly, who gives a fuck, though?
Who’s the Witch though? Power of the dollar decline, they gave us crypto
Let the coin flip, head or tails? Go ‘head and pick which one they goin’ in (Who gives a fuck?)
Where’s the love at? Touched by Uncle Sam, you better fuck back
“The Big Bad Wolf” does present something of a grim cautionary tale of whenever a young black child gets murdered unjustly, how long will we be passive and ‘meh’ on this until it happens to you, alongside how fighting the system can easily crush everything within you – your body, mind, spirit and mental state. Also the song does sample the chorus of Slick Rick’s “Children’s Story” which also got sampled a few years earlier by Nas in “Cops Shot The Kid” off his album NASIR. Also, one verse in there does reference a certain YouTube channel that interviews rappers that makes fools of themselves and profit off of black trauma aka dry-snitching on themselves. Let’s just say, it rhymes with GLAD aka the opposite feeling Vince gets from him.
“Only in America” talks about the glorification of America being the land of the free, liberty, freedom and free speech… and how it’s all a bunch of bullshit when those ideals are quite hypocritical and only true for those that benefited from it the most as said in the chorus:
You can livе by the gun, die by the gun (Only in America)
You can lie, you can steal, house on a hill (Only in America)
You can be anything, live out dreams (Only in America)
“Dancing with the Devil” deals with Vince’s past being part of the Crips and living that hedonistic lifestyle, looking back at it and realizing that while it used to thrill him, it now depresses and saddens him. Next verse is how he talks about being a black artist and how the capitalistic system he’s benefiting from is also the same thing that oppresses black people in the US.
And then there’s “Cotton”, a song about how black art, trauma and survival stories are often framed as something to exploit and sell to an audience. The first verse tells that how in his life growing up, you can’t afford to be ‘soft’ in that neighborhood and eventually how being surrounded by death every day can make you hollow or desensitized to you. However, it’s also a critique of his former label Def Jam (Oh, BTW, this was released by Loma Vista) and them pushing that rigid, street label on him and thinking that would sell best to them. You know, having black people dance all happy and joyous while in the background, more horrific shit happens.
The last track of the album (at least in the streaming version; “Tulsa, OK” is exclusive to the vinyl version) “7 In The Morning” highlights…. Well, the terrors of war and living in a war-torn country. Yes, this is mainly about the plight of the Palestinian/Israeli War with those famous army chants ‘left, right, left, right, left!’; it’s how we often see violence as a common form of entertainment and whenever America is at war, Americans use it as a sense of superiority and a need to defeat their enemies.
I’m not going to act in terms of content, there’s nothing mind-blowing as Vince always addresses stuff like this in his records, and that’s not a detriment to him. He remains consistent in talking about either his life or his surroundings. Of course, the thing different about it is the sound — is it purely rock, more rap-rock or just rock-adjacent? I mean, there’s some jazzier sounds in there, as well, so I can’t fully just say it’s all that but it’s a different sound than most and it does work here. I’ve stated that my favorite Vince Staples album is The Big Fish Theory, mainly for how different it sounds from the previous one and it still has topics that Vince has been touching on over and over but the sound always changes.
Now for this album… yeah, this is a fantastic listen from the commentary, the production, what Vince says on here etc. I don’t know if it’s better than his previous album but this is another piece of good work from him.
FINAL VERDICT: BUY IT. Probably shell out for the vinyl if you can…. Come on, don’t be a… CRY BABY.
Cry Baby is on Loma Vista Recordings and is available on CD, vinyl, digital download and streaming services.