Vince Staples burst onto the scene with Summertime ’06. Ever since, he’s been a critical and fan darling, helped in no small amount to a personality not far-removed from a Black Jerry Seinfeld. He suffers from sky-high expectations on his eponymous album, Vince Staples. It felt like we were ready for something big. It had been a while. But this album simmers along, technically superb but never attention-grabbing. It’s a great piece of work. It can’t help but feel like he’s holding back, though.
7.4
Talent will never be Vince Staples’ issue. He arose out of the Odd Future scrap-heap alongside Earl Sweatshirt, and it takes no genius to realise why those two have proceeded to develop fascinating music careers. Both artists possess laudable technical ability and the most-envied lyrical chops. To date, Staples has done a better job of becoming an actual rap product, whereas Sweatshirt has fallen inwards and into weirder and weirder (but still fascinating) holes.
That’s part of the reason this album feels slightly underwhelming. In many ways, it feels like the B-Side to FM!, Staples’ most recent album also produced by Kenny Beats. But where that album crackled and popped with heat and L.A. flare, this one feels like it was produced on a breezeless summer night. It skirts along at a rapid pace and without much fanfare at all. That would feel fine for most run-of-the-mill artists, but here it feels slightly akin to turning up to a Kendrick Lamar concert and watching him play a medley of deep-cut Section .80 tracks. We came here for more.
But Staples is too good to fall completely on his face. These tracks are laced with sniping lines and chugging hooks. The best track, by quite a way, is “Take Me Home”. Over a stringy, South American Kenny Beats instrumental, Staples sounds like he’s on auto-pilot in the best way. Over the first verse, with little effort, he displays more personality than other rappers can over an entire album – (“I don’t want to rebound/I just want to sleep sound/Don’t want to dream bout these things I done did”). The tracks also broadly cover the same concept – Staples trying to grapple with his Long Beach past. None of it is a revelation, but that’s okay. This has always been his lane and he’s become a technician at mining it – “Count my bands, all alone at home, don’t you call my phone/everyone that I’ve ever known asked me for a loan”).
This is a well-crafted album, and Staples is an easy listen. It just feels a little inconsequential. That’s surprising from a rapper who’s proven to be so good at reading the room. Vince Staples doesn’t tarnish his legacy by any means, but it’s fair to wonder whether it really added much to it either.
THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL 