- After what has seemed like an eternity since last project FM!, California rapper Vince Staples has returned with a self-titled record produced entirely by Kenny Beats. The album is short, at just over twenty-two minutes, which is disappointing after a three year wait but there’s been countless rappers who’ve proven my stigma to be wrong. Vince has never completely missed and if he’s willing to put his name to something, it must be good right?
Opening track Are You with That? is a solid reflection song that sees Vince reminiscing about his younger gangbanging days over an emotive, bouncing beat. While he never quite sings, Vince approaches his rhymes with a certain melodic flow that aptly matches Kenny’s production. The track feels slightly safe but is by no means a bad song.
When did Bon Iver or James Blake-esque vocal samples become the big thing in alternative hip-hop? Vince gives the trend a go on Law of Averages and the result is just alright. He delivers a solid performance with a great set of bars about kissing your baby with a 38 called Lil Wayne Carter, referencing the occasional kisses between Wayne and his ex-manager Baby. I just can’t get behind Kenny’s insistence on the vocal samples that really overpower the track and don’t fit.
The production is much the same on Sundown Town and by only three tracks in it begins to feel repetitive. Vince’s melodically grey downbeat flow continues to reminiscence on somewhat interesting topics such as almost being made homeless, as Kenny once again employs the slightly bouncing beat with vocal samples. The most interesting thing about this track is Vince’s pitched up chorus that is so quiet it took me a few listens to realise it wasn’t just warped samples.
Take Me Home is almost a great song that seems to draw a slight inspiration from Vince’s 2015 record Summertime ’06 through production choices and having a female vocalist for the chorus. The production is finally loses that monotonous quality as Kenny fires off Latin guitars and West Coast drums that really pop. Vince relates a love for his city that, despite his condemnation of its constant violence and death, he is always drawn back to. It’s Foushee’s chorus that doesn’t work for me with far too obvious Wizard of Oz references that really draw me out of the song, sadly.
Lil Fade seems like a return to old Vince but is once again only average. Constant references to his neighbourhood and the North Side feel so safe at this point that it can’t really grab me despite Vince’s hard hitting flow. The production is one of the more energised moments on the project but yet again is what Vince has done on tracks like Norf Norf six years ago so I can’t really praise Kenny for ideas I’ve heard before.
It’s nice to have Vince Staples back on the mic after three years but honestly this self-titled project is average at best with decent rapping, standard production and some bad hooks. I understand the ideas that the project is trying to explore through both production and lyrical choices but it never quite reaches anything above either monotony or a been-here-before feeling . Vince has teased another album this year so hopefully a return to form is on the horizon.
- James Chadwick.