Vince Staples - Vince Staples ALBUM REVIEW

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POV: You are the food in Vince’s microwave.


Vince Staples has been one of the most interesting artists in hip-hop working right now. His past couple of albums, especially his past two, have been some of the most unique hip-hop albums of the 2010s. Big Fish Theory brought in an electronic atmosphere that’s incredibly unique and stands as one of the best albums of 2017. Also, he’ll always be legendary for getting Kendrick Lamar on a SOPHIE beat (R.I.P.). In 2018, though, he dropped FM!, a criminally short concept album based around FM radio format. Both of these projects are insanely catchy and innovative, and because of that, whatever he did next was highly anticipated. Three years after that, we have the first of two new albums coming this year, one being called Ramona Park Broke My Heart and the other being this project, a self-titled album. Entirely produced by the one and only Kenny Beats, it was pretty exciting to see Staples return to the spotlight. Does Vince Staples deliver? Let’s find out.

You know, I’ve actually sat here for a while trying to think of what this album reminds me of, and I think I finally figured it out: ScHoolboy Q. Q dropped Blank Face LP in 2016, the most explosive and psychedelic project of his career and many fans consider it to be one of the best albums out of the Top Dawg Entertainment group. He disappeared for three years, then came back with CrasH Talk, his most mellow and ‘mainstream’ album that disappointed fans of Blank Face, but still wasn’t bad by any means. Vince Staples is CrasH Talk, and Blank Face LP is Big Fish Theory (or FM!, if you wanna consider that an album). This album is much more subdued and inoffensive than his past projects, but that’s not a bad thing. Kenneth Instrumentals brings some good beats to the table, but knowing that he produced UNLOCKED for Denzel Curry, I just wish there was so much more experimentation in that area. Staples’s writing is pretty good here. Actually, he’s a lot more vulnerable here than in the past, which makes this a very interesting choice for this to be his self-titled album. It’s just that his performances just seem lacking. It sounds like he didn’t wanna rap on this, but there’s still some talent here.

Look, Vince Staples the album isn’t bad and neither is Vince Staples the rapper, but we’ve waited three years for this? Maybe it’ll make sense when the second project drops this year, but I can’t lie, I was a little disappointed with this. If you see my score below, I obviously liked it to some degree, but it was just passable. Also, it being only 22 minutes kinda sucked, but short projects are good if there isn’t any filler. This had filler.


6/10


Listen here

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Vince Staples is a Blacksmith release.

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