2015 has been a year where new urban music has surpassed itself in all areas. It has exceeded expectations of the fans and even its own projections in the US and the UK. As the urban music production line rolls on it has produced another album which within itself is virtuoso and ingenious.
Vince Staples fell out of Long Beach a few years ago when he dropped the occasional Odd Future feature and collaborations with artist such as Mac Miller, he was raw but with plenty of promise. His previous mixtapes Winter In Prague and Stolen Youth definitely proved that. He has chosen what could be the perfect year to drop his debut album Summertime ’06. He is still raw but much more accomplished and illustrious, the perfect combination.
“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,” Staples told Pitchfork. “You got all these people sitting outside the glass and it’s cool to point at the lion and shit,” he said a few months later in an interview with HiphopDX. These comments reflect his view on the music industry perfectly and therefore how he eventually tackled this inventive debut project.
The constitution of Staples’s persona in Summertime ’06 is very consuming, rambling on about everyday life with an assortment of references right on the tip of his tongue. The aptitude of any unlawful activity is always lurking a few paces behind him which creates the reality he faces: “See, this weight is on my shoulders, pray Jehovah lift me up”, he preaches on ‘Lift Me Up‘ as a stern and tough beat lures him to question his moral virtue and almost his mental balance.
Staples openly describes being part of a gang as both his protector and destroyer, one that he could not get away. But Staples never comes across as insubordinate or unmanageable to his hostile environment, and openly accepts being part of a nuclear family that was surrounded by gang culture, as he expresses in ‘Birds & Bees‘: “Rounds up in that chamber, I’m a gangsta like my daddy/ My mama caused another problem when she had me.”
Even though 20 tracks sounds like a marathon at just 57 minutes long Summertime ’06 accomplishes so much in what is a very well paced album. Though out of all of the tracks two stand out above the rest, ‘Summertime‘ is the antithesis of Will Smith’s hit as Staples raps: “I hope you understand they never taught me how to be a man” and ‘Surf‘, which then changes the pace with sub-low bass sitting underneath a soca-style beat.
What really hits home on this album more so than any of his work too date is his observational style. It isn’t any much different than Kendrick Lamar’s urban opus good kid m.A.A.d City, and his rapid lyrical penmanship holds a genius far beyond his age despite being a bit of a braggart with his own cleverness.
Altogether while Staples has obviously structured this album strictly and very deliberately roaming freely back through his formative crises and come-ups, and then wrestling with how to present them to the world. No I.D. and company have given him a platform of music that’s both anxious and settled, and Staples sounds more himself inside of that than he has ever before.
