Oct 26, 2015 There is more text in the article, i didn't want to copy it all http://www.theguardian.com/music/20...pboard?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard When you think of Californian hip-hop, you flick through cliches like a Grand Theft Auto programmer: bouncing cars, guns being held sideways, blunts the size of folded umbrellas. Vince Staples, a 22-year-old rapper from Long Beach, is at pains to point out the difference between this cartoon and the flesh and blood of his streets. “Boyz N The Hood, Menace II Society, all that s--- – it’s robbery,” he says. “I don’t know who benefits from that s---. You’ve just seen lowriders and Dickies suits and n----s Crip-walking. That’s tap-dancing, that’s coonery. Nobody’s told the real story.” Staples's double debut Summertime '06 depicts his teenagehood spent running with a Crip g---, selling drugs and dodging police. His tracks aren’t chestbeating club bangers or ruminative boom-bap, but full of precise raps over claustrophobic backing from producers such as the Kanye West and Jay Z affiliate No ID. His frankness and pin-sharp flow makes it one of 2015’s best albums, made of kitchen-sink steel instead of gilded with bling. Does he feel part of the hip-hop culture that’s currently celebrating him? “No. At all. I do not at all. I didn’t grow up with people breakdancing; I come from g--- culture.” He quotes what A$AP Rocky says about him: “Birds of a feather flock together; you be by yourself, B. You ain’t like these other n----s!” Rocky is right: Staples is a bit of a lone wolf roaming around a hyperlocal patch. After he non-specifically “got in trouble” during his Crip days, it took his mother sending him for a cooling-off period in Atlanta, and time spent knocking about with the Odd Future crew, to divert his path on to rap. His ascendance since then has been impressive, touring with Rocky and Schoolboy Q and guesting on tracks for Common and Earl Sweatshirt. He now lives down the way from his home town in the more affluent Orange County: “I will live in Long Beach [again], but right now I’ve done too much stuff. People don’t forget when you’ve done things to hurt them.” He won’t tell me what he did, only that he was fixated on violence. “I started gangbanging because I wanted to k--- people,” he says, matter of factly. “I wanted to hurt people. There’s no reason: it’s a bloodthirst. The same reason people join the army: because they want to k---. A lion doesn’t make an excuse to k--- anybody, he does it because he wants to.” Most people join the army for employment, though, and we like to think we’re more considered than lions. “Well, they’re not the ones destroying the planet. We’re not better, we’re probably worse than f---ing animals.”
Oct 26, 2015 All of the violence and drugs in today's hip hop disgusts me. Where's the Fresh Prince when you need him?