The next big name in hip-hop could be coming out of Long Beach, California.
At 23 years old, Vince Staples has already established himself as one of hip-hop’s best young acts, following his critically acclaimed debut album “Summertime ‘06” in 2015. While fans and critics alike await the follow-up album, Staples released an EP entitled “Prima Donna” on Aug. 26. While the project contains seven-tracks for a 21-minute total runtime, it manages to encapsulate some brilliance throughout.
Staples has exchanged running in streets as a gangbanger for running on tracks as a fearsome, insightful rapper who pulls no punches. The lifestyle he lives as a hip-hop artist is a major improvement from his former life, although he manages to find some parallels between the two animalistic worlds. His lyricism paints a picture of struggling with his newfound success.
“I just wanna be DaVinci baby/Why they wanna kill me baby?/Feelin’ like a pop star, music drive a n**** crazy,” Staples raps on the title track. “Think I’m finna pull a Wavves on the Primavera stage/On some prima donna s***, finna throw it all away.”
The EP feels backwards, much like Staples’ perception of being famous.
In the opening track “Let it Shine” the listeners can hear Staples reciting the lyrics to “This Little Light of Mine” in a very half-hearted monotone, before a gunshot rings off, suggesting that Staples has taken his own life. This ties to a line in “Loco” where Staples describes himself as “At the Marriott, having Kurt Cobain dreams.”
When “Prima Donna” is played backward, the narrative presented is the rising star’s inability to handle his growing popularity, which ultimately leads to his own demise and self-loathing.
Listening to it normally, the narrative shows the same rising star becoming less grounded and more braggadocious and arrogant resulting in complete loneliness and impotence. The end result is the double edged sword of Staples succumbing to the dark side of success in some fashion regardless of which way “Prima Donna” is played, adding to the brilliance of the EP.
Like in his debut album, Staples possesses a consciousness of black culture in the real world. He has poise and seems very much aware of the world around him and the perception of fame with black entertainers.
This isn’t too far off from similar points Kendrick Lamar had made on his critically acclaimed album “To Pimp a Butterfly.” Like Lamar, Staples channels his anger and allows it to create something significant. It’s only appropriate that Staples samples a line from Andre 3000’s final verse of the classic track “ATLiens;” “Found a way to channel my anger now to embark… Put my Glock away I got a stronger weapon/That never runs out of ammunition so I’m ready for war, okay.”
As the EP demonstrates, Staples, like Andre 3000, has not only got a stronger weapon, he has a stronger arsenal that he is only beginning to fully utilize and put the hip-hop game on notice that he is anything but a prima donna.
