Long Beach, CA · hip hop · west coast hip hop

Vince Staples

3 upcoming festivals ↓

Long Beach rapper with a comedian's timing and the bleakest source material — never once sentimental, and funnier live than most comics.

Vince Staples was born in Compton, California, in 1993, into a family with deep ties to local street life; his father was arrested when Vince was in first grade, and his mother moved the household in with relatives while he attended a small Christian school as a quiet, straight-A student. He grew up in Long Beach and emerged in the early 2010s through mixtape appearances tied to the Odd Future circle, contributing to Earl Sweatshirt's Earl and Doris and Mike G's Ali, before stepping out on his own.

His records pair terse, deadpan writing about Ramona Park, gang life and Black American life with production that leans toward cold, minimal electronics as often as conventional West Coast boom bap. Staples is known for refusing the romanticism that usually accompanies his subject matter.

After a mixtape with Mac Miller, Stolen Youth (2013), released through Talib Kweli's Blacksmith Records, Staples signed to No I.D.'s ARTium imprint at Def Jam. His EP Hell Can Wait (2014) reached the Billboard 200, and his debut album Summertime '06 (2015) produced the platinum single 'Norf Norf.' Big Fish Theory (2017), FM! (2018), a self-titled record (2021), Ramona Park Broke My Heart (2022) and Dark Times (2024), his final Def Jam release, followed, before he issued his first album as an independent artist.

His dry, quick sense of humour has carried over into interviews, podcasts and screen work, including acting roles in Dope and White Men Can't Jump, voice parts in American Dad! and Lazor Wulf, and a run on Abbott Elementary. In 2024 he created and starred in The Vince Staples Show for Netflix, which ran two seasons. He also records as one third of the trio Cutthroat Boyz, alongside Aston Matthews and Joey Fatts.

On stage he tends toward a spare presentation, letting the beats and the delivery do the work between stretches of off-the-cuff talk.

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hip hopwest coast hip hop