Jun 22, 2015 Most people look back at the summers of their youth as a dreamy mix of beach trips, bike rides and puppy-love crushes. But rapper Vince Staples, on his debut full-length Summertime '06, has different memories: running from police, dead bodies in alleys, g--- tattoos (and thus g--- beefs) out in the open thanks to the stifling heat. It's an uncompromising vision of his Long Beach, Calif., upbringing, one packed with enough dour details and bigger-picture philosophizing to fill an hour-long album. If this sounds like an ambitious feat for a debut LP from a 21-year-old rap rookie, that's because it is. There's a lot, sometimes too much, to take in, but Staples has tons to say, in a delivery that finds middle ground between Nas' wizened rasp andToo Short's melodic Cali lilt. On "Lift Me Up," over a distorted bass riff, the former g--- member and Odd Future collaborator introduces himself by snarling, "I'm just a n---a, until I fill my pockets/ And then I'm Mr. N---a" and describes his everyday fight between aspirations and temptations. On syrupy centerpiece "Summertime," Staples sings, "My teachers taught me we were slaves/ My mama taught me we was kings/ I don't know who to listen to/ I guess we're somewhere in between." There are detours into love and lust, but they're brief by design; the album is better represented by hood capitalist paean "Get Paid," in which Staples shrugs off women and coldly recalls selling cocaine with his father from a Days Inn. The music sticks to this claustrophobic reality in inventive ways: lumbering BPMs, Halloween piano riffs dripping with paranoia, looped murmurs that sound like angry whale songs, lo-fi 808s filtered through fever dreams. It's not easily accessible, and it's certainly too long, but the album paints a vivid picture. For better and for worse, there's no room for celebratory we-made-it anthems, or any semblance of a hit single, in Staples' bleak world. That would imply a way out, and Staples, who never breaks character, doesn't see one on this -promising, unapologetically dense debut. https://www.billboard.com/articles/review/6605639/vince-staples-summertime-06-album-review
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