Album Review: Vince Staples and His Eternal Summer

Vince Staples returns one year after the release of his critically-acclaimed sophomore album to drop a project paying homage to his biggest fan.

Written by Lauren Cook

On October 29, rapper Vince Staples announced that he would be dropping a “surprise” project in typical Staples fashion: “GOOD MORNING CITCH WE GOT NEW VINCE STAPLES THIS FRIDAY,” he tweeted.

Clocking in at a tight 22 minutes, FM! is dedicated to California, Long Beach and, of course, Vince’s biggest fan: himself. The album exclusively features Californian talent like Kehlani, Ty Dolla $ign, E-40, and a slew of other artists over the course of its 11 tracks. Los Angeles radio DJ personality Big Boy also makes an appearance throughout, representing the radio station native to Staples’ hometown. Even the album’s production is an homage to the West Coast. Staples ditches the experimental electronic beats from Big Fish Theory for trappier production that you’d expect to hear at any Long Beach block party. Needless to say, Vince Staples gave listeners no reason to doubt his love for the 562.

In terms of setting precedents, FM! isn’t groundbreaking. Staples returns to the topics he knows best: crippin’ and life in Long Beach. The album more or less contains the same dark tones and themes as Staples’ previous work: lines like “can't wait til I'm rich, I'm finna buy a whole crate of guns / From 'round 90 Crips, sh*t I really came from the slums” are reminiscent of Summertime ‘06 era Staples. Different from his past albums, though, is the relief from the doom and gloom of his lyrics. The radio show “Big Boy’s Neighborhood” provides fun and humorous blurbs between tracks that make it feel like you’re listening to the radio by the pool on a hot summer day. By choosing to blend humor with dark truths for this album, Staples’ reveals himself as a conscientious and careful artist. Though Long Beach was the source of his childhood traumas, he had good memories too, and the balance between tragedy and comedy gives listeners a more complete glimpse into Staple’s life.

Of the eleven tracks, “FUN!” stands out the most. Lines like “I got Christian Dior, I’m Crippin Bior” and “my black is beautiful but I’ll still shoot at you, dawg” are not only iconic and shocking but perfectly encapsulate Staples’ persona. Admittedly, the rest of the album lacks creativity and diversity in production, but “FUN!” is more distinctive and reminiscent of the eclectic beats found on Staples’ past works. The E-40 feature, though not substantive in lyricism, adds a catchy element to the song.

But perhaps the most exciting feature is that of the ever elusive Earl Sweatshirt. In his first appearance on any track since 2016, Sweatshirt is given only a 23 second interlude. (Staples is kind of a troll, remember?) Despite its infuriating brevity, Sweatshirt still manages to cover gang activity, his adolescence, and the death of his friend and father, all within the nine line verse. The feature also signals to fans that the artist might be dropping new material soon, and that in and of itself is a reason to rejoice.

FM!’s biggest issue is the lyrical repetition plaguing a few tracks. The 6th track, “Run the Bands” suffers from this redundancy the most. The chorus — which is just the phrase “run the bands, run the bands” over and over again — goes on for far too long, and since the project is already so short, you can’t help but think the time might’ve been used better elsewhere, like Earl Sweatshirt’s interlude.

But in the end, Vince Staples doesn’t care what anybody thinks. Despite tweeting a barrage of his own praises from this or that artist, Staples ended a Twitter rant with, “And before you tell me you don’t enjoy it remember that we don’t care cause you’s a b----!” In an Instagram photo posted four days before the project’s release, Staples commented on a picture of his younger self saying he took time from working on his other projects to release FM! for his “biggest fan and supporter since day one,” himself.

In essence, FM! is simply a nostalgic look at the rapper’s formative years. From carefully curated artist features to the production choices , it’s clear that Vince Staples knows what he’s doing when he creates an album, even if it’s only for himself. With the amount of detail put into a one-off project, fans and critics alike can surely look forward to what the rapper does next.