Vince Staples made a very successful album – Rolling Stone

Classifying rap records according to where you want to hear them is for the federal government. Before the advent and the growing popularity of streaming services, terms such as radio record, club record and street record were used to bring order into a naturally chaotic process. These were often meaningless. Hits can be made and predicted to some extent, but the best ones are random and random.

In 2005, as president of Def Jam, Jay-Z hilariously ordered A & R to "manage your heat. Put your Joe Torre, nigga, after the escape of a Young Jeezy song on the radio. Hov made sure to make the archaic distinction that the new track is a club record, do not a radio recording. As if in 2005, people were not playing the same Jeezy records in the club, on the radio and no matter what "the streets" means. Vince Staples became major at that time – he named an entire album Summertime & # 39; 06, after all. Now, he's one of Def Jam's most talented rappers, even if he's not the most commercially successful rapper.

FM! is an album full of contradiction, but modeled on a commercial ideal.

The project is indebted to a time when radio was still king, paradoxically performed by an artist living at a time when the number of national spins no longer dictates (only) the success of major rapper labels. It's a summer record released in the middle of autumn. It exists in a utopian and far-fetched world, where radio programmers rightly play the new Earl Sweatshirt alongside Tyga.

FM! It's also the first project where Vince embraces the most populist sounds of the past and present of hip-hop. It is normal that the first song of the album, "Feels Like Summer", be completed by the voices of radio personalities, Big Boy and Ty Dolla $ ign, both more familiar with the waves than Staples. The song suggests the idea of ​​what should be a hit without conforming to the more clichéd realities of the music that actually turns. Legend of the Bay Area, E-40, gives its distinct voice to "FUN! Tyga, the best story back in 2018, has an interlude that reflects its recent return to the charts.

The sonic architect of FM! Kenny Beats, producer of black horses of the year in rap. It provides Vince with a brilliant but threatening sound, producing 9 out of 11 tracks. Staples has always been an economic storyteller, which Kenny brilliantly exploits with kinetic, fast and complex rhythms.

Vince Staples, the character, has always worn Vince Staples, the musician. Caustic, biting and witty, it's a character built for the internet age. He admitted it. "Interviews. I am more famous for interviews than either. And then the lady, "explained Staples when asked if he was best known for his Sprite commercials or his hitters. Unfortunately, he is not wrong. Vince has only one gold plate for "Norf Norf", according to the RIAA and its largest album mapping company. Display panel 200 is in 2017 Theory of big fish At number 16. These numbers are not surprising, since the music of the Long Beach rapper has gone from an insolent electronics to an extremely experimental electronics, without considering an easy classification.

FM! might not change the preconceived notions of Vince's music. On "Do not Get Chipped", he raps: "Stop pretending, you know you feel it / a recording contract, but I did it independently." mastodon (after MAGA Kanye), but it is part of their most convincing acts. His albums seem to have been formed on islands he built, far from the hip-hop center. Sure FM! it ends up giving up after months of fans attacking the (excellent, albeit outrageous) electronic beats in the center of Theory of big fish.

Sure FM!Vince sent a love letter to the radio. With his major, he proved that he was able to maintain his version of the brilliant and punchy Californian rap on an entire project. Let's hope he gets to the airwaves.