16/vince staples/summertime '06
"I'm just a n__gga..."
This is how Vince Staples introduces himself at the top of Summertime '06. As if to say, "Why bother? Nothing to see here. Just some regular, same old n_gga shit." And yes, the red hot American summer presented here is specific and familiar. As American as apple pie. Pictures from an unfiltered adolescence, a Black adolescent, straight out of Long Beach. Vince Staples. The character, the gangsta, that "real n_gga archetype". Summertime '06 is another grand standing walk through the hood politics and extra curricular activities that have been spoken on and visualized on wax numerous times before.
(or quick drive through, for those of you who steer clear of "the ghetto(s)”)
But to classify this collection of tracks as just another ordinary snapshot from another misguided black male living just enough for the city would be a mistake, cause Summertime '06, more than anything, is a triumphant record. This fact may not make itself known on your first (or second, or third, or fourth...) spin, but it is. As the imagery whirs past, and the beats come thru with the bang, Vince’s retelling of a hard life once lived slowly fade into thoughts of wanting better, needing better, and moving beyond a largely repetitive and expected existence. By the end of Summertime ’06 Vince is ready to depart the school of hard knocks and grab a hold of something better. For him, his homies, Black America, and us. Throughout it all, Vince’s loose, conversational flow sits front and center, always clear, always direct, aided largely by production from No I.D. Beats that are sparse and percussion heavy, taking the music far beyond the region of Northside Long Beach (and often back to the glory days of minimalist hip-hop production from the 80s).
Same old, same old, regular hood shit? Far from it. Not in Summertime '15.
Triumphant indeed.
KEY TRACKS: lift me up/norf norf/like it is
17/kamasi washington/the epic
18/grimes/art angels
19/kacey musgraves/pageant material
20/shamir/ratchet
21/drake/if you’re reading this it’s too late
22/son lux/bones
23/disclosure/caracal
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