Only nine months after his last record was released, Vince Staples is back with another. While the 28-year-old California rapper is known for his prolific output – he already has four albums under his belt, a further six mixtapes and EPs, and a host of features on other people’s tracks – even by his standards, that’s a rapid release schedule. Sitting on a Zoom call in a San Francisco hotel room, however, in a brief break before another date on his North American tour with Tyler, the Creator, Staples seems entirely unfazed. A little disinterested, if anything, in going through the requisite promo motions.
“It’s all good, man,” he says. “It’s all the same. We’ve been here before. I’m just trying to execute it, to bring the things we have planned to fruition.” His previous offering was self-titled; this one is called Ramona Park Broke My Heart, a nod to the Long Beach neighbourhood – just south of Los Angeles – that Staples was raised in. “Songs are just songs,” he states, when I ask if and how the two works relate. He doesn’t live far from the area today; there was no great return while he penned the album. “Home means the same to me as everybody else,” he says, vaguely. “The title is metaphorical: everyone knows home and heartbreak, those things affect your life no matter who you are.”
