Yup, it’s magic.

Pre-Game:

Vince Staples said a lot of things last year on a visit to Drink Champs, a podcast hosted by Bronx legend and now part-time rapper N.O.R.E. I will take a liberty with one anecdote in particular, in which Vince explains why he wears and soliloquises about Yankee hats in a number of his songs — despite being a Los Angeles native. A paraphrase, I beg:

“The cops see us in Yankee hats and think we’re all about that baseball shit. And I am now. I can tell motherfuckers all about Babe Ruth and Jason Giambi, all them cats.”

The hats, in fact, helped disguise gang affiliation. So last night, as I watched the Yanks overcome the old rival from Boston, and as I wondered whether catcher Kyle Higashioka knows just how much I believe in him, I remembered my third favourite rapper Vince Staples. Whether there would be traces of the effortless comedian and shit-talker in his latest record, Ramona Park Broke My Heart, now that Vince — in his interviews — reads as more worldly, more reflective, and less cavalier. 

From the title alone it’s clear we’re getting melancholy Vince, whimsical Vince, which I’m cool with. I just hope he doesn’t try to rap to any house sets again. 

THE BEACH

Vince kicks off with an early warning, “In the city, your first rap can be a murder rap,” which I presume is a reference to Long Beach (from whence he hails); and also the thin line between making this genre of music and potentially running afoul of the law for little else. I’m never moved by intros. This one, coincidentally, has some baseball vibes. From the style of lyricism, it portends that rap things are a-comin’ — even if Vince isn’t that interested in rap anymore.

AYE! FREE THE HOMIES

If the intro sets the tone for what sort of vocals Vince is bringing, this sets the tone for the beats. The production’s deft, mellow, summery, and emanates DJ Quik vibes. I think life and then the pandemic have taken such a toll on Vince he just wants to drop the top on an American classic and ride around the hood. Which honestly, an American classic with the top dropped, feels like the most appropriate place to bump this album.

“Free the killer, he was on attack / Bitches wanna know my Zodiac.” LOLS, Vince.

DJ QUIK!

Hey, he called the next track ‘DJ Quik’! Is this guy a mind-reader or what?

As themes, love and loyalty clash plenty on this album. Vince wants to stop disappointing a lover, who he associates with the promise of ceasefire in his city; but gang war keeps calling. Why does he keep going back? Is it a sense of civic duty? Is it loyalty to the crew? Is it too late, because ‘gang-banging’ is now fully his identity?

“If it don’t make numbers then it don’t make sense…” Vince leans on this refrain for a chorus, I think as a nod to walking a thin line between talking underground shit and yet wanting mainstream success. Like a gear shifted upward, the bass is all over the place, but in a good way. 

MAGIC

I can’t get enough of this joint. Put that beat on and my shoulders are making dance-floor reservations, I’m telling you. DJ Mustard sprinkles an eerie harmony over yet more of that trademark West Coast bass, and Vince, a boy with a poem, takes care of the rest. (Am I qualified to make the observation that there’s a lot of Oakland about this outing?)

“Niggas bread ain’t up, so they come foul/ But it’s handshakes, hugs, when I come round.”

Despite a lack of sequence to his revelations, Vince remains an easeful storyteller. Single sentences conjure such rich visuals, which help reconcile the clear and ongoing conflict between his need to reform and his need to represent. This — this — is some accomplished ass music shit. 

NAMELESS

During this skit, I take a moment to assess the album cover. Is that a young Vince, fading away from the get-go?

WHEN SPARKS FLY

This is very 90s RnB-ish, and even though it’s not my thing I appreciate the aesthetic. Nostalgia, especially for a time that was never quite your own, is a noble thing.

I want to say Vince definitely got his heart broken by the materialism of a hometown girl he saw in and out of isolation, and is thus reminiscing musically upon a rough but simple childhood and (therein) the absence of fame. (And/or the absence of certain neighbourhood obligations.)

So even though this jam sounds inspired by the sort of lady one meets along Instagram Way, I suspect what he’s really recalling is an older romance he wishes had succeeded. However: the ‘hundred rounds’ reference, to sex and I presume gunplay, is a legitimate 'Step Your Rap Game Up’ moment.

EAST POINT PRAYER

Am I vibing? Am I vibing? Am I vibing?

SLIDE

My beef with Vince’s production team is too many of his songs feel like they need each other’s complement to stand on their own two feet? Am I an asshole for wanting every verse, every hook, to boast the craftsmanship of a potential cult classic? A jam of the year possibly? One word/ single-phrase choruses seem lazy when you don’t nail them, and Vince swings for them an awful lot. 

PAPERCUTS

I get it. If Vince were a film director, this would be a plucky release at Sundance with zero expectations for itself — not a heavy-handed period drama politicking its way through Oscar season. I get that the whole point sonically of Ramona Park is it’s a whatever record. We’re all just out here vibing. You’re not analysing the lyrics for killer bars, or clues as to Vince’s emotional health right now. So even if I’m not playing this thing in six months, which is approximately five Griselda releases later, it’s totally possible I’ll rediscover it in my late 40s — and deem it, that blessed day, a classic.

This has a dream-like quality to it, like unreal shit’s going down somewhere and you’re not certain you’re actually awake. You keep trying to pinch yourself out of the situation but nothing happens. You’re too exhausted, anyways, to even wake up.

LEMONADE

Can Vince Staples sing if he really goes for it? Can he outright pull a Nate Dogg (RIP) and just sing people’s hooks? 

I’m starting to think the man said too much on Drink Champs about his process. You shouldn’t have told the world, Vince, that there’s music you purposely make for placement on ads and TV shows!

PLAYER WAYS

On ‘Loca’, off 2015’s Summertime 06 (Vince reflects a bunch, huh?), an irate Latina gives Mr. Staples what for in Spanglish. People are always telling Vince off at the end of his songs, or talking at him. In a weird way, this helps justify the hang-and-bang nature of his favoured instrumentals over the drawl of Vince’s lackadaisical sermons. The contrast between beat and vocal strikes me as a telling one, because it encapsulates that between a demanding city and a remorseful man.

“Got no time to play around, I’ve got to run the streets,” Vince shrugs, and then a little later, “But all she wants is a little company.”

MAMA’S BOY

Vince doubles down on the mumbletrap flow, and is kept just about conscious by a quite crystalline beat. If this album needed an ambassador to justify its existence, this track would be it. Ramona Park works best when Vince sounds genuinely exhausted.

“I luh this shit like my momma / Live for the money / Die for the dollars.”

I love this shit. But I ache for the lady who says if she’d maybe worked fewer jobs, she could have spent more time protecting her son from becoming a monster. 

BANG THAT

Normally I’m skipping a track like this like a 10 AM meeting on Monday. But if I let go, if I sort of just listen with my bones, I get that it’s really actually 1AM music. I’m supposed to be exhausted, all pep departed from these shoulders, when I make a face that says, Whoa: that fucking bass, though. I’m supposed to be top-down in a car, going nowhere.

THE SPIRIT OF MONSTER KODY

I’m good on the illuminating skits that are supposed to shine some light on why these lyrics precipitate in the manner they do. Let’s just land this thing. I promise I’ve refrigerated all my expectations. We’re almost there.

ROSE STREET

Vince is like a man stuck out of musical time, trying to catch streams with music DJs used to put on the radio. That makes me think about Nate, in which Vince describes “riding round the city with the seat back,” while his old man ran illicit errands; and also 2018’s FM! , which he packaged as a zany radio station. On an industrial level, is ‘Ramona Park’ an act of nostalgia for the West Coast radio stations that maybe — maybe — serenaded young Vince as a wild city raged around him?

(In high school, again LOLS, the vast majority of us killed Ja-Rule for reaching into his chest like this.)

“I’m married to the gang, don’t be playing games / Only bringing flowers to the homie grave.”

THE BLUES

A single chord. A humble rap. This is perfect post-pandemic music, if we’ve all in some way used the past couple years to meditate on all the places and all the people we’ve been. It is confirmation that if we haven’t lost anyone we’ve definitely lost chunks of ourselves. 

This one’s got three hooks, which Vince of course chants like mantras.

“The Money makes me numb.” “Wait until the Lord allows it.” “Pray for me.”

And then the ocean washes away everything.