Ranking All of Vince Staples’ Projects

These days, Vince Staples is known for his precision, but Winter in Prague, his collaborative tape with producer Michael Uzowuru, is decidedly awkward. While he can be as quippy and incisive as ever, his cadences are invariably sluggish, the hooks are often clumsy (“Twitch,” “Waterpark”) and the monochromatic beats sound like they were made for a the most boring Sega Genesis game you ever played. The lack of dynamism could be forgiven, but his vocal performance is too one-note, and it all just seeps into a bland haze of monotony you won’t find on any of his other releases. It’s a notable step down from his debut, Shyne Coldchain Vol. 1—proof that progress is, in fact, not always linear.

Vince might have been a rap prodigy, but even he didn’t begin his career as a finished product. Peep the evidence on Shyne Coldchain Vol. 1, a promising debut mixtape that feels woefully colorless compared to most of his successive projects. A collision of nimble rhyme schemes, wry humor, and lucid autobiography, the raps here can be as dexterous as they are piercing—as grim as they are hilarious. From the jump, Vince proves he’s fluent in bleak comedy and flagrant irreverence. “Abraham Lincoln never kept none of my niggas safe/Only gave them prison dates and Church's Chicken dinner plates,” he raps on “Trigga Witta Heart.” While he’s cutting, his deadpan can feel like a ripoff of his early collaborator, Earl Sweatshirt, and the one-note tonal inflections can grow as stale as the beats he chose to rap on, rendering the tape a tantalizing, yet incomplete sketch of the artist he’d become.

For Prima Donna, Vince traded density for dance, two-stepping through dystopian tracks that blend reflection with increased sonic experimentation. He’s insightful and dexterous, but it’s his twisty vocal performance that stands out the most; his voice bounces off jittery basslines like a drum kick. Before Big Fish Theory, this EP had an argument for the most dynamic musicality of his career, even if it’s a comparatively low-stakes affair with few songs you could place among his very best.

Vince was just trying to have a good time when he made FM! On its face, the album is Vince’s breeziest affair, even when he layers it with traces of danger. “We gon' party 'til the sun or the guns come out,” he raps on “Feels Like Summer,” a Ty Dolla Sign-assisted bop that captures all the stylish buoyancy of a June Los Angeles evening. If he wasn’t bumping his own shit, Ice Cube would’ve put this on when he was having a good day. It’s a good time. It’s also fairly meticulous; the title is a nod to a L.A. radio station, and there are fake promos nodding to new music from fellow California stalwarts like Earl Sweatshirt and Tyga. E-40 even pops out to lay into some Bay Area bounce. There’s nothing wrong with FM, but Vince is at his absolute best when he’s analytical, and while fun, the hooks here fall just short of anthemic, and the project itself, short of essential. Still slaps, though.

Vince’s eponymous album is rich, layered and endlessly thoughtful. It’s also an exercise in subtlety. Whereas his earlier projects were often accentuated by climactic one-line observations, this one camouflages poignance in easygoing matter-of-factness, with his gentle delivery shortening the distance between everyday mundanity and life-or-death conflict. Normal kids don’t want to be a shooter when they grow up, but Vince’s muted tone makes it feel as conventional as a hoop dream (“Are You With That”). On “Take Me Home,” he reflects on one-sided conversations with dead homies, the fragility of peace and the lethal means he’ll use to preserve his own. He swirls these complicated truths with tight rhyme schemes, murmured melodies and conversational agility, creating a self-portrait that’s as nuanced as it is engrossing. 

A fog of narcotic production and troubled remembrances, Stolen Youth is exactly what it sounds like. Produced by Mac Miller (as Larry Fisherman), the project sees Vince use adroit songwriting to sort through morality catch-22s and memories of a fractured childhood. Unlike his earlier projects, this one’s got a distinctive sonic aura that enhances the lyricism; its haziness creates a mesmerizing push-pull when paired with Vince’s stark clarity. Less abstractly speaking, there’s just some shit on here. The ScHoolboy Q-assisted “Back Sellin' Crack” is loaded with sneering gunplay, and the hook is raw and immediate. Laced with a wicked bagpipes sample, “Stuck In My Ways” injects a splash of eccentricity into the mix as Vince lays out all his moral qualms and why he’s got to say “Fuck it” anyway. Meanwhile, “Guns & Roses” is a series of tragic vignettes that are as economically written as they are poignant—an elevator pitch for one of the most respected songwriters in hip-hop.

The final release before his Def Jam debut album, Hell Can Wait crystallized most of Vince’s storytelling and all-around songwriting gifts. The bars had been harsh, but, now more than ever, his vocal performance was in lock step to match them, with his intonations mirroring the rising and falling action of his story. “Hands Up” is a striking anti-police theme song, and “Blue Suede” is among the most infectious tracks of his earlier career. Nothing here approaches the transcendence of “Nate” or “Senorita,” but it’s yet another proof of concept for a star learning to wield their talent to potent effect. 

On his new song “Etouffée,” Vince briefly laments fans wanting “2015 Vince.” But the thing is, 2024 Vince is pretty damn good, too. He proves it with his latest album, Dark Times. Taking the softer sonic tonal approaches on his eponymous LP, Vince gets more human than ever as he reflects on Earthly things like romance (“Shame on the Devil”), block ties that bind (“Government Cheese”) a little bit of everything in between. This one leans more toward his 2021 effort than Ramona Park Broke My Heart, but his emotionality and cadences feel similar, even if he’s more sincere now than ever.  It’s a contemplative record, but tracks like the subtly electric “Little Homies” suffuse the album with buoyant fun, even if it’s technically a little dark to play outside. 

Released in 2014, Shyne Coldchain 2 was Vince’s proverbial breakthrough. Emerging from clouds of cumbersome hooks, stilted deliveries and groggy beats, he serves up raps that manage to be searing, playful and heartfelt in equal measure, with No ID’s soulful soundscapes giving Vince an appropriate frame for his dense rhymes. Tracks like “45” are as vulnerable as he’s ever been: “I ain't never had no money, nigga/Young and bummy, so I had to be the funny nigga.” His rhymes here are fluid, and his stories more colorful, with “Nate”—the story of a young boy’s damaged family life—being perhaps the most powerful song he’s ever created. Count this as a sequel that easily surpasses its predecessor.

Powered by refined songwriting and an increased mastery of his own vocals, Ramona Park Broke My Heart is Vince at peak efficiency. As per usual, he flaunts a gift for sandwiching harsh truths in quotable bars that could one day become aphorisms, and he manages the task while blending seemingly conflicting attitudes. For “The Beach,” he flips from imagining a friend’s candlelight vigil to being the reason an enemy meets the pearly gates; his gentle delivery and knack for brevity make it so he never breaks stride. Meanwhile,  “When Sparks Fly” is an “I Gave You Power”-esque tale of a shooter’s relationship with their hammer. Vince says he’d never heard Nas’ offering before he made the track, but the effect is much the same—except less heavy handed. Imbued with an easygoing melody, “Lemonade” is a bop designed for summer. Like the best Vince songs, it skillfully hides ghetto fatalism in plain sight.

For all its unanimous critical acclaim, Big Fish Theory was actually a cash-grab camouflaged in high-art. Speaking with Drink Champs in 2021, Vince revealed that he’d made the album for the purpose of getting syncs. That might have been his aim, but it resulted in one of the very best albums of his career. Coated in varied electronic soundscapes and all Vince’s typically bleakly comical bursts of external and internal analysis, Big Fish Theory is an album that sees the then 23-year-old in command of all his songwriting and performance powers. His flows are varied and meticulous, stitched into the percussion to match the kineticism step-for-step. With sharp writing, he oscillates between metaphysical, motivational and smart-assy with seamless ease. He’s got some memorable hooks, too. “BagBak” is a futuristic Black power anthem fit for Wakanda, while the Ty Dolla $ign-featured “Rain Come Down” is a serene escape from the dystopian soundbeds. Oh, and as for his original goal—he got “BagBak” synced with the trailer for Black Panther. In a race to secure the bag, Vince also made a classic album. We should be thankful he was so shameless. 

It feels cliché to call any rapper’s major label debut album their best work, but sometimes, well … sometimes that album is Summertime '06. Released after five projects, the LP sees the deficiencies of Vince’s first three or so projects turned into strengths. As a performer, he forged a truly symbiotic connection between his vocals and his lyrics, swinging between inflections with all the spontaneity of an improvisational jazzman; he can communicate sneering menace (“Norf Norf”) or debilitating exasperation (“Lift Me Up”) by shifting tones ever so slightly. That symbiosis only enhances sharper songwriting that’s as precise as it is agile. Aside from being one of his most indelible singles, “Señorita” is a breathless exercise in concision, rhyme economy, and urban anthropology.  Whereas his earliest hooks could stretch on too long to be memorable, the chorus for “Norf Norf” is too symbolic to be forgotten. The slaps abound on Summertime '06, but the prized jewel is “Lift Me Up,” a towering theme song for the disaffected. Traversing an apocalyptic electric guitar line, he lays bare the existential struggle at the core of his music: “Fight between my conscience and the skin that's on my body/Man, I need to fight the power, but I need that new Ferrari.” Visceral, yet refined, cathartic, but resigned, it’s an expert tightrope act for an artist who finds treasure in damaged resolve.