Vince Staples has never been afraid to speak his mind, and even through his hilarious tweets that his fans enjoy, there’s always a hit of truth in them. An example of his honest thoughts came last summer when he said the music industry “monetizes people’s struggles” during a sit-down with The Independent. “We’ve seen people market and distribute death and destruction within our communities for decades; they do these things because it gets attention,” he said. Vince took a deeper dive into this topic during a recent interview with HOT 97’s Peter Rosenberg.
About an hour into the conversation, Vince slammed record labels for capitalizing on the deaths of rappers and finding “money in the violence” when that wasn’t always the case. “I feel like it was more protected,” he said while reflecting on hip-hop’s past. “When you hear N.O.R.E. and all those other people talk about the role that their A&R’s and executives had in their life, moving them out and doing certain things for them, like when Snoop talks about Master P moving him out to New Orleans. I don’t think anyone’s doing that anymore. I think they see the money in the violence. Back then, the violence ruined the money.”
He continued, “It’s money in it and they gonna keep selling it and we gonna keep perpetuating it and we gon’ be hurt when somebody die. I don’t necessarily know if they care. If they did, man the album ready in four weeks once you die. You get more press on the album after you die.” He concluded his message by directly addressing record labels.
“When it comes to these systems, they look at you like, ‘Oh, you’re dead, now we got something to move with,’” he said. “To the people that’s running music, just treat these people with humanity. You’re worth something before you die.”
You can view the full interview in the video above.