Vince Staples has never been one to mince his words about… anything. It was just last month that Vince criticized record labels for seeking “money in the violence” against rappers. “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,” he said during the interview on Hot 97. “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.” Fresh off the release of his fifth album Ramona Park Broke My Heart, Vince took a moment to give his thoughts on the way hip-hop is presented.
Rap is often referred to as a “game,” and during a recent interview with Complex’s Speedy Mormon, Vince explained why hip-hop isn’t a game in his eyes. “What’s the game? In basketball, you dribble, you shoot, you score, you win,” he said. Vince added, “The reason it’s an expression is because somebody has to lose. So that way, when it ends up and you do it and it takes everything from you, then you just lost the game. But that’s not what it’s supposed to be. This is a business, you’re supposed to have good business [and] good morals. [Instead], they pay you, and you know [they say], ‘Oh, this is an opportunity so you don’t deserve ownership of your project,’ ‘This is an opportunity, you don’t deserve this, you don’t deserve that.’”
Vince continued, “They don’t call any other genre ‘the game.’ They call the rap game the ‘rap game’ because there’s a bunch of n****s running around and they don’t want to give Black people sh*t.’”
You can watch the full interview in the video above.
Ramona Park Broke My Heart is out now via Motown Records. You can stream it here.
Ty Dolla Sign is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.