Levitate With Vince Staples

Vince Staples has really raised the game and while constantly touring back and forth in the U.K, he’s been determined to keep himself front and centre. I caught up with him backstage at Reading Festival to catch up and see what was new since our last meet up at Wireless earlier in the summer.

I’m trying to turn up like you, you had the crowd going crazy out there..

Man it was cool, I almost fell a couple times, we overcame so its cool man, good to have a fun time out there.

..levitating at one point?

Yeah man, I see your Tweet too, I wish I’d have saw that I didn’t even pay attention you know you get lost.

You know you’re in Reading, crowds are getting bigger from the last time you was in the U.K, ‘Summertime ’06’ is out, how is it all feeling right now.

Its good, hard work pays off you just gotta try your hardest, keep the course, just keep the path, don’t get lost in whatever’s happening so its good man, we’ve been trying to focus and pay attention to what we need to do and whats wanted from us and trying to execute it.

‘Norf, Norf’s the joint..

Yeah man, that’s the one everybody loves.

‘Get Paid’..

Yeah I like that song too, we got a lot of songs, we got 20 of em, so its crazy.

But its crazy to see your U.K fanbase develop.  I’m seeing certain kids that are hollering your name, I’m seeing certain kids that are galvanising towards your sound. It kinda feels like everyones waking up this year.

Yeah but its crazy as you say, cos the U.K is one of our strongest as far as just people knowing who we are, being aware of the music and us, and things like that. I get stopped more on the streets in London, I never got stopped anywhere except home.

Wow thats crazy..

Out here I’m very appreciative of it being so far for people to love us so much, I’m very appreciative.

You’ve done a double album, it’s a lot of music, a lot of tracks, what made you wanna put that much out on a body of work?

I mean we had the songs you know, you never know what songs going to connect with any person, you never know what songs gonna touch somebody, so it doesn’t belong to us once we make it so why not put it out there in the world. But you can cut a song and it potentially might help someone or might be someones favourite so I just don’t wanna limit my ability to do that. It’s all music at the end of the day, all those bands with 15 albums that we love so much that are never gonna go away they weren’t really worried about too much quality control they did what they felt and they did what was right and they did what was the right emotion for them. So thats what we did.

You put out a double album, you’re touring the world, you got a different focus from what you had a year ago, 2 years ago, 3 years ago. What is it specifically that you’re like ‘alright I see this now, this is what I wanna do next’?

I don’t know… When I know I promise you you’ll be the first person I tell, but right now we’re just dashing it all in just trying to figure out what to do next. Still trying to push this over, a lot of those big misconceptions in Hip-Hop that the album is done after the first week, so we don’t believe in that, we wanna keep it going, there’s millions of people that haven’t heard it so just trying to get that to them right now.

Are there any artists that you’ve seen while you’ve been out here back and forth that you’re like thinking ‘he’s tight’.

Little Simz. I haven’t seen Skepta perform yet but I’m a fan of that, but Tempa T was good, very good. My DJ’s families from out here, so he pushes me into a lot of the different things so I know a little bit.

Whats next for Vince Staples?

More shows, more music you know we keep it regular, we don’t do too much, more music, more shows, more videos – just trying to keep it going.