It’s Summertime In London With Vince Staples

Since the release of the new video for ‘Norf Norf’, Vince Staples has been making a lot of noise this side of the channel and Semtex caught up with one of the sickest MC’s out of the Westcoast at Wireless Festival in London.

Its good to see you over here

Last time I saw you was SXSW right.

Yeah, so how you finding it, is it your first trip out here?

I like it man its a very good experience, last time I was out here I was in the airport for 8 hours and I ate at all the food places, so I had a good experience of London based on all your airport food. I’m glad to get off the plane this time, play the show and be surrounded with all these people out here.

Now you’ve been putting out joints, been putting out mixtapes but now its album time so you’re not playing right now?

Yeah man, ‘Summertime 06’, just came out, its a good experience, its a good thing to have out but I’m always working so I’m just excited to see the response on it and what I need to do next and how I can affect everybody.

How did the Señorita joint come about?

Chris and Rich actually came to us with a production idea and it kinda already fit a idea I already had of how i wanted to use a song and utilise the visual with it – it was right time, right place type thing.

You know I love the joint ‘Get Paid’

Yeah man its funny Chuck Inglish from The Cool Kids called me like 5 o clock in the morning like 6 times to talk about that song. I was kinda mad but then I wasn’t yeah cos thats the homie, but yeah man a lot of people like that song.

So what was he saying when he called you up?

He was like ‘Ay Man who made that beat?’, I was like ‘huh’ he was like ‘look we don’t even really need to talk about it, I just need to know who made that beat’ and I was like No I.D and he got real quiet and is like ‘alright, ok’.

I understand that though that beat is like insane!

He was like man ‘I been trying to make that beat my whole life’ and I was like ‘thats crazy’, he said ‘Just tell him I said thank you’, yeah Chuck is crazy man, very influential person, very influential person.

So you think you’re gonna put other MC’s on that, a little remix or something?

I dunno man, they talking about remixes I gotta figure out which one they wanna use, but we got songs so we can figure anything out, we can do anything.

You checked any of the MC’s out here in the U.K?

Only one I know is Skepta and my DJ knows everybody so he be playing shit and I dunno who it is but I know the songs, don’t know their names, don’t even know what they look like but my DJ’s family from out here so he’s playing all the shit.

So whats next you got the album, you’re touring?

Yeah we got a couple shows out here and in Europe, I go Netherlands tomorrow, we go Germany, and just going back home do a couple shows and then going back to recording, I’ll be back out here later this year though definitely later this year.

There’s a lot of crazy stuff going on in America right now, people getting killed, how does it feel as an MC from your perspective can you do anything?

I mean its not new it happens all the time, its time for the media to shed light on this, but its not new at all, thats why its happening, nobody’s going to jail and its just not like its new, its just new to get coverage, but as far as we’re just looking at the wrong things, everybody’s making excuses based on the wrong thing. So until that changes its not gonna change. It is definitely unfortunate but that just shows you where we are in this world and where we came as people.

What you listening to right now?

Fetty Wap, what else am I listening to? Thats really it, we listen to like 3 songs every 2 months.

What are those 3 songs right now?

‘Beautiful’ by Fetty Wap, we on ‘Again’ by Fetty Wap and sometimes we might get some ‘My Way’ but we really just recycling the 2 and then My Way is the one we hear. Shout out Fetty Wap.