Hi everyone, Bigthony Teartano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new Vince Staples album, Cry Baby.

Here we have a brand new record from Long Beach rapper, singer, songwriter Mr. Vince Staples. It is his seventh studio album, and the follow-up to what I thought has been his best album so far, Dark Times, in 2024. And even though it's just been a few years since the release of that record, this new album here sees Vince at a really interesting time creatively.

For one, we had the inception, but also quick cancellation, of his own Netflix series. And with this new record here, he has moved on from a label deal with UMG to one with Loma Vista, a much more independent outlet. And of course, a big part of this album cycle seems to be celebrating the creative freedom that has come with this move, while also addressing what musical lanes he was kind of penned into during the earlier stages of his career being a rapper, being a Black artist.

In fact, during a recent live performance and livestream of this record with a full band, Vince attested to his label telling him that he's got to do straight hip-hop because his audience essentially wouldn't know what else to do with him doing any other genre. And of course, it is sad and unfortunate to hear that Vince has felt held back creatively like this for so long.

But if you've actually been following this man's career, his kind of alternative and left-field leanings have been coming out in his work to some degree pretty much the whole time, whether you're talking about all of the more experimental and electronic production choices that he made on the fan favorite Big Fish Theory, or even his last record Dark Times that I just mentioned. Numerous tracks on that record featured a lot more guitar passages and drums with more of a live feel, be it either "Black&Blue," "Shame on the Devil," or "Children's Song." So in a way, it feels like Vince has been subtly inching toward this direction here for a minute, but I guess without being able to fully embrace it or label it and present it in the way that he wishes to label it and present it.

I mean, during this same live performance that I mentioned a little bit ago, there's even a bit where he talks about wanting to, upon release, label Big Fish Theory as an electronic release or a dance release, but not being allowed to by his label 'cause the DSPs wouldn't like it.

So, again, clearly Vince has been wanting to branch out more creatively for a while, but hasn't felt allowed to do so. And I like how open he's been about these feelings, because it's really created a dialog about what genre is, and the racial divides that we often see employed in music marketing, and why a black artist making rock music— a genre with black roots— is such a polarizing thing. Which is a weird presumption that is not just enforced by the music industry itself, but oftentimes fans, black and white alike.

So, in my opinion, it's really brave of Vince to challenge these presumptions and notions, given the level of visibility and exposure he's at in his career. And even though right now I think we are at a time culturally where most music fans would rather listen to something that is algorithmically familiar to them than, you know, go on a wild musical adventure, I've actually been seeing a very widely positive reception for this record, very clearly from a lot of Vince and rap fans who maybe don't listen to that many rock records week to week.

And hopefully it opens listeners up to listening to more rock artists, specifically Black rock artists, who have been making waves in the underground and beyond, even recently, like the newest albums from Genesis Owusu; Horror; Sumac and Moor Mother; Spellling's recent LP; Paris, Texas has a couple of very good EPs, and I know Vince is a fan of them. And yeah, all these projects are very much worth your time.

When it comes to Cry Baby itself, though, in my opinion it is an admirable effort, but a slightly underwhelming experience for me. And it's not so much about the rock direction overall as much as it's about the difficulty of making the magic of that translate in the studio here. Like, to go back to that livestreamed album performance that Vince did with a full band, the whole show there during that stream had a very live, loud, punchy sound.

And even Vince vocally, for a guy who rap-wise is usually pretty heady and subdued, he had some really over-the-top moments too, which really made a lot of the songs sound very dynamic. And come to life. And I think a lot of those gnarly bits kind of get smoothed out in the studio setting with these tracks, really whittling them down to these tame, bland, predictable drum loops and root note guitar licks. In a way, it feels like a misalignment of tone, because when it comes to the lyrical content on this record, Vince is very, very in-your-face, very upfront, pretty real and uncompromising with what he has to say and problems he wants to address.

But then the music backing all of these messages feels like a focus-grouped hodgepodge of summer rock playlist vibes. Think, like, early-era Tame Impala, or Brothers-era Black Keys, maybe some Foster the People, too. Whether you're talking about "Go! Go! Gorilla" or "White Flag" or even the closing track, pretty consistently across this album we are getting Urban Outfitters vinyl rack vibes. Because, again, the edge that is definitely there, most definitely there, in the live performances of these tracks with the band just doesn't carry over onto the record, which I do think would be fine if we were getting an exchange of maybe like more details on these songs coming through in the studio. But in the case of tracks like "Only in America," for example, the bass and guitar work is so consistently boring, plain, and flatly performed. It really just comes across like a bunch of random throwaway guitar stems.

Now, I will give it to Vince and his collaborators – there are some moments musically where they do pop off. For example, I really do like the lead single and opener to this record, "Blackberry Marmalade," a track that features maybe the punkiest energy on the entire record, and a song that again I think addresses a lot of these categorization issues and stereotypes that Vince is kind of trying to take head-on with this album cycle, as on the back end of the track you have all of these different societal pigeonholes that people of color are often pushed into. There's also "The Big Bad Wolf," which lo and behold has an actually memorable guitar lick on it, plus some really cool Slick Rick samples. It's some badass rap-rock fusion. And in a lot of ways lyrically goes to show just how little progress has been made societally since the days of Slick Rick, pretty much rapping about the same shit Vince Staples is rapping about now.

And frustration over that lack of progress is pretty pivotal to a lot of key tracks on this record and their lyrics. The song "Cotton" also has a very expressive and dramatic set of chords on it that I like a lot. There's a grim urgency to them, and I'm really loving the grooves on this cut as well, the sort of hypnotic qualities to the music, the ability to get lost in the music Vince is alluding to in lyrics. It very much lives up to that. But outside of that, instrumentally, there weren't too many other major highlights to my ears, merely passable or tolerable moments.

Now again, when it comes to the lyrics and the content of these songs themselves, it's really the best quality of the record overall. And look, for years Vince has been very upfront about putting his perspective on the world in whatever it is he's creating. And even though at times I think people do play up the radical aspects of Vince's views and his music — when he's really just a dude who can plainly see the world is burning and is not afraid to say that — historically, though, he does a great job of highlighting these problems and gaps and inequities when he works through them via personal experiences, trying to shift instead on this album into something that comes across a bit broader, like as Vince tries to take on these themes of propaganda and mind control on "TV Guide," the framing of which does feel a little dated, though I will give this track points for Vince taking shots at crypto. As of right now, he's one of the few rap artists, or artists with a history in hip-hop, who's willing to mention crypto in a negative light, not like it's a cool, interesting thing for people to be into for a rich flex. But once again, there goes Vince just talking about things plainly as he sees them, which is a good thing.

Look, to put it plainly, I admire Vince trying to go in this direction. I like a lot of the messaging and what he's trying to get at and talk about and address with this record on the lyrical side. And while I can tell he clearly has an appreciation for modern rock music on some level, the production and performances just really could have used a bit more energy and bite.

And I'm not even trying to, like, call you to envision that in an abstract or anything like that. You can literally look to the live stream performance with the full band of these songs, and every single track has just so much more of an exciting feel to it that, again, is just not present on this record, and it just could have used it desperately.

Which is why I'm feeling about a light 6 on this album.

Anthony Fantano. Vince Staples. Forever.