A SCENE IN RETROSPECT: Vince Staples – “Summertime ’06”

While I’m no longer a fan of the notion that struggle and strife build character, it’s pretty clear that his personal tribulations either enabled him to become the endlessly charming and funny dude he is now, or perhaps it was because of those innate abilities that he was able to come out on the other side with his soul intact.

-David Rodriguez

Release date: June 30, 2015 | ARTium/Blacksmith/Def Jam | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Website

After a string of collaboration with future movers and shakers including Mac Miller and Earl Sweatshirt as well as a series of well-received EPs and mixtapes, 2015’s Summertime ’06 was the first full-length record by Compton-born, Long Beach-raised rapper Vince Staples. The impact it had on some of our writers and the scene at large can’t be denied; hell, the man has made quite a name for himself even beyond the hip hop sphere of influence at this point.

I first heard about Vince Staples the same way I did a lot of rappers in the 2013-14 range – because of Mac Miller. I was still pretty young and only just starting to expand my taste, and my first ventures out of the pit of edgy shit I had gotten tired of was checking out the people that worked with the artists that fit (at that point mainly Mac, all of TDE but mostly Q, Rocky, and some Odd Future) my changing taste. Vince had featured on Mac’s Faces mixtape, one of my favorite projects ever, and obviously had one of the best features ever on Earl Sweatshirt’s “Hive”, so he was a natural next step.

Stolen Youth, Vince’s first successful mixtape, was the first Vince project I listened to, and I immediately loved it. Mac’s production over the entire tape is some of his best production work that he didn’t use for his own projects, and he manages to complement Vince incredibly well. He was still young and very raw, but you can hear the talent on tracks like “Heaven” and “Thought About You” that made Mac want to help Vince get his foot in the door after he’d had issues with getting his career off the ground – so much so that he basically did it for free. Add in the Hell Can Wait EP that came out in 2014, and I was really excited for Vince’s debut. It blew away any expectations I could have had.

Summertime ‘06 is split into two discs, a bold move for your first album, and everything about how the album is composed, presented, and ordered is set up perfectly. Disc one could not have come out stronger with “Lift Me Up” and “Norf Norf”. ‘I just want to live it up, can a motherfucker breathe?/ Life ain’t always what it seems, so please just lift me up’. “Lift Me Up” essentially serves as a mission statement for the album, and to start your debut album off with one as good as this is rare. Everything fans would come to love about Vince is here: the biting humor, the real pain, and frustration in the social commentary, it’s all here and perfectly well done. Once the comical product placement for Sprite (™) is done, “Norf Norf” is one of the most hellish yet enthralling tracks made since “N.Y. State of Mind”. Clams Casino does such a phenomenal job with this beat. I miss him.

It’s packed full of some real heat too. “Señorita” is incredible. Just a perfect mix of Vince’s style with a bit of Atlanta flair worked into the track with the injection of the Future sample. “Birds & Bees” and “Dopeman” are two other real high points, just such energetic tracks with a ton of life to them and some great features.

The moments where Vince opens up and lets the facade go are maybe the tracks that have aged the best off Summertime ‘06. “Jump Off the Roof” is the first moment on the album, and for many it may have been their first time period, that Vince had started to open up, which makes it all that much better. It’s a wonderful track for Vince to detail the addictions facing him during this time and the suicidal nature of addiction in the first place. The lonely and desperate “Summertime” may be even better. Clams Casino killed it again, and it enhances how vulnerable Vince gets as he opens up about everything regarding this relationship, confusion about the way race is taught, and more violence.

Disc two takes a bit more time to fully appreciate. Its strength and excellence are in the replayability of each track and not necessarily in the immediate hook. Part of it is because it does take a minute to fully appreciate a track like “Might Be Wrong”. Vince clears out here, and James Fauntleroy and Haneef Talib take over to really hammer home the album’s themes of how violence, especially by the police, has eroded their community. I’ve warmed up to the track a lot over the years, but it did take me out of the album a bit initially, as you’re just so enthralled by the star-making performance from Vince at that point. It’s why it’s such a smart creative move. Having it follow “3230” and “Surf” only helps it be even more potent on a relisten.

It’s still got hits though, I think the best and most infectious hook on the whole album would have to go to “Street Punks”. It pulls you in instantly and enthralls you with a killer No I.D. beat and Vince’s energy is really infectious. Despite how intentionally off-kilter and strange almost everything about “C.N.B.” is, the end result is another highlight. It’s designed so well, mixing in somewhat lazy sounding bragging with social commentary of what’s expected of rappers and black men in general. Summertime ‘06 also closes on a bit of a tease. “‘06” sounds fucking insane, almost like something Vince would eventually rap over on Big Fish Theory, but right as the track sounds like it’s about to really kick into gear, it cuts to static. Fortunately, you only have to be as teased as you feel like being – the full version came out years ago.

The guests on Summertime ‘06 really do a lot to help enhance the album. Most guests had been frequent collaborators of Vince’s by that point, and they’re excellent when used. A$ton Matthews on “Hang N’ Bang” is incredible, I love his delivery. Joey Fatts kills it on “Dopeman”. I think the way Earl is utilized in his brief appearance is perfect. No rapping, just some nice mumbly singing for a brief second before Vince comes in on “Ramona Park Legend Pt. 2”. Perfect.

Gotta take a minute to appreciate Kilo Kish too. She ‘only’ appears on three tracks (“Surf”, “Dopeman”, and “Loca”) but every single second you hear her is so impactful you swear that she’s on more. Her and Vince have always had excellent chemistry together on a track; she’s really able to match the chaotic energy some of his darker and heavier tracks have. This is consistent for every song they’ve made together they just don’t miss.

I think this is Vince’s best album and one of the best albums of the 2010s regardless of genre. If I’m honest, I’d say I prefer it to the album it’s most frequently compared to – Kendrick’s GKMC. With that said, saying an artist’s first album is their best album can be a bit of a backhanded compliment. There’s definitely some truth to that here. He sort of jokingly referenced that many believe his best work was his early stuff on his latest album, but I wouldn’t say it’s made me change my mind. I’m still of the opinion that this album, Big Fish Theory, and Prima Donna to a lesser extent showed that there was a level of creativity and skill that Vince was, and is, capable of that he simply just hasn’t tried to do again, and that’s part of why it’s frustrating.

It’s one thing for someone to lose their fastball and settle into their comfort zone, but since the fun and simple FM! In 2018, Vince has largely spent the last few albums staying with a sound he’s comfortable with and that he knows he can do and do well instead of making another bold move. I think 2024’s Dark Times is the best of his three latest albums, but it never wowed me as much as I know Vince can. Between his music and his newfound success as an actor, Vince has definitely found his comfort zone, but I wish he’d go back to stepping out of it musically again.

Looking back ten years ago makes me wish I would have paid more attention to the hip hop landscape at the time. I wasn’t totally ignorant of it, but there seemed to be so many good releases in and around 2015 that I only let a few hip hop albums stay in rotation. To Pimp A Butterfly, of course, B4.DA.$$, Pusha T’s album from that year while still bumping Run The Jewels, Schoolboy Q, and Vince Staples’ first album, Hell Can Wait. I hadn’t even caught up with Stolen Youth by the time Summertime ’06 came out.

With apologies to Stolen Youth, Summertime ’06 felt like the natural follow-up to Hell Can Wait. Like many, my introduction to Staples was through his incredible verse on Earl Sweatshirt’s song “Hive,” the last single before the full album Doris dropped. His calm, confident voice contrasting Earl’s dense delivery over minimalistic bass still feels hard as fuck. So, the more lush, airy samples Mac Miller’s Larry Fisherman persona produced for Stolen Youth didn’t hit the same contrasts for me. Still, I was excited to hear Summertime ’06.

The heavy bass of “Lift Me Up” was a wise choice by No I.D., harkening back to Hell Can Wait and letting Staples’s bars glide across the groove. This kind of grimy yet hooky feel made for trunk rattling depth of sound with smart street tales, setting it apart from more shiny summer jams like “I Don’t Fuck With You” by Big Sean or the still popular “Collard Greens” by Schoolboy Q.

Following track “Norf Norf” feels legendary at this point. It carries the off kilter and bass-heavy production, Vince’s opening line of, ‘Bitch you thirsty, please grab a Sprite,’ his hard hitting bars, and the slowed-down, hand clap chorus of, ‘I ain’t never ran from nothin’ but the police’ still demands my attention. It is perfection.

The bass-heavy production doesn’t really let up, just transforms into Timbaland and Neptunes-inspired beats like “Loca” or the tripped-out “Dopeman.” Vince remains sharp and clever, even when he’s flexing on “Senorita,” but then “Summertime” flips the mood with a slow, romantic, and introspective “Summertime,” which transitions into Volume 2 of this double album, continuing on “Ramona Park Legend Pt. 2.” These tracks show a more tender side of Staples that has come out more over the years.

The tempo of the album slowly increases over “3230” and “Surf” before “Might Be Wrong” predicts the dance- and house-focused album, Big Fish Theory. Volume 2 has a little more varied energy than the first half of the album, but tracks like “Get Paid” and “Hang & Bang” keep up West Coast energy. “C.N.B.” carries a Snoop/Dre vibe, but again with more introspection, along with a couple of lines on “Get Paid” paves the way for “Like It Is” laying all of Staples’s motives and outlook on survival, addressing systemic racism with frank acceptance and asking why does it matter at the end of the day when we are all just people trying to survive.

That is one of the things I love most about Vince Staples, he is about as real as rappers get, able to cut through the bullshit with razor sharp observations and a determination to thrive in spite of it all. Summertime ’06 was one of the most necessary albums of 2015, harder and somehow more humble than many other blockbuster hip hop albums that year and setting Staples as an artist I have followed ever since.

There’s not much I can add to the brilliance of what Vince does that hasn’t already been said, but having been the leading writer on the subject of Vince’s music here, I had to weigh in, if just a little (even if to simply separate from the diatribe that’s to come from these other EINerds). Throughout his career, Vince has weaved a lane that is beholden only to his artistry that inflicts justification of auteur qualities. Coupled along with a keen business sense, and an outspoken nature that speaks truth through the various realities mustered, Vince stands as an iconoclast amongst iconoclasts. Summertime ‘06 is a weighty release that leaves a legacy and a mark made in hip hop stone that will forever resonate with respective fans that realize the evolution he introduced through a unique and unheard perspective; the humanist, the gangster. Aside from the added cherry on top of the white woman meltdown followed by Vince’s amazing response with “Norf Norf”,  we get a fantastic Future feature with “Senorita”, a potent call for help & ray of hope with “Lift Me Up”, and a sobering introduction to a topic he explores the flipside of in a much sunnier release with “Summertime”. If you don’t listen to any of those tracks, at least listen to “Street Punks”, which has Vince at his arguably gnarliest. All of this is tucked away amongst a double album that has Vince firing on all cylinders everywhere all the time. Summertime ‘06 is an underrated gem.  Vince deserves his flowers, all of them.

Summertime ’06 is a liiiiiiiittle long.

There, that’s my only gun-to-head, knife-to-dick criticism of Vince Staples’ first studio album. Even then, it’s hard to think of where he could have trimmed any fat – it’s just under an hour long between 20 tracks which is kind of wild. When I’m looking to listen to some Vince though, I tend to look to other more digestible projects like FM!, Hell Can Wait, or his self-titled album. And yet, I still think Summertime ’06 might be his best work in some ways.

By virtue of being the longest LP Vince has, it benefitted by showing his range, and to do that so early on as well as he did is ridiculous. A lot of artists that wanna seem or come off as viable with various styles or moods usually end up stretching themselves too far and not mastering any of them. Well, Vince is built different. There is nearly a song for everyone and/or every mood on this motherfucker and it’s all good if not great.

Though commonly viewed as a double album, it’s actually just two separate albums bound together, so says Vince. One of the things that binds them together besides name and cover art is its themes. Love is the primary one – love for yourself, love for others, love of sex, love of drugs, love (or at least necessity) of survival, etc., and how they all can pull us down. If you will, the thesis could be ‘love will tear us apart’ which helps further explain the cover art and the Joy Division reference on it, this time looking more like the endless waves viewable from Long Beach’s shores.

From there, it’s really about enjoying the ride. “Norf Norf” is one of Vince’s best singles ever and immortalized plenty of lines in our generation’s minds (‘bitch, you thirsty, please grab a Sprite’, ‘I’m a gangsta Crip, fuck gangsta rap’, ‘I ain’t never ran from nothin’ but the police’) over wailing Clams Casino production. “Dopeman” is deep in vibes with lowerkey production from NO ID (who produced almost every track on Summertime ’06 himself because he’s a GOAT) with a very alluring and catchy hook from Kilo Kish. I’m sure you can guess what it’s about – it’s the best song named “Dopeman” since NWA laid one down in 1987. “Loca” has a Latin flair in more ways than one as Vince gets caught up in some tension with his Latina girlfriend who scolds him in Spanglish at the end along with his own insecurities and jealousy.

That’s just the first part too, my favorite. The second part is where the album slumps ever so slightly, but still has some bangers and a different feel than the first. “3230” is a more fast-paced track about Vince’s life growing up as a bad-ass kid in the streets (‘a soldier since the stroller, ask my mama if you doubt that/Homie, where your clout at? You ain’t never push nobody’s scalp back’). I love the washed out guitars on the beat, they make it feel unique in the track list. “Hang N’ Bang” challenges Vince’s audience to see if they can keep up with the gang life (we can’t) with A$ton Matthews repping Pirus/Bloods opposite Vince’s Crips (but you know, friendly like) with his own verse dripping in details from the MAC-11 with no safety to junkies meeting dealers on street corners.

One thing Vince has been very clear about in his life and with his music is not to glorify gang life, but rather detract from it. What was done in his younger years out of survival should not be seen as a blueprint, but rather a warning and condemnation of the circumstances that make it required, and he puts his money where his mouth is by contributing to youth programs and schools that teach kids skills and trades to make careers and livings out of when they grow up. It’s an older-school approach – a lot of rap, gangster rap or otherwise, was more about raw reality and impoverished despair spurred on by racism, disenfranchisement, butting heads with the prison industrial complex, and about a dozen other societal maladies I could bring up. Vince isn’t flashy with his money, he doesn’t stunt on us with cars or possessions regularly (to be clear, I like that shit too, but there is a clear delineation of style and intent that’s noteworthy and important here). His experience was and is his experience, and Summertime ’06 is no exception.

And while I’m no longer a fan of the notion that struggle and strife build character, it’s pretty clear that his personal tribulations either enabled him to become the endlessly charming and funny dude he is now, or perhaps it was because of those innate abilities that he was able to come out on the other side with his soul intact. Regardless, Summertime ’06 was the introduction for us as rap fans to Vince and opened the door to his hilarious, almost deadpan interviews that have happened since. Dude has a whole-ass underrated Netflix show as well, The Vince Staples Show, also loosely based on his own life in a surreal way similar to what Atlanta did years ago. I promise it’s worth a watch. Oh, and he’s a sworn enemy of R. Kelly, as we all should be.

I digress, but there’s a reason why I can’t help but go on tangents when it comes to Vince Staples and that’s because he’s bigger than his art. He’s given the West Coast a new identity with the more experimental approach he takes with his music. While there will always being people holding it down for the historical identity the West Coast has developed over decades like YG, LaRussell, G Perico, Kamaiyah, Ray Vaughn, and hell, even Kendrick Lamar especially since he dropped the LA love letter GNX, Vince is mostly in a lane of his own, working with producers like SOPHIE (RIP) who you would not see on any of those other rappers’ projects. This is not to say that Vince should be othered or elevated as higher art compared to his peers because that’s never been the goal and it’s clear from his lyrics and unpretentious approach, but for me, it’s hard not to see him and his work as different, similar to how Tyler, The Creator and Earl Sweatshirt move. Speaking of Earl, Vince has one of the best verses of all time on his song “Hive”, dropped two years before Summertime ’06 came out – he was nice way before this LP came out and he was only nineteen years old then.

And it all began with Summertime ’06, with all due respect to his Shyne Coldchain tapes and Hell Can Wait EP that came before. If you haven’t listened to Vince Staples at all, or came in later with his more recent projects, I promise it’s worth going through his entire catalog, most of which is available on streaming services. You literally can’t go wrong. Dude has never missed once and I don’t think he ever will at this rate. Above all though, and the reason why we’re here, massive respect to Summertime ’06 for being a truly glorious debut LP that I latched onto hard getting out of college and always followed him since. This man is built different.