Vince Staples: "Limos" [ft. Teyana Taylor]

Vince Staples is the real deal—just ask him. But intentional or not, distinguishing himself as an antagonist towards the gangsta fairytales and shiny happy hip-hop supposedly dominating the radio is just good marketing. He’s not exactly anti-commercial; remember, he’s on Def Jam, not Def Jux. Though no more accessible than the rest of his excellent Hell Can Wait EP, “Limos” would fit most comfortably between, say, Drake and Kendrick Lamar, two rappers who developed the sounds and flows herein—witness the pitter-pat drums, echoing production recalling “No Makeup (Her Vice)”, a cooed hook Teyana Taylor borrows from Mary J. Blige’s “I Can Love You”.

The irony of how this club-friendly track plays against the subject matter cannot be lost on Vince Staples, though “irony” implies a humor that’s nowhere to be found on “Limos”; it’s the most despairing track on an EP devoid of anything resembling conventional hope. Staples plays on the numerous meanings of “unprotected sex”, grimly retelling a communication-free he-said/she-said with, “he don’t love her at all, but he fuckin’ her raw.” Equally sad is how the woman in “Limos” believes she’s getting over “18 years with a check coming every month.”

And yet, some kind of physical pleasure is about as good as it gets in Staples’ world. So this kind of thing will continue unabated, most likely by the “bastard child often lost in the story”—a line appropriately rapped almost as an aside. “Limos” does tell a story that goes back further than the police brutality and gang violence Staples seems to acknowledge as eternal constants (“tales of Adam and Eve birthin’ a bitch and a dog”). But like the rest of Hell Can Wait, there’s no moralizing, or even any moral, on “Limos”—from Original Sin onward, no one is innocent, and the corruption from the club to the halls of justice is total.

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