Vince Staples Talks New Music, Community Leadership & More With GQ

While he has been relatively quiet on the music front (there’s a reason for that, he revealed), Vince Staples has kept busy with a string of collaborations as well as his role on the [adult swim] series Lazor Wulf. Sitting down with GQ for their May 2021 issue, however, he’s given fans a bit of information on his next moves.

In an interview with Desus Nice of Desus & Mero, Vince spoke on becoming the person he’s supposed to be, what contributes to impactful leadership in black communities, and his approach to music leading up to the release of two(!) projects in 2021: a self-titled project in the Summer, and Ramona Park Broke My Heart in the Fall.

“When I was younger, I used to like that people didn’t like me,” Staples said. “That was the identity of my neighborhood. Maturity changes that. At first I thought I was just picking myself up along with where I come from. But you can do that without putting others down. That’s something I didn’t know when I was younger.

“In a perfect world, more than anything musically or more than anything creatively, my goal in life is to be able to live in Long Beach peacefully,” he continued. “And for everybody else to be able to live in Long Beach peacefully. That means a lot to me.”

The interview can be read here