Vince Staples has long pushed his art to the edge, and that’s certainly been true of the rollout behind Cry Baby. In “White Flag,” the album’s latest single, Staples addresses nonstop fighting in wars, police brutality, and pervasive forms of inequality for Black Americans. He takes things even further in its accompanying music video, co-directed by Staples and Bradley J. Calder, by calmly painting a giant American flag white, hanging it between two pillars, and shooting it dozens of times with an assault rifle. You can watch it below.
Presented as the start of a more independent era, Cry Baby is out June 5 on Loma Vista, marking Staples’ debut on the label. “White Flag” is the second single from the album, as well as the second track to get a gun-related visual; “Blackberry Marmalade” has a first-person shooter-style video that was also co-directed by Staples and Calder. When it dropped, Staples wrote, “YouTube has age-restricted the Blackberry Marmalade video, so if you are over the age of 18, make sure to share it with the youth around you. Our children deserve the truth.”
Cry Baby is largely organized around live instrumentation, lending Staples’ latest songs the feeling of rock and jazz arrangements. His last album, Dark Times, came out in 2024 on Def Jam and Blacksmith. The following year, Season 2 of The Vince Staples Show aired on Netflix, although the streamer opted to cancel it this past January.
Revisit Alphonse Pierre’s column Vince Staples Turns Rap Stardom Anxieties Into Comedy on The Vince Staples Show.
