The ever-distant, critically observant, painfully joke-prone, great cynic Vince Staples has – and this really is the case – made a rock album. At first, that jars. Not exactly sourly, but a defence mechanism does stir. After all, there really is nothing more naive than a rock album – and naivety does not seem to fit Vince Staples at all.
But nothing here is naive. The longer Cry Baby runs, the more its sound unfolds its effect as concept. It becomes uncomfortable in exactly the way it is meant to be uncomfortable. This cheerleader-frathouse-party rock is so white. One stands there, drink in hand, among the privileged, making harmless conversation; outside, someone jumps into the pool fully clothed, and one bobs a little to these catchy melodies.
»Empires built on bloodstained ground,« is how it begins. And that is only the backdrop against which still more sadness and brutality play out: from performative and ultimately hollow allyship to Black presidents bombing Black and brown people and still not becoming any whiter; from kids shot by cops to more racism, racism, racism, all the way to the protagonist’s resignation and depression.
That is why Cry Baby truly hurts in the end: because Staples is no longer making jokes here. This is not cynicism any more either. This is despair. And every line sets out the reasons for it. When Staples has already rapped 100 bars about lies, hypocrisy, exploitation, murder, the loss of friends and the loss of his own joy, it cuts so hard when, on »Only in America«, he says: »Hopefully I’m better by the summertime.« He will not be better by the summer. No one will be better by the summer. Not if they are poor or Black or otherwise different from the class whose party we are standing at..
