Def Jam Records

Hip-hop has not heard anything like Big Fish Theory, and thats exactly why hip-hop needed Vince Staples to make it. Big Fish is Vinces take on afro-futurism, all electronic blats and blips, with his signature ruminations about gang life, finally making money, and what it means to be Black in America rapped over the top.

Rap music itself is in a funny place right now; it wants to hold onto some semblance of the classics that have defined the genre in the 90s, while glossing over its missteps in the 00s, and still embracing future sounds. Heads have begun holding every rapper to some impossible standard of keeping it real, paying homage to the greats of the past, while still demanding freshness, originality, and creativity.

Vince Staples doesnt have any use for any of it. Hes not a hip-hop head by his own description. Instead, he is someone who views rap as an avenue to talk about the everyday aspects of his life, and get paid for doing so. To that end, Big Fish spends zero time contemplating the state of hip-hop or who the dopest rapper is.

What it does do, however, is bend and on occasion outright break the unstated rules of the genre, tossing out boom-bap and trap alike in favor of house-influenced beats that somehow still sound every bit as ominous and menacing as the pre-apocalypse production on Summertime 06. While that album made bombed-out percussion into the primary instrument, stripping away melody to create a soundscape as threatening and sinister as a late night walk through Ramona Park, and Prima Donna EP continued to create in that same lane, adding abrasive hard, rock guitars on the likes of Smile, Big Fish Theory doesnt do a sonic 180 so much as it takes a hard left from the expected evolution of that Summertime sound. Then, it kicks its engines to warp factor 9. Big Fish doesnt sound like what anyone would have thought the follow-up to Summertime or Prima Donna would sound like. If those previous efforts were hood horror movies, the new project is the gang-bang equivalent of Blade Runner or Akira.

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Vince Staples' 'Big Fish Theory' Deftly Combines Afro-Futurism And Gangsta Rap - UPROXX