Vince Staples Says Critics Who Call New Sounds 'Abandoning Hip-Hop' Don't Know Enough About Hip-Hop

Vince Staples is not entertaining the purists. In a new Rolling Stone interview taped live at New York's Cherry Lane Theatre, the Long Beach rapper pushed back on the idea that rappers who experiment are walking away from the culture.

"If you say that utilizing certain sounds is abandoning hip-hop, then you don't know enough about hip-hop to have a conversation about it," he told writer Jeff Ihaza. He said genre is really for listeners, not artists, comparing it to "a section in the grocery store," and argued hip-hop "doesn't really have any rules."

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Asked why his new album "Crybaby" leans into punk and rock, Vince kept it simple: these were just the songs he had. He also flipped the rock conversation on its head, pointing out that if the Isley Brothers and James Brown don't count as rock, then neither do the Who or the Stooges.

Elsewhere, he got candid about the business, explaining that touring artists front the money for buses, bands and insurance before selling a single ticket, and joked that he has "less money than the anesthesiologist."

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Sources: Rolling Stone, VICE

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