Vince Staples' "WHEN SPARKS FLY" off of his amazing 2022 project RAMONA PARK BROKE MY HEART is, like many great hip-hop songs, a story. The first verse centers around a man speaking to his gun, and the second flips that angle in reverse, all through the metaphor of a romantic partner. If this sounds familiar to you and you hadn't heard this track before, then you're probably a fan of Nas' 1996 classic "I Gave You Power," in which he raps from the perspective of a gun. After hearing fans compare the two for so long, the Long Beach wordsmith finally figured out what people drew attention to.
"Finna listen to this Nas ‘I Gave You Power,’" Vince Staples tweeted on Thursday (January 4). "Since y’all keep talking about it in regards to the power ballad that is ‘When Sparks Fly’. Stay tuned." Ten minutes later, "The Caliphate" MC came back to the social media platform with his verdict– plus a hypothetical. "So we back and this was a good tune. He shoulda put Ghostface on here." We can't say we disagree with him; after all, having Toney Starks on a record is always a blessing.
But Vince Staples doesn't just look back to his predecessors for inspiration or guidance. In fact, he's more prone to champion the contemporary, like his good friend, the late and great Mac Miller. "He changed my life, like my perspective, and made me a better person," the 30-year-old stated during a recent interview. "I used to be confused, like, 'Why is this white boy with all this money f***ing n***as and not [just] anybody with some substantial talent?' Like, he would sit there and teach me how to make sure I'm on beat, and like, rap with certain energy. It took a long time… I was other everyday with nothing else to do for, like, months. He was teaching me how to rap on beat, how to project. I didn't know how to ad-lib, I didn't know what ad-libs was! I didn't know what a metronome was.
"[He was] introducing me to people I had no business meeting, because I wasn't at the skill level yet," he went on. "I was talking to his mom today. Earl [Sweatshirt] had just came back from where he was at [back in the day], and I introduced myself to him at the house and he was like, 'Yeah I know who you are.'" For more news and the latest updates on Vince Staples, stick around on HNHH.
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