Vince Staples made his return to NPR’s Tiny Desk to run through songs from his new album, Cry Baby. Accompanied by his touring band (made up of energetic and young musicians Jennifer Haack, Mikaiah Lei, Chloe Haack, and Myles Martin), the Long Beach rapper delivered a passionate five-song set.
Staples kicked off the performance with three Cry Baby cuts — lead single “Blackberry Marmalade,” “Go! Go! Gorilla” (during which he named deceased Black Panther members Bobby Hutton, George Jackson, and Larry Kimmons), and “White Flag.”
“One of my homies…was nervous about putting out that video,” Staples shared of the graphic music video for “Blackberry Marmalade,” which was filmed from the perspective of a first-person shooter. “He was like, ‘Hey man, we can’t shoot a bunch of Black people in a restaurant and sh-t, that’s going to go over poorly.’ I was like, ‘I guarantee you when we put out the second video where we painted the flag a little bit, they are going to be way more upset about that.”
The video was age-restricted on YouTube, leading Staples to write on X, “If you are over the age of 18, make sure to share it with the youth around you. Our children deserve the truth.”
Staples then performed “Shame on the Devil,” a standout from 2024’s Dark Times album, before wrapping up with Cry Baby’s “Only in America.” The set marked Staples’ second time on Tiny Desk, first making his debut in 2021.
The rapper’s seventh album Cry Baby, released on June 5, is a politically charged record that fuses hip-hop with punk rock. “That’s the socio-political systems in which we adopt and complain about at the same time,” Staples said of the album’s messaging. “And as we complain and as we operate within these things without wanting to break apart from them, you are feeding the baby, the beast, so to say. And this album is about the different ways in which you can do that.”
He’ll soon embark on a North American tour this fall, which begins October 19 in Atlanta. The trek will stop in cities like Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Toronto and Boston before wrapping on November 15 in San Francisco.
Watch Vince Staples’ NPR Tiny Desk performance here.
