Vince Staples is known to be real and not shy away when it comes to his music.
In a recent interview with GQ and Desus Nice, the Long Beach rapper spoke about several topics. One of them being, the late-great Nipsey Hussle.
“With Nipsey’s passing, that was huge—major—across the whole world. And you’re someone who comes from a similar background. You’re not Nipsey, but you’re a successful rapper. You still be out there. How does all of that make you feel?” Staples said.
“If you look historically at people in leadership roles—especially leadership roles in Black communities, especially in urban communities—there’s no connection if you’re not physically there,” Staples added. “From John Huggins and Bunchy Carter in Los Angeles to when you think about what Ralph Abernathy and Fred Hampton and all these people did from all the different places. Huey Newton, Angela Davis. People that have touched people. They had to touch people physically on a local level. And to me there’s no difference from these people and Nipsey Hussle. I mean, Nipsey Hussle is Gil Scott-Heron. Nipsey Hussle is James Baldwin. He hears these people that had a message.”
“Crazy as it might seem, Black leadership is something that’s always different in hindsight,” he continued. “ I wasn’t there for Malcolm X. My mom, she’ll tell me about Black Panthers being in L.A. and Compton. She saw how things transitioned and how things turned out afterwards. … The end of the story is just as important as everything else. So I can’t say if it makes me feel any other way, except motivated and inspired, because, you know, Nipsey Hussle died doing what Nipsey did. It’s not like he died doing anything else. He died in that parking lot taking pictures with kids, giving them money.”
Check out the full conversation GQ here.