Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Vince Staples Show’ on Netflix, Where The Rapper Stars In A Meta Comedy About Everyday Bizarreness

The Vince Staples Show emerges onto Netflix in five-episode, limited series form after its co-creator, co-writer, and star had already merged Vince Staples the successful rapper and singer with the distinct style of Vince Staples the social media creator, as well as Vince Staples the actor. (He played Maurice on Abbott Elementary, and voiced the title character on Adult Swim’s Lazor Wulf.) For TVVS, Staples has teamed with Ian Edelman (How To Make It In America) and Maurice Williams to create a show that’s sort of based on the real life him, sort of based in his hometown of Long Beach, California, and sort of linear while also retaining the freedom to totally blow up sort of and just go off. Exec produced in part by black-ish creator Kenya Barris, The Vince Staples Show also includes appearances by Rick Ross, Naté Jones, Arturo Castro, Watts Homie Quan, and Scott MacArthur.

THE VINCE STAPLES SHOW: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: First, an on-camera note. “This is a work of fiction.” Then, off-camera, gunshots and cars skidding out. “A string of shootings leave one dead and four injured…” goes the overheard news report. And in the predawn blush, the proprietor of Sunrise Donuts opens up shop. Welcome to Long Beach, California. 

The Gist: In The Vince Staples Show, Vince Staples is still Vince Staples, with the notoriety and financial success that goes along with a successful music career. But that doesn’t mean he’s himself, and it doesn’t mean that TVVS takes place in a Long Beach that’s real. When a cop named Boucher (MacArthur) has his Harry Potter reading session interrupted by Vince’s G-Wagon cruising past the donut shop, we’re plunged into a few unexpected chapters of the ensuing day. Mug shots. Bookings. And hard tosses into holding cells, where Vince meets characters like Robb (Christopher Meyer), who wants to spit some shit he wrote (or warble it off-key in an approximation of R. Kelly), and Poke (Rafael Castillo), an imposing repeat offender who recognizes Vince for different reasons. “I don’t give a fuck about that music shit. You from over there. So we got problems.” It’s not like he was expecting any of this. But jailhouse auditions and beefs about neighborhood turf are suddenly just a part of Vince’s everyday.

“Bri don’t do jailhouses. She sell houses.” When Vince calls her to bail him out, Bri (Jones) is replacing another realtor’s yard signs with her own. And Vince’s mom (Vanessa Bell Calloway) is even less helpful. She doesn’t feel like bailing him out, but she does share how she saw Vince being put in the back of the squad car. “Why don’t you ask that little girl you living in sin with?” Deja (Andrea Ellsworth)? There’s no way Vince is calling his girlfriend. He considers her above this kind of problem. And besides, he’s looking forward to eating dinner with her later.

Inside, as Vince’s experience becomes increasingly surreal, he does his best to surf above it, which feels like what will become the crux of TVVS’ thirty-minute installments. And throughout, Staples is great at keeping his countenance calm, which becomes a kind of nonverbal bit in itself, even as the police react with an unsettling blend of misplaced parasocial excitement and brazen racism to his presence in their lockup.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? TVVS co-creators Ian Edelman and Maurice Williams also wrote Entergalactic, which pitched new music from Kid Cudi in animated rom-com form. It features Naté Jones, who appeared in Atlanta, and the intersection of heart and weird that Donald Glover’s hit series did so well is also present here. And Vince Staples was interviewed alongside other associates of the Odd Future collective for an installment of RapCaviar Presents that focused on the multidisciplinary work of Tyler, the Creator.    

Our Take: As a rapper, Vince Staples has never been directly anything. He can tell hard tales about life and growing up, but eagerly spin that stuff sideways, diagonally, or fully into the abstract, which is the same kind of vibe The Vince Staples Show embodies. In the early going, as Vince finds himself locked up for an ill-defined traffic offense, one of the cops doing the locking (Bryan Greenberg of How To Make It in America) directly references Staples’ professional work. “‘I ain’t never ran from nothing but the police,’” he says, checking lyrics from the 2015 single “Norf Norf.” Well, I guess we got you, huh?” As if that’s supposed to be funny. And the police pull Vince out of his cell and into their break room to fanboy out while simultaneously being racist and condescending. As this television version of himself, Staples underplays these moments. He’s detained, but detached. He’s in jail, but it’s just a function of life as it goes. He’s witnessing the increasingly threatening or just plain off-putting behavior of his fellow detainees, but also intending to not miss dinner with his girlfriend later. It’s almost like TVVS features an internal monologue or narration, but instead of being heard, it’s seen all over Vince Staples’s face.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode, anyway. 

Parting Shot: The day’s extreme randomness – traffic stop, holding cell, mistaken identity – calmed for now, Vince fishes his pistol out of its hiding place in the bushes and heads home. Deja’s making dinner. “How was your day? Anything interesting happen?” Not really…

Sleeper Star: Rafael Castillo (Black Lightning) makes an impression in TVVS as Poke, whose perceived vendetta against him Vince attempts to creatively de-escalate. Don’t worry, another occupant of their jail cell says. Poke isn’t much of a fighter. “He do be stabbing, though.”  

Most Pilot-y Line: In holding, Vince notices a guy with a buzz cut, skinny red suspenders and a Nazi neck tatt scrawling a message on the wall. “I HATE NI–” you can imagine where this is going, and Vince does a double-take. But when he looks again, the “T” is scratched out. “I HAVE NIGHTMARES” reads the message. Vince sits back. “I do, too. All the time.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Unpredictable, funny, and often weirdly surreal, The Vince Staples Show is replete with personal touches and a sense of place all its own.   

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.