Norfside Long Beach native Vince Staples is one of the hottest up-and-coming talents in the hip-hop world, so at the nation’s largest talent-discovering festival last week, his shows were sure to be atop many’s lists of shows to attend. NPR had the young rapper at one of its showcases in Austin last week, and because they’re a wonderful media company, they recorded the experience.
Staples performed 13 songs across his 40-minute set, starting with the empowering “Lift Me Up” and completing with “Blue Suede” from his Hell Can Wait EP. Between, he performed bangers from his last two projects and kept the crowd rocking and thoroughly hyped up, it seems. NPR writer Kiana Fitzgerald was in attendance, and she described the performance far more intimately than I could:
With charisma, comedy and a touch of cynicism peppered throughout, Staples played to his crowd without pandering … The energy between Staples and audience was reciprocal, and only ticked up further as the night wore on. By the final two songs — the wildly charged “Senorita” and the jarring “Blue Suede” — there was full-out moshing, crowd surfing and stage crashing, much to the chagrin of security. Elbows were thrown and backs were shoved, but it was clear by the time Staples finished his performance, standing atop the rail directly in front of his adoring audience, that it was all a physical manifestation of unbridled, raw positivity.
Watch the concert below.
