Vince Staples gave a reality check to artists and fans alike after being asked about Kendrick Lamar and Drake’s beef during a panel on Saturday (May 4th). After fielding a question about the feud, Staples spotlighted major changes in the music industry particularly impacting Black music.
During Staples’ sitdown with Long Beach Mayor Rex Richard for a town hall at the inaugural Youth Day in the LBC, one fan was eager to get the rapper’s take on the feud dominating hip-hop over the past several weeks. In response to the question, the 30-year-old Long Beach native explained he has been signed to Universal Music Group since he was 17 years old and proceeded to break down bigger picture issues.
“That record label just folded all of its independent labels and subsidiaries into each other,” Staples said. “None of them exist no more. They fired all the heads of the labels and if they didn’t, they turned them into glorified A&Rs. They cut off 50% of the people who work in all these departments, most of those people is us, people of color, that come from hip-hop and R&B and these other things, right?”
He then referenced the impact of UMG’s decision to pull their music catalog from TikTok earlier this year before recently reaching a new licensing deal with the social media platform: “Then you got record labels opening up IPOs. You got record labels destroying their relationships with TikTok, Spotify, things that pay our artists because they want to start their own shit.”
Staples continued by explaining how Black artists in particular have been impacted in the streaming era. “So then we getting priced out of our contracts, we getting priced out of our imprints. There are no labels, basically, that are incentivized to sign Black music and it’s happening in front of our eyes,” he said. “While Taylor Swift is fighting for people to be able to have streaming money, n***as is on the internet arguing with each other about some rap shit. So that’s how I feel about it, honestly.”
Back in 2014, Swift abruptly yanked her entire music catalog from Spotify in protest of low royalty payments. The following year, she initially withheld her new album, 1989, from Apple Music in response to the streaming service not paying royalties to artists during new users’ free three-month trial period.
After highlighting the greater issues in the music industry, Staples addressed the beef between Kendrick and Drake by saying, “Personally, I think we better than that. I think we deserve better than that because we’ve been saying for decades that we want people to respect Black music and Black art and Black people. I think for that to happen, we gotta respect ourselves and they don’t make it easy for us, but we gotta try to work a little bit harder at that.”
Mayor Richardson chimed in by emphasizing the importance of uplifting Black artists rather than “celebrating” two rappers “tearing each other down,” which led to Staples pointing out “the dude that work at Dunkin Donuts is [as] important as Drake and Kendrick cuz it’s an ecosystem.” He continued, “We all matter and I think that’s our problem is that we looking too high up. We need to kind of look at each other. If we don’t do that then we wasting our time.”
Hours later, Staples continued his thoughts on Twitter. “See the problem with hip hop is white people too comfortable. We need to treat y’all how y’all treat us at Trader Joe’s,” he wrote.
This isn’t Staples’ first time calling attention to issues in the music industry while speaking about the beef. In April, Staples criticized Spotify for profiting off the beef with billboards in Time Square, saying, “Once n****s get mad, we got billboards from streamers talking about ‘Hip-Hop is a sport,’ but we ain’t never seen a billboard from a streamer that said, ‘Give that n***a his publishing back.”
Meanwhile, the beef between Kendrick and Drake continues. The latter rapper went on the defensive by dropping “The Heart Part 6” on Sunday night, disputing Kendrick’s allegations on “Meet the Grahams” and “Not Like Us” that he is hiding a daughter and has sexual relations with underage girls.
“The Heart Part 6” came as the latest salvo in the feud after Kendrick made the first move with a verse on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” which prompted Drake to respond with “Push Ups (Drop & Give Me 50)” and “Taylor Made Freestyle.” In turn, Kendrick dropped “euphoria” and “6:16 in LA.”
This past Friday, the pair proceeded to bring Rap Twitter to a frenzy when Drake’s salacious “Family Matters” was quickly met by Kendrick’s thermonuclear “Meet the Grahams.”
Vince Staples speaks on Drake x Kendrick beef pic.twitter.com/4HBWTu3OSo
— Long Beach County Ⓜ️ (@longbeachcounty) May 4, 2024
See the problem with hip hop is white people too comfortable. We need to treat y’all how y’all treat us at Trader Joe’s.
— vince (@vincestaples) May 5, 2024
They be like “What you think keeway?” And then I tell them and then they be like “SHUT YO BITCH ASS UP NIGGA YOU NOT PAC”
— vince (@vincestaples) May 5, 2024
