Vince Staples’ Dark Times is a raw emotive portrait of the artist’s scars

From his 2015 full-length debut Summertime ‘06 to 2022’s Ramona Park Broke My Heart, Staples has never been in the business of convincing the listener to feel the same ways he feels – he simply presents his experience (and his subsequent worldview) in its most brutally honest form. Dark Times, the newest record from Staples, finds the artist at his most mature, retrospective, and confessional. All of that is telling given Staples has always been acutely self-aware, and never self-indulgent. His consistency over a decade in the game has been incredible, yet his final record under Def Jam lays it all out in the open in a way akin to 2021’s Vince Staples, though ten times over.

The project’s lone single, “Shame On The Devil,” introduced Dark Times as a record of dichotomies and internal battles. “I long for loving and affection,” the opening lyric of that track, is a far cry from much of Ramona Park where Staples spoke decisively of rejecting love repeatedly, including on “Rose Street” where he rapped: “She said she in love, what’s that? / I’m married to the gang, don’t be playing games.”

On one hand then Dark Times might put on appearances of being a softer side of Staples, though truthfully it seems more so to simply be a more brutally honest self-portrait, or like it is the inverse side of Ramona Park. “Shame On The Devil” depicts the tension between Staples’ desire for love and his tendencies of distrust and austerity, a consequence of the environment he navigated as he came of age. The album intro, “Black&Blue,” discusses an “infatuation with folklore” – that being the folklore of gang life – over a stunning sample of “Weak for Your Love” by Thee Sacred Souls. “Government Cheese” follows, stripping back the veil of romanticism. “Something about the gutter made us hate each other / Had to bury my older brother, it humbled me,” he raps.

Lyrically, Staples is at his absolute best. On “Justin,” flexes his storytelling chops with a story about a woman he met who withheld the fact she had a partner. While light-hearted, the artist also drops subtle details within that point to the impacts his upbringing had on this romantic encounter, such as clutching his gun instinctively when the partner knocks on the door. “Radio,” an album highlight, sees Staples again have a romantic encounter go awry – this time of his own doing, however. “Nothing Matters” is the conclusion of the heartbreak arc on Dark Times, as “Little Homies” and “Freeman” see the conclusion to the heartbreak: “Chase checks, little homie / Cause the money bring the power and respect, little homie.”

The production front-to-back on Dark Times is outstanding. The range is impressive, all while textured with a solemn sort of ambience that radiates mourning, whether friends, family, prospective loves, or all of the above. The record’s standout track is “Étouffée,” an instant classic in Staples’ catalogue. Here, Staples expresses indifference to the praise he receives upon each album drop, while exclaiming that he is “probably going to hell” but being alive is enough to make that feel like a miniscule fact.

Religious motifs have always been present in Vince Staples records yet prayer and faith often take center stage on this project, whether it is questioning where gang members go when they pass (on “Black&Blue” and “Government Cheese”), reciting the Lord’s Prayer (“Shame On The Devil”), or surrendering his fate to a higher power (“Freedman”).

There’s something remarkable about Staples’ ability to display such emotional complexity within a relatively brief 35-minute runtime. It is an art he has mastered over the years, yet on this album he manages to pack an immense amount of content in that space – more so than ever before. Dark Times is an exposé of Vince’s bruises and scars, an incredible portrait of the unglamorous sides of both his life as a celebrity and prior to his fame.