Bullseye with Jesse Thorne is a production of Maximum Fun.org and is distributed by NPR.

It's Bullseye. I'm Jesse Thorne.

Vince Staples can be a tough nut to crack.

Now, he's not here with me now as I speak to you,

but I bet that if he was, he'd make a little nod in agreement.

Or maybe he'd say something cryptic and unexpected,

or maybe he would have a devastating one-liner. Vince is a rapper from Long Beach, California. He still lives there.

The first time I talked with him, it was 2014. He'd put out an EP and a couple of mixtapes

with other up-and-coming rappers like Earl Sweatshirt and Mac Miller.

He was barely 21, but as Prodigy once said, his mind was older.

I thought about my interview with Vince for a long time after that.

His energy, his cutting takes on showbiz.

Since we last spoke, he has made six full-length LPs, including modern classics,

like Big Fish Theory, FM, and Sum on we know. I never ran from Nurtain, but the police.

I never ran from nothing but the police.

I never ran from them but the police.

From the city was skinny,

kept strong heat, Northside Long Beach. Northside Long Beach hit the- Also in that time, Vinciples has become more of a showbiz guy.

You can catch him semi-regularly on the hit sitcom Abbott Elementary.

He plays Maurice.

And he has his own TV series, the Vince Staples show. He co-created, he writes on it, he stars in it.

The Vince Stables Show is a comedy, I guess. There aren't really any jokes, but there are funny,

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