Vince Staples' Dark Times was one of the most important rap albums of 2024. While his Netflix series The Vince Staples Show was canceled early this year, he’s been busy gearing up for his new independent era. Staples recently launched a private Discord server for his fans and today he shared new music – a song called "Blackberry Marmalade" that comes alongside an intense music video.
The video, directed by the hip-hop artist himself alongside Bradley J. Calder, is from the point-of-view of a mass shooter as he first shoots Staples and then diners in a restaurant. As the shooter walks in, he looks at the security guard, who's playing games on his phone. At the end, he returns to the parking lot and turns the gun on himself. It finishes with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous 1963 open letter "Letter From Birmingham Jail": "So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be."
As for the song itself: It's basically a rock song with a great bassline. Fans are comparing it to acts like Paris Texas and Genesis Owusu. The opening lines reference Ye: "Empires built on bloodstained ground/ Kanye West, I pray they all fall down/ London Bridge, they're tryna cross you now/ Don't crash out, Dirty Diana." Check it out below.
