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- Summary: This is the latest full-length studio release from California rapper Vince Staples.
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- Record Label: Def Jam
- Genre(s): Rap
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Score distribution:
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Positive: 11 out of 11
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Mixed: 0 out of 11
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Negative: 0 out of 11
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Jun 5, 2024There’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.
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May 24, 2024Swirling dreary beats with even more overcast thoughts, Dark Times is a lucid snapshot of melancholy. It lives up to its name. It’s dark out, but Vince presents a meticulous portrait of someone with just enough reason to wait for sunrise.
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May 28, 2024Dark Times is more detailed and specific in its mission and references; as a result, he seems less guarded, more vulnerable. The album’s sonics support Staples’ lyrical direction, conjuring ever-changing environments, ever-shifting interdependencies, and that identity is unstable, ever-evolving.
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May 24, 2024‘Ramona Park…’ was a bravura work of therapy, a rap bildungsroman that crafted an entire world. More insular, ‘Dark Times’ is in many ways less accessible; that said, it refuses to let the quality dim, it’s endless stream of ideas enticing and perplexing in equal fashion. In emphatic style, rap’s foremost outlier demands your attention all over again.
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May 28, 2024Dark Times plays like a musical memoir, even if not all of its stories are entirely autobiographical. For a rapper who’s always leaned toward a cynical perspective, Staples shines when he leans into the struggle, using his experience as both an example and a cautionary tale.
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The WireAug 6, 2024As its title implies, Dark Times is a total bummer, but it’s a sumptuous bummer – warm, bluesy, funky. [Aug 2024, p.58]
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May 24, 2024Throughout, Staples’ dominant instincts like narrative-driven songwriting and punchy choruses sustain him. His flow falters a bit, particularly on “Étouffée.” If he sounds tentativeness at times, it may be from his self-consciousness at grasping for a new level of maturity and, surprisingly, spirituality.