After his main stage performance at this past weekend’s Coachella Festival in California, Vince Staples sat down for an interview with Nadeska Alexis on the event’s livestream. Everything was fine at first. Staples, who’s not known to be dull or meek in conversation, poked fun at the interview, read from Alexis’s teleprompter, then—seemingly from nowhere—called R. Kelly a “piece of fucking shit” and a “child molester.”
“I’ve got one more year on probation. When my last year of probation is over, I’m breaking speed limits—I’m doing wild shit,” Staples said. When Alexis responded by suggesting that Staples keep himself out of prison, the rapper dug in:
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You don’t go to prison if you’re a black entertainer. Only if you’re a black gangster rapper. I’m changing my whole path. Think about it: R. Kelly never went to jail, and he’s a fucking child molester. He’s a child molester and he pees on people and he can’t read and write, and he didn’t go to jail. I’m a good person—R. Kelly’s a piece of fucking shit. So, if piece of fucking shit R. Kelly didn’t go to jail for being a child molester and peeing on people and having a human trafficking ring in Atlanta, then I’ll be alright.
Alexis, deeply uncomfortable with the topic from the start, kept pushing back on Staples’s comments, eventually saying that the conversation would get her fired. Staples didn’t let up:”Because R. Kelly a piece of shit? He don’t work here. They should have booked R. Kelly if they like R. Kelly so much. He would have pissed on somebody in the crowd. Because he pees on people.”
The whole interview is great, actually. Staples explains that his GoFundMe page, which sought to raise a $2 million retirement fund for the 24-year-old artist, was a marketing ploy cooked up by Def Jam Recordings. He hyperactively talks through his solutions to Long Beach’s race wars and emissions problems (they’re related), and considers the way that more Whole Foods stores for his area’s gay community might bring about a lasting peace. He closes out by shouting out Lil Durk, who just left Def Jam. Vince says they dropped him. “They shouldn’t have done that.”
Vince Staples is great, man.
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