Consumer Guide Album

Vince Staples: Big Fish Theory [Def Jam, 2017]
On an album that's two-thirds as amazing as is reported, nine-tenths of the amazement is musical. Not just the stripped-down electro powerbeats whose supple muscularity is less 2-step than is reported, but Staples's exacting articulation--he's on every beat smooth and toned, never e-nun-ci-a-ting but without a word lost. Which brings us to, you know, the rhymes. Sure he says what he wants to say with clarity and economy; sure he takes on police racism rampant. But what he wants to say is pretty much the usual except insofar as he doesn't murder anyone while preferring money to women. True, on the last two tracks he contemplates suicide in his first-class seat and muses about the mother of his very unborn children. But you know how it is--they always sneak some soft stuff in at the end. So maybe next time. And maybe not. A-