Vince Staples Show Review

by Mars Alvarez

While the screen has been a home for his music in the past, Vince Staples makes his screenwriting and lead acting debut in his self-titled Netflix series, The Vince Staples Show, released back in February of 2024. Across five (relatively short) episodes, Staples tells a story of his day-to-day life as a “kind of famous” and “sort of rich” rap artist in Long Beach, California. 

Alongside the creative talents of Ian Edelman, Maurice Williams, and Winter Coleman, Staples weaves a riveting yet lighthearted tale of anthological moments told through clever dialogue, unique characterization, and plot development. Every episode feels like flipping through a surreal scrapbook, and the only plot devices that anchor the show to a real-world setting are the contemporary cultural references often snuck into the dialogue. 

Episode one, for example, blows a kiss to Abbott Elementary as another black sitcom on the airways, while poking fun at white America’s tendency to lump all black people (and black art) into the same identity. Staples even references his own hit song “Norf Norf” as a point of contention when interacting with the police; while the cops aren’t physically violent or aggressive with him because of his celebrity status, they diminish him to just his music while wrongfully imprisoning him for a crime that they ultimately know he didn’t commit. 

The show excels in projecting these stereotypes and flipping them in a comedic and introspective way. Exploring themes of black masculinity, normalized violence, and discrimination through a satirical lens, the show invites the audience to confront these themes through an absurd journey to picking up fried chicken, a theatrical cat-and-mouse chase between feuding opps, family reunion drama, an unsuccessful robbery, and a run-in with the justice system.         

Trippy, witty, riveting, and subtly contemplative, The Vince Staples Show has been one of the strongest Netflix releases of the year in my book.