How ‘The Vince Staples Show’ Brings a New Perspective to O.J. Simpson in Season 2: “It’s OK to Acknowledge the Monsters”

Summary

• The Vince Staples Show Season 2 is six genre-bending, surreal episodes tied by a 72-hour odyssey to Uncle James’ funeral.
• Vince and the team take inspiration from Roger Deakins, Evil Dead, and the seminal animated film Paprika to tell their story.
• The narrative tackles themes of grief, empathy and selective memory against a backdrop of sharp visuals, relatable motifs, and the death of his O.J. Simpson-inspired family member.

It’s never a surprise when a musician makes the leap to visual mediums like television and film to create even more meaningful art. But it’s definitely noteworthy when one knocks it out of the park like Vince Staples did on his show, the aptly titled The Vince Staples Show. Now he’s back with a second season on Netflix, deftly applying the lessons he and his team learned from the first batch of episodes and pushing the surreal, meta boundaries even further.

The Vince Staples Show Season 2 consists of six episodes, each one remaining a distinct and stand-alone approach to genre while also carrying a consistent narrative the whole way through. Vince is dealing with the death of his uncle James — who is also a stand-in for O.J. Simpson — over a three-day period, and the journey to the funeral is an ordeal that even Odysseus wouldn’t envy.

Collider caught up with Staples as the show debuts on Netflix for a wide-ranging discussion of life, art, and the perceptions we carry with us in our waking lives.

Breaking Down the Surreality of ‘The Vince Staples Show’

“We don’t want to ever throw anything away when we’re creating new worlds.”

COLLIDER: Vince, it’s great to talk to you, man.

VINCE STAPLES: Appreciate it, man. Thank you for your time.

Oh, thank you for your time. So one of the funniest things that I saw was like right from the beginning. I shouldn’t say funny, but also kind of sad, but the cereal, the callback to Season 1 when Vince is in the grocery store — this is going to be weird because I’m going to be saying “Vince” as in you, yourself, the person, and then “Vince” is the character. So if I ever cross over — but, like, you go see the cereal that is a big deal, a part of the first season. How did that come about?

STAPLES: Oh, writing-wise, or visually, because they kind of have two different answers.

Both of them, to be honest with you. Visually, I thought it was a really intense sequence, which kind of gets to my next question.

STAPLES: We try to kind of roll into our establishing shots, kind of, uh, in a “show, not say” approach, but as far as the writing, we kind of want to make sure that our motifs are kind of written in a more, um, I would say, like a authoritative point of view, meaning that the environment has the power over the characters, rather than the characters having the power of the environment. So when you speak about how you can create these motifs in a way without them seeming like they’re exposition. That was one of those things we did. We use a lot of record drops of actual physical media as far as, you know, the vinyl players, the phones, things of these nature, alarms, things that you see that have power over the circumstances of the environment. We try to highlight those things in all the episodes into the writing.

So that was just one of those things that we did to give some context without it feeling like on-the-nose exposition and to show connectivity. Obviously, this show is kind of a day-in-the-life, slice-of-life, kind of thing — anthology, almost. But we don’t want to ever throw anything away when we’re creating new worlds, because the way that the show is meant to be is that at any moment, we can bring in any of our characters or situations or backstories, and let them fold into how the day is personally going. And that was one of those things.

The show is so visually distinct compared to a lot of different things that are coming out right now. And I think that one of the awesome things that you did it’s an anthology show, like you said, but this one has a very distinct through line with the passing of your uncle. And so I really thought it was interesting that you kind of took different, like each episode was so self-contained in that it, like, the first episode felt like a noir. The second episode felt a little bit more like a slasher film. The third episode felt like a horror film. They all kind of progress around a way. And so did you guys plot it out that way, or when you broke down the season episode by episode? Did you decide, “Okay, this would work here, this would work here?”

STAPLES: Yeah, I think we had some things last season that we learned from and with this time, going through it with the directors and the DP, we decided what we wanted to do visually, and then we went into the writing room. And obviously, things change, locations and availabilities, and things of that nature.

So, if you have that strong backing, you’re able to create things that always have the ability to fluctuate and move in another direction, ’cause you have that visual blueprint as you were speaking about. Ayinde [Anderson], Riley [Stearns], and Will [Stefan Smith] do a great job being able to distinguish the crazy talk that I have and the way that I speak about things, so they did a great job, and I’m really, really happy with our visual team, and everyone else that we had.

I feel like, when it comes to the distinction of episodes, it was important for me to lean into genre in certain ways, because I don’t like exposition or narrative through lines — I think they cheapen the experience for the audience for what I’m trying to create, personally. Not in general, but just what I’m trying to create specifically with this show.

So I had to double down on some of those things, to give us that through line that — you know, it’s a network note. That’s fine to say, it’s no big deal. But I think we still kept our show because the first three episodes are one day, and the last three episodes are another day, kind of a night-to-night situation.

So, I think doing something in 72 hours helped us embody the same thing that we did, and allow our episodes to be a little bit slower, which I’m a fan of. It’s kind of a thinking man’s game when you get to — thinking person’s game, rather, excuse me — when you get to that kind of storytelling, and you allow the audience to dissect things as they go. So we were able to keep our “day in the life” approach, just spreading it throughout different episodes, and leaning into these different genre things to make the episodes have their specificity that we had with the day by day, and just broaden it out a little bit.

Why Vince’s Music Isn’t Integral to ‘The Vince Staples Show’

“To make it plain, I’m not that f—ing famous.”

You’re such an intentional artist in pretty much every project that you come to, whether it’s albums, music videos. And this, obviously, is a visual medium, but it’s so meta in that it leans on you being you, Vince Staples the rapper. And so in that first episode, I really felt like it was Chekhov’s gun when you go into the studio to rap because your rapping is not- it’s in the periphery, but it’s never fully in focus.

And then it ends up in a fight scene because this guy is obviously insulting you … but what was the intention of keeping your music and you, the rapper, separate from this art that you’re creating here? Because, again, like, I thought it was Chekhov’s gun, like, oh, we’re going to hear Vince rap in the show. Obviously, it doesn’t happen.

STAPLES: Well, I think it was a different kind of situation. I’m agreeing with you 100%, but it was a different approach, because I’m kind of living in the reality of my music career. I can walk down the street, and if there’s, you know, dozens of people outside, maybe one or two people say something to me. To make it plain, I’m not that fucking famous, and a lot of times, these things are ego driven. So the reality of this situation is I’m not that big of a musician, so there’s no reason making me this big musician in the show. And I think that that’s a point of view that we kind of haven’t really thought about or spoken about within the medium of musicians or creators making this sort of thing.

So, what it comes down to to me is living in that reality while still being able to be extremely creative in our writing, like, we’re playing with the idea of imagination, we’re playing with the idea of what reality actually is. So having that down to earth, realistic backbone to the music allows us to be free from that being the thing that we’re imagining, if that makes sense.

One of the things that I thought was a good through line for you is, the show is pretty much like all about perspectives and empathy. And Vince has a lot of empathy until his perspective takes him to places where, you know, obviously, he doesn’t. And other people’s lack of empathy or lack of perspective causes conflict. Would you say that those are the defining themes of the show, or what do you, what do you feel like is, is what really pushes this?

STAPLES: I feel like empathy is important. Grief is important. And also, selective memory. The things that Vince realizes, the things other people realize, everyone has a different perspective, and Vince constantly goes against those perspectives, no matter who they come from, whether it’s his mother, whether it’s Ruth (Whitney Rice) who, I think, was the star of this season, just from a performance standpoint. Even Bo playing on Uncle James, there’s so much, just, you know, typical storytelling. I don’t think we stray from traditional storytelling, I just think we stray from the traditions of kind of common times and what people see as entertaining and not entertaining. But also, him walking in the horizon is, you know, Edgar Allen Poe; you shoot it like John Ford, and then you hit the car, like, it’s Evil Dead. It’s not that deep.

But, I think us allowing ourselves to have the broad imagination stems from connecting to human emotion. So you understand what it’s like to be scared or mad or sad or these different things. So when we start, you know, hitting people with ambulances, it all makes sense. And just trying to make sure that the conversations feel translucent, for lack of a better word. Like, they’re happening, but not blocking your vision from what’s happening on screen, because we watch movies, we don’t hear them.

So I try to make sure that within our shows, we have something visually stimulating. Now, whether that’s a Roger Deakins type where there’s a shadow, whether that’s something that feels a little bit more whimsical, like something that you will see in Paprika or things of that nature. I think that filters out our ideas. So if it doesn’t fit what we want to do visually, it allows us to lean on another emotion, whether that is anxiety or something like that, and just fit our emotions and our writing into whatever we see visually.

You mentioned Deakins, so it’s really cool that, ’cause I felt the framing of every single episode was so intentional — from that, the rental car place where … you’re talking to the, to the, the worker and mom is standing over there and she’s just eyeing, like she knows what’s going down. And then obviously, the slow push on the dolly shot for the fight scene in the social club. All of it was just— sorry, now I’m just geeking out because it was such a fun thing.

STAPLES: Well, no, I think I think that’s important, honest communication when it comes to your team, because Ayinde Anderson, our director of photography, he is amazing and is great and did every episode by himself. Of course, he had his team, but did every episode by himself. We didn’t have two DPs, and just to do that in a new location that we haven’t shot at before, and things of that nature. He really, really executed well, but it all starts with a conversation between me, him, Will, and Riley, and just making sure that we all are into the same things, that we all hate the same things. And knowing the things that we don’t agree on is extremely important as well. So I think that’s kind of where we are when it comes to the visual identity of the show, it’s not something that was frowned upon. Everybody was willing to take the risk.

And, yeah, I just have to shout out Ayinde, ’cause he did an amazing job at translating the thoughts on the screen and wasn’t afraid for the frames to be a little bit dirty. We asked for a lot of shit that we didn’t get, so he doesn’t blink when it comes to asking for things. So, we got a lot of good things. And when we couldn’t get those things, we still were able to work around them, you know? So it worked out very, very well.

It’s good to have a crafty crew and people that you can trust to just achieve what you’re looking for.

STAPLES: Exactly.

Breaking Down ‘The Vince Staple Show’s Connection to O.J. Simpson

“I think that he was the ghost of Vince’s past and future.”

So, I gotta ask, because the James Brown of it all, it’s obviously a parallel. I don’t know if anyone else will catch it, but I’m pretty smart. So I caught it. No, I’m kidding. What was that inspiration behind that, and to kind of give this different perspective of how, obviously, such a monumental figure and really a moment in time, and how it affected everyone, and especially you, as is told by through the story.

STAPLES: Well, I mean, we had some of the O.J. [Simpson] stuff in Season 1, but we got a note that said to change his name. Can’t have the name be “Uncle OJ,” is the note we got. And I think it was kind of like a blessing at the end of the day. I was pissed about it. I’m still pissed about it, but I think it worked out because it allowed people to suspend disbelief and see the humanity in this character. So I think we really doubled down on it this season. [Laughs] I double down on a lot of things, I think. Thank you to Andy for accepting my notes when it was time to change things.

But, like you said, you can’t say “O.J.,” so instead, here’s the white Bronco.

STAPLES: Here’s the white Bronco, and here’s James Brown. But, I think when it comes to that, like, even those two polarizing figures, I think it’s more so the connectivity of Vince and him is through life experiences. Fame, murder, regret, denial of who you are, and things of that nature, I think that he was the ghost of Vince’s past and future, and an example of fame and how it doesn’t really necessarily change the circumstances of the individual. We are products of the things that we’ve all seen.

If you kind of look at his life, I don’t think it was kind of set up for him to be the most sane human, especially after getting hit in the head for decades. So I think that, yeah, I think it’s okay to acknowledge the monsters because a lot of them are human beings, and I think that that’s where he came from. And he’s really a totem poll this season to show Vince what his life could be based on the tragedy that he had recently been a part of.

And I really feel again, going back to the empathy of it all, is that final episode, and how you go through your family. You obviously tell cousins and shit, like, “hey, stay out of my business, get off Facebook,” all that stuff. But the empathy that you have for your mother, who, in the show, is portrayed as… like she is a mother who cares, but she doesn’t take any shit, especially from you. Your sister, who, obviously, they’re going through their own shit, and they end up bonding when you’re not around. And so, the self-awareness in that, I feel, is is such a key part to it.

And I wanted to ask you, is this coming from personal experience or is this coming from — sorry, my dog is making an appearance. That’s Penny. She’s an asshole, but we keep her.

STAPLES: I have two. I have two dogs that are demonic, so I understand. Penny looks like a sweet girl.

She is. What kind of dogs you got?

STAPLES: Dalmatians.

Oh, are they fun?

STAPLES: Depends if you’re a squirrel.

So, the empathy of it all … in your personal experience, was that what motivated this through line for the entire season?

STAPLES: Not literally, but I think that we all have our own family. I wanted to lean on the family this year. Of course, we have all of our other characters that did great last season, but just based on the structure of the show — and to be honest, we’re playing with Bo. I wanted to give him a benchmark for this season, ’cause I thought the OJ thing was interesting, especially with him dying after Season 1.

So to come and tell the story of Uncle James, you have to tell the story of a troubled family. So, focusing in on that and focusing on those other relationships, because Naté [Jones] — who plays Bri, the sister character — she didn’t get that much screen time last season, so I think that was something that could have been developed a little further, not in Season 1 but in Season 2.

So I wanted to take the opportunity to utilize that relationship — to create noise — in Vince’s circumstance, because it’s really all about Vince’s experience. But cutting through the noise that surrounds him to kind of deal with his own trauma is something that ties into celebrity and ties into art and ties into all these things that we’re tackling with the show. So that was just one more situation for Vince to be blinded by and try to find a way to work on himself and work on other things.

The funny thing about it is, like… Well, I’m not. I won’t give away my magic tricks…

You can. I’ll keep it between us.

STAPLES: Oh, no, I don’t tell them. No one else knows what goes on The Vince Staples Show.