Vince Staples has announced a new album titled Dark Times. It’s his final album on Def Jam Recordings. The follow-up to 2022’s Ramona Park Broke My Heart will arrive this Friday, May 24. The Long Beach rapper has also unveiled the new song “Shame on the Devil” with a split screen music video, featuring a close-up shot of his face on the right while he raps the song’s lyrics, and a shot of people’s shadows cast on the corner of a room on the left. Check it out below.
After releasing Ramona Park Broke My Heart as a companion piece to his 2021 self-titled album, Staples teamed up with Earl Sweatshirt and the Alchemist for the Voir Dire song “The Caliphate” in 2023. That same year, he also worked with the Alchemist on “Lonnie P.”
Staples debuted his satirical Netflix comedy series The Vince Staples Show in February. The five-episode show stars Staples as a semi-fictionalized version of himself as he navigates life. It co-stars Vanessa Bell Calloway and Andrea Ellsworth, with recurring appearances from Naté Jones, Arturo Castro, Scott MacArthur, Bryan Greenberg, and Myles Bullock.
Def Jam helped launch Staples’ career with the release of the Hell Can Wait EP in October 2014. His beloved studio debut, Summertime ’06, arrived the following year. Staples shared three more Def Jam projects—Prima Donna, Big Fish Theory, and FM!—before turning to Motown Records for Vince Staples and Ramona Park Broke My Heart. Beginning with Big Fish Theory, and continuing on through Dark Times, Staples’ projects have all been co-released via Blacksmith.
Read about Summertime ’06 in Pitchfork’s list of “The 200 Best Albums of the 2010s.”
Dark Times:
01 Close Your Eyes and Swing
02 Black&Blue
03 Government Cheese
04 Children’s Song
05 Shame on the Devil
06 Étouffée
07 Liars
08 Justin
09 “Radio”
10 Nothing Matters
11 Little Homies
12 Freeman
13 Why Won’t the Sun Come Out?
