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There have been sufficient offbeat comedies about rappers and hip-hop these days to make up their very own style — the shape-shifting surreality of “Atlanta,” the scatological farce of “Dave,” the social-media savvy of “Rap Sh!t” — to not point out a listing of dramas and docu-series from “Empire” to “Wu-Tang: An American Saga.”
On Thursday, Netflix provides “The Vince Staples Show,” an impressionistic alt-comedy constructed across the deadpan sensibility of its star. It is mordantly humorous and visually arresting, though at 5 temporary episodes, it’s extra of an EP than a magnum opus.
Staples, as soon as affiliated with the choice hip-hop collective Odd Future, is thought not only for his music however for a self-aware humorousness that’s made him a pointy presence on social media. In the sequence, whose government producers embody Staples and Kenya Barris (“black-ish”), he performs a model of himself, flexing his sardonic voice whereas enjoying with the sense of hazard that informs lots of his lyrics.
In the primary episode, Vince is pulled over after making a U-turn in his dwelling city of Long Beach, Calif. The expertise is a component nightmare (he’s locked up with a white man with Nazi tattoos and a behemoth with a status for knifework); half satire (when he picks up the communal cellphone, a voice says, “Hello, and welcome to jail!” adopted by the sound of youngsters cheering); half hallucination (for his meal, he’s handed a sandwich topped with a Draw Two Uno card).
Outside jail, Vince’s world is simply as a lot of a comic book dystopia. A financial institution go to turns into a mix heist flick and Jordan Peele horror story. On a visit to a water park, the loudspeaker bulletins are cryptically menacing (“All kids should be accompanied by adults of the identical ethnic background”), and the cartoony park mascot glares at Vince with sick intent.
Unlike different current hip-hop comedies, the rap-business a part of “Vince Staples” stays largely offscreen. We don’t see Vince recording or performing, although he does run into the megastar Rick Ross. Instead, his fame is the backdrop and premise. It will get him acknowledged in lockup (an admiring guard quotes his track “Norf Norf” at him); it will get him an invite to talk at his old fashioned that goes bizarrely south; it will get him focused by kin in search of loans.
The sequence doesn’t lament the pitfalls of fame, although, as a lot because it focuses on what celeb doesn’t purchase for its protagonist: Security. Vince, the sequence suggests, can by no means get so large as to be untouchable. During his jail keep, an officer means that Vince rent safety or get an entourage, “Like ’90s rappers did. Like Tupac.” Vince asks, “How did that work out for him?”
The satire additionally sends up using violence as leisure, one thing Staples has proven nuance about, as when he stood up for a mom who had gone viral with a video criticizing his lyrics.
Here, the mystique of gangster life is a sort of weird shopper branding machine. In an early episode, Vince tries to boost money for a enterprise concept, a wholesome breakfast cereal incongruously known as “Kapow! Pops.” Later, he’s chased by a nemesis with a gun, who taunts Vince about his swaggering persona: “It’s totally different when it’s actual, ain’t it?”
Staples, with a dry, laid-back presence (he has acted in sequence and flicks together with “Abbott Elementary” and “White Men Can’t Jump”) makes an attractive heart for a hard-to-pin-down present. The sequence in some methods appears like a live-action model of an absurdist cartoon. (Staples additionally voiced the title character in Adult Swim’s “Lazor Wulf.”) In different methods it’s developed like a extra conventional sitcom, giving Vince a affected person — however not endlessly so — girlfriend (Andrea Ellsworth) and a sharp-tongued mom (Vanessa Bell Calloway).
The components generally really feel mismatched, which contributes to “The Vince Staples Show” feeling unfinished. Netflix has billed it as a “restricted sequence,” and in an age when many bloated packages by that identify usually are not restricted sufficient, this one appears to finish simply because it’s getting began.
But who is aware of? Limited sequence have a method of unlimiting themselves nowadays in the event that they’re profitable sufficient, and Staples has tweeted (jokingly?) about the opportunity of a Season 2. While it lasts, “The Vince Staples Show” is an entertaining enigma, and there’s one thing to be mentioned for leaving the folks wanting extra.
