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According to Vince Staples, Rappers Are the Reason There Are Less Black Cops

Does he have a point?

Vince Staples is known to be honest about what he believes. It makes him one of hip-hop’s realest voices but also gets him in trouble from time to time.

The Long Beach native recently spoke with Dazed about, among other things, police brutality and the makeup of the police force. He believes less Black people want to be police officers because hip-hop puts them in a place of betrayal.

"People told us that you’re important if you're a rapper, which is the reason no kid wants to grow up and be a cop," Staples told the magazine. "The cops kill off black people, but there are no black cops because we rappers say f**k the police. Nobody wants to go to school because we say f**k school. Everybody feels like they have to be high because a rapper says, 'do this drug or that drug.' Nobody wants to become anything in the private sector because you're not important if you’re not rich. So no one wants to be the mailman."

Staples gets so honest in this interview that he even reveals he never really wanted to be a rapper, kind of. He admits he believes he isn’t doing anything really important and originally wanted to turn out as a regular dude.

"My dream was to be f**king regular,” he said. “You know how you watch Beethoven? That was cracking to me. That was the perfect life to me. They had a house, they had a car. They got both they parents and a dog."

Music largely didn’t come up during the interview. Although Vince Staples did say, "Music is not that f**king important to the grand scheme of everything. You can go to middle of the f**king forest where there is no music and you will see more life than you've ever seen on a Soundcloud link." He's currently preparing to release his Prima Donna EP, which he’s slated for release later this month.

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