Vince Staples Questions Vice Documentary Depicting A Gang Initiation

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Vince Staples Questions The Purpose Of A Certain Vice Documentary

Vince Staples has been vocal both in his personal anecdotes and throughout his music about the fact that he has been affiliated throughout his time growing up in Long Beach, California. He’s also been someone who debunks many rumors about gang-banging, speaking on how movies depict it in a way that’s far from the truth, and that people outside of California really shouldn’t be repping any set at all.

On Monday, Vince tweeted out a link to a Vice documentary, urging kids to stay in school so that they don’t get exploited like this while trying to join a gang. He sends out a few more tweets that are now deleted, but being familiar with the happenings throughout gang initiations and so-forth, Staples is upset that Vice documented the whole thing, not that it’s happening in the first place. He also mentions that his mom, who was a crip before her son, says that she doesn’t think this young boy is ready for what he’s getting himself into.

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In the second-to-last tweet, Staples asks Vice, “how much you putting on they books when they all get indicted?” That’s the most important point here. Vice tends to publish documentaries that exploit many aspects of different lives/cultures without having any concern with the consequences for the subjects being depicted in the content. For example: many cite The Migos’ appearance in a Vice documentary to be what caught police attention of their gun possession, later landing all three members–and finally Offset for a longer period–in jail.

In this video tweeted about by Vince, the initiation to the “Silent Murder Crips” is shown at the 10:50 mark, also showing that though the one being initiated is supposed to fight back, he doesn’t seem to have that part on lock (which is probably why Vince’s mother states that he’s not ready).

Stuff like this undoubtedly happens in different neighborhoods everyday, but Vice putting it out for all to see and not caring about the consequences for the video subjects is the real issue.