Vince Staples – “White Flag”

Last month, Vince Staples announced his new album Cry Baby, the follow-up to 2024’s Dark Times. He’s already shared the lead single “Blackberry Marmalade” and its provocative video. Today, he’s returned with another single called “White Flag.” It comes with a visual directed by Staples and Bradley J. Calder.

“White Flag” is built around a beat that sits somewhere between Motown and psychedelic jazz. There are snappy drums, a suave bassline, and soft background vocal coos. “Sometimes love can turn to war/ I seen it all before,” Staples raps over the sauntering beat. The lyrics address the inequity and exploitation Black people suffer, with Staples rapping about being dehumanized and arrested by cops. “Hip-hop taught me all y’all love Black folks, but it’s not enough,” he raps later on. It’s a song that teeters between exhaustion and despair, especially in the chorus: “White flag, I don’t wanna fight no more.”

In the video, Staples paints an American flag white and then riddles it with bullet holes. The more I think about it, the more it unravels: violence directed at a raised white flag of surrender or a call to action against whitewashed democracy. Watch it below.

Cry Baby is out 6/5 on Loma Vista. Pre-order it here.