Vince Staples might be best-known for his sardonic social media personality and scathing, nihilistic gangsta raps, but he’s also quite the pitchman — remember his hilarious Sprite commercials? The Long Beach native puts all three skills to use on Pokemon 25: The Album, a companion compilation of tracks celebrating the generations-spanning multimedia franchise’s 25th anniversary. Vince contributes “Got ‘Em” to the album, which also features such names as J Balvin, Lil Yachty, Post Malone, and Tierra Whack and drops October 15.
Above, in a rare glimpse of earnestness from Vince, he breaks down the “evolution” — hehe — of “Got ‘Em” along with some “help” from Snorlax. Of course, if you know anything about Pokemon — which, as Vince points out in the video, you probably do — Snorlax’s assistance amounts to basically napping in the corner while Vince recounts his experiences playing the video game and watching the cartoon growing up. As he puts it, “It’s important to tap into your inner child or just not be jaded. There’s always room for excitement or fun or optimism if you can keep hold of the things that were important to you in childhood, it’ll put you into a good place.”
If that feels like a big swing from the rapper’s usual stance on such things, it might be time to go back and review his old work — despite the running thread of fatalistic acceptance of his dark surroundings, there have always been glimpses of optimism as seen through his mischievous sense of humor. That humor pops up in his Pokemon explainer, too; the latter portion of the clip consists of Vince comparing his “nap ability” to Snorlax’s and determining that despite being an expert in catching 40 winks whenever possible, the rotund road napper has a lot more experience in sawing logs at a moment’s notice.
You can watch Vince Staples talk up Pokemon 25 above and pre-order the album here.
