Vince Staples Shares New Song “Cotton”: Listen

Vince Staples, a persistently provocative artist, is no longer in business with Def Jam or Netflix. If there was ever anything holding him back, that’s gone now. Later this week, Staples will release Cry Baby, his first album for new label home Loma Vista. Staples messed around with guitar-rock signifiers in interesting ways on early singles “Blackberry Marmalade” and “White Flag,” and he does something similar on the new song “Cotton.”

Staples co-produced “Cotton” with Mike Hector and Oh Gosh Leotus, and it’s a lively half-sung ode to the power of music itself. But the title might’ve clued you in that there’s something heavier going on here. The central hook: “Music make me feel just like cotton/ Pick me up when I’m falling down” — a simile that ties what might otherwise be an optimistic song to a vast American history of slavery and oppression.

Previously, Staples co-directed his harrowing “Blackberry Marmalade” video with Bradley J. Calder. Those two also directed the “Cotton” video, which makes heavy use of the image, from the previous clip, of an American flag shot full of holes. This time. the flag becomes the canvas for a montage of Black American history, both in political persecution and artistic triumph. Check it out below.

Cry Baby is out 6/5 on Loma Vista. On Thursday, Staples will play a sold-out record-release show in Los Angeles, and it’ll be livestreamed here.