Q

#14 Vince Staples — q's top 20 albums of 2015

Vince Staples Summertime '06 is an honest, unvarnished and mature reflection on how time and place shape a man.
Vince Staples latest album is an honest, unvarnished and mature reflection on how time and place shape a man. (Meredith Truax)

All month we'll be counting down the top 20 albums of 2015 — our annual list of must-hear albums.

Today, California rapper Vince Staples takes the #14 spot with Summertime '06, a record that takes us back to his adolescence, when he says he learned the "power of fear".

Staples uses subtle, dynamic production to bring you right into the centre of that hot, sweaty summer in Long Beach that changed how he saw the world.

His rhymes follow themes of gang violence, hood stories, and perceptions of black men  but his art is not moralizing.

WEB EXTRA | Listen to Lift Me Up, as played on air. (Warning: explicit lyrics)