Vince Staples

“Robert Townsend. Robert Townsend, you do not get enough credit. We love you for your creativity. The Five Heartbeats, The Meteor Man, Hollywood Shuffle. We love it. The satire in here. The commentary here. The tongue-in-cheek delivery of the lines. The mustache and the haircut. We learned a lot from you. One of the people I wish we said his name more. So I’m saying it right now. Do me a favor. If anyone has a DVD of The Five Heartbeats, Blu-ray – it doesn’t have to be Blu-ray – anything you have, send that to me.”

“Videodrome. Now, the first five minutes are off-putting. I get it. But we live in this right now. You’re on the internet. You’re on the television. We’re imitating what we see through our art, through our lives, the way that we communicate. So shout out to Davy boy for doing this. I watch this on airplanes, I watch it with my family at the house and they tell me to turn my weird movies off. This is the one. Please, please watch this. When it comes to things in this Closet, not a lot of them get the punk-rock stuff off, and this is what I’m into.”

“Okay, I might make small things, but I like hits. I like star power. I love Meryl Streep. I love Julia Roberts. I love Viola Davis. I love the big ones, you know what I mean? This right here with Nicole Kidman and the two– the two pale babies, excuse me, scared the shit out of me as a child. And then the discovery at the end – I won’t spoil it, because I don’t know how many of you children have seen this, but this is a hit, okay? Certified banger. Watch The Others.”

“And I’m going to pick up WALL·E. WALL·E’s in the Closet next to Lost Highway and Malcolm X. Animation has always been important to me. WALL·E being here is crazy. You will find me at the Disneyland, I promise you. If you thought that was me, that was me.”

“This is Jo Jo Dancer, a film by Richard Pryor. And the weird thing about this is that it might not have been the most successful or the most critically acclaimed, for someone who was such a big star, but the way that he views the world is really, really close to the way that my parents and the people around me in my community viewed the world, as kind of a nihilistic, cynical thing, but still looking for light and hope and understanding of who you are and trying to be a well-rounded person. If you look at this film from the scope of someone who was… was in pain and was trying to learn themselves, it ends up being much more valuable. The spiritual nature of films, I think, is important as the entry point. So yeah, definitely check out Jo Jo Dancer.”

“Lynch/Oz. Now, the reason this is important is because I too steal from The Wizard of Oz at every chance I can. It gave me an understanding that “You’re not the only one that loves this movie.” Wizard of Oz. Not that I felt like I was the only one, but I felt like the only one that made some super dark stuff. But David Lynch, he had a lot of things that people didn’t understand and a lot of things that were off the cuff and weird, and to see that they derived from something so pure, not that The Wizard of Oz was pure, because justice for Judy Garland and we will never forget you, and if we find out who did that to Judy, we’ll dig you up. Just to have reference points from great directors and things that you can pull from, shout out David Lynch. Shout out The Wizard of Oz. Shout out Toto. We love you forever.”

“Jean-Pierre Gorin, I think is how you say his name. This is a box set of documentaries. One of these is extremely important, it’s called My Crasy Life. It was filmed in Long Beach, California, following members of the S. O. S. Community in West Long Beach. Me growing up in Long Beach specifically, I know people that have family roots to these people. I think it’s important that we tell our stories holistically. It’s a lot of heart in the characters, and I think it’s important to learn about other people. So this is something that’s really close to home. And tell our stories: they don’t have to be big, they don’t have to be great. We don’t need happy or bad endings. Let’s just chronicle life as we know it because it’s ever so changing. Check this out if you get a chance.”

“This is Melvin Van Peebles: Essential Films set. The two films I want to highlight in here are Watermelon Man and Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. The reason I want to highlight these are that one leads to another: you get the studio, you get the budget, you want to tell the story that is unique and fun, and sometimes it might not be the right decision. And you learn from your mistakes, your connectivities with people, the disconnect with people, and you take something and try to create something holistic that will be free of regret, that’ll be free of fear, that’ll be free of just anxiety. We all heard of the term blaxploitation, we’ve all heard of Coffy and Shaft, I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, all these things that ended up deriving from a film called Watermelon Man that didn’t quite have the best reception. But one thing does lead to another, and you can’t quit. You can’t get down. You have to continue to create and get better and better and better. And he’s a founding father, and that movie gave him the ability to create what he did later down the line, which gives us the ability to create what we do now. So you got to shout out to him for that. Great, great, legendary man.”