Vince Staples has never shied away from sociopolitical topics in his music or personal life, something his new song “Blackberry Marmalade” and its music video prove powerfully. The track and visuals are broadly about racism against Black people in the United States and the prevalence of violence in its corrupt system. More specifically, it seems to question the difference between “anti-establishment” violence and retribution that actually addresses systemic issues.

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This angle emerges from the video’s framing, depicting a mass shooter from a first-person perspective. First, the shooter confronts and shoots Vince before heading into a restaurant and shooting the Black people inside. At the end, the shooter takes his own life. Then, the music video shows the following 1963 quote from Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail”: “So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be.”

This is all outsider analysis, but there’s a lot to dive into with “Blackberry Marmalade.” Lyrical references include exploitation of Black music genres and financial plight, Black U.S. presidential candidates like Barack Obama and Kamala Harris, and much more.

We will see if the Long Beach MC comes through with a new album sooner rather than later. “Blackberry Marmalade” is a striking single not just for its themes, but also for its sound. The punk-adjacent rock instrumental is a nice change of pace for him, calling back to his earlier aesthetics in his career and showing off a bit more vocal dynamism than usual.

In terms of the political tone of its single, maybe the project is a larger reflection of these themes. Vince is seemingly questioning misdirected violence in the United States and how resistance and aggression, especially at the hands of white people, don’t provide change for folks that actually need it. In fact, whether at the hands of citizens or the state, these forces often use resistance and aggression to quell that necessary change.