Vince Staples has always been vocal about Mac Miller’s impact on his career.
In a new interview with Peter Rosenberg on Hot 97, Staples reflected on Miller’s legacy, and what his early support—from tour co-signs to business advice—meant to him.
“He gave me advice but also opportunity, I would say is the easiest way to put it,” he said around the 2:45 mark. “Like, ‘You should be doing more music, but I’m also gonna help you with the beats. And I’m not gonna charge you, and I’m gonna take you on tour, and I’m gonna kind of help you figure out how tour goes, and I’m gonna make sure you don’t have any expenses on tour.’ And that kind of just put me in a good position to be set up.”
Staples previously opened up about Miller on Drink Champs in 2021, explaining that his collaborator and friend gave him ownership of their 2013 Stolen Youth mixtape, and “took me on tour and he didn’t want no publishing.”
In this latest conversation, Staples said Miller would answer most of his questions about how to become successful, encouraging him to tour, sell merchandise, and ultimately take a spot on his own tour before he felt he was “deserving of it.” Staples also talked about what it was like going to Miller’s house, and the many rap luminaries he would encounter there.
“You can tell that I was really squeezed into it,” he said around the 3:30 mark. “You know, I always appreciated that, him giving me a relationship with [Schoolboy] Q… I met him at his house, I never met him before. I ended up going on tour for Q’s Oxymoron album and Q helped me learn about tempos and all that comes from Mac. I met a lot of people at Mac’s house. I met [Ab] Soul at Mac’s house. I met Thundercat at Mac’s house. It’s honestly too many people to name, because everyone was always over there. But his studio was a very interesting place in a sense of who you could run into. Just the relationships he had with other people made it a good environment. I done seen Future at Mac’s house.”
Later in the interview, around the 44:00 mark, Rosenberg and Staples chopped it up about rap feuds, and the MC explained that things seemed a bit different back in the day. Now, as Staples said, the industry sees “money in the violence.”
“I feel like it was more protected. When you hear N.O.R.E. and all those other people talk about the role that their A&R’s and executives had in their life, moving them out and doing certain things for them, like when Snoop talks about Master P moving him out to New Orleans,” he said. “I don’t think anyone’s doing that anymore. I think they see the money in the violence. Back then, the violence ruined the money.”
Vince continued, speaking on Slick Rick, KRS One, and artists who were able to transition from the “streets” to creating music, and how “we have to push these kids, these people, to push the envelope.”
“I feel like Wu-Tang Clan, even though they might’ve been from Staten Island and stuff like that, they still needed to show their uniqueness, they still needed to show stylistically who they were,” he said around the 45:30 mark. “I don’t think that’s a thing anymore.”
Check out the full interview up top.
