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Vince Staples Explains How Rappers Are the New Rockstars: ‘Hip-Hop Culture Is Popular Culture’

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The state of pop culture has shifted a lot over the decades. The idea of the “rock star” had pretty much faded with the death of Kurt Cobain and the grunge era. Eventually, the battle for cultural supremacy was the pop stars and boy bands versus hip-hop. Through a war of attrition, hip-hop outlasted and became the face of pop culture. Nowadays, it’s hard to quite define pop culture at all outside of memes and internet wormholes.

By 2015, though, Vince Staples saw that hip-hop was the defining cultural export. As a result, he said our old ideas of what a rockstar looks like had changed significantly. “Rap is the genre. Rap is culture. Hip-hop culture is popular culture; it is American culture. Tell me who the........

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