Giving Big Fish Theory its Props
One thing about me, I appreciate experimentation in rap music. I’ve grown up listening to all variations of rap, so naturally, sometimes things get stale. Because of that, whenever an artist goes against the grain, I tend to respect the effort more and give it more leeway when giving my own personal thoughts than I would if I were talking about a more formulaic/”mainstream,” work. Now, that being said, a project being experimental doesn’t AUTOMATICALLY make it good just because it’s different, it still has to have other redeemable qualities to it like any other project. Enter Vince Staples’ sophomore album, 2017’s Big Fish Theory. I’ll be direct, I firmly believe that this is Vince’s best work (so far, anyway).
In contrast with his debut Summertime 06 (of which I am ALSO a fan), Big Fish Theory is a short, dense album of nihilistic and political lyrics over some seriously mind bending, in-your-face, house/dance beats. This combination rocked my world when I first heard it, and I wasn’t the only person it won over; Big Fish Theory has an 89/100 on Metacritic, NME gave it five stars, and Vice, The A.V. Club, AND Entertainment Weekly gave the album an A- in their respective reviews. Clearly there is a LOT to love about Big Fish Theory, yet I personally never hear the album brought up by anyone.
Sure, Vince wasn’t exactly a household name when this album dropped (and arguably he STILL isn’t), and he’s put out another album since then (2018’s FM! Released just seventeen months later) so it makes sense that an experimental, house-rap fusion album from 2017 wouldn’t get brought up in everyday conversation. However even with all of that, I believe in giving flowers while people can smell them so, here we are. Although, I don’t intend for this to be a review of an almost three-year-old album, but more of a closer look at the moving pieces that made this album as impressive as it is.
I mentioned above that, in stark contrast to ALMOST everything else in his discography so far (save for 2016’s Prima Dona EP), Big Fish Theory has some bass heavy dance/house production that has been described as, “avant-garde,” on several occasions. I don’t know if I would go as far to label this album as avant-garde when there are some REALLY out of left field albums floating around on Bandcamp or your local record store (although that’s mostly to avoid pedantic disagreements). But, from the perspective of rap albums then, sure, I could understand.
I won’t say Vince Staples was the first rapper to draw heavily on electronic/house and dance music, but the music on Big Fish Theory isn’t exactly your average run of the mill electronic music. That’s entirely because of two people that I want to talk about; Zack Sekoff and Sophie Xeon (A.K.A. Sophie). Zack and Sophie are musicians who make dance music, although different kinds of dance music that go beyond whatever pops into your head when you read, “dance music.”
There isn’t much known about Zack Sekoff other than (1) He’s a Los Angeles native (2) He’s a Yale student (probably graduate by now, actually) majoring in African American studies and (3) He has only one project on streaming platforms: Remnants of a Winter Sun which released in 2016. The bandcamp description for the album is…it’s something. Definitely give it a read for yourself, but if not there’s definitely a few parts I would like to pick out because I believe they explain a lot about the final version of Big Fish Theory, despite them being two separate works.
The Remnants of a Winter Sun album cover is something else too
First, there’s this excerpt, “Indeed, the feelings of isolation and disconnection, mixed with the stimulation of his new surroundings, ended up sparking an outpouring of fresh and inventive music,” and then later on in the description we also have, “The album’s themes and outlook were partly fueled by his reaction to the current political and social state of affairs – and his desire to have an impact on it.” Again, these are both excerpts from the same description of Sekoff’s album, but interestingly enough they can also apply to Big Fish Theory, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
Both Staples and Sekoff were already friends prior to coming together on Big Fish Theory: Per a Complex interview with Sekoff, ”The two had known each other for years after meeting through Staples' DJ Westside Ty, a mutual friend, but hadn't ever worked on music together. Instead of collaborators, they had been the kind of friends who shared life advice with each other.” Since 2016 the two friends had been wanting to work together and after Prima Dona, the two got their chance, with Sekoff having production credits on five of Big Fish Theory’s twelve tracks.
The chemistry between the two is definitely there, it’s a large part of why I believe this album works. Sekoff’s Remnants album is classified as dance, but there are definitely traces of R&B, rap, and even early 2000s indie pop (at least on the track, “I Would Run,”). All of these influences show Sekoff’s creativity and versatility when producing, thing’s that would feature prominently on his work with Vince. “Crabs in a Bucket,” being the opening track, of course gives listeners a taste of what they’re going to be in for, which is a far cry from anything that was on Summertime 06.
The production on this track is nuts, with glitchy vocal samples popping in and out, accompanied by this haunting ambient synth sounding element which then drops into this very dance-y percussion that is more electronic in its pattern than rap. Lyrically, the phrase, “crabs in a bucket,” isn’t a revolutionary concept, not to Vince Staple’s music, or for the rest of the world. The idea pulling down those that look like you in an attempt to raise yourself up over them came up on Summertime 06 on more than one occasion, but there’s another layer to it here.
“Spend a lot of money on the CDG
Ain’t I lookin’ lovely on the TV screen?
Battle with the white man day by day
Feds takin’ pictures doin’ play by play
They don’t ever want to see the black man eat
Nails in the black man’s hands and feet
Put him on a cross so we put him on a chain
Lying to me, sayin’ he don’t look like me”
While there isn’t a concrete meaning behind the name Big Fish Theory, a write-up on RapGenius hypothesizes that it could be in reference to the idea that a fish will only grow as big as their environment allows, a metaphor for both the Black American experience, as well as Vince’s experience making rap music and the expectations that come with it. When Big Fish Theory was being written and recorded, Vince was in a different place in his life than he was with Summertime: I’m not a fan of speaking for other people and potentially putting words in their mouths, but it seems that a lot of Vince’s thoughts were more preoccupied with his role in both the world and hip-hop culture as a young black man with money. It’s almost akin to an existential crisis in my opinion.
Vince Staples performing at First Avenue in Minnesota, 2018
Track eight, “Homage,” touches on the same themes lyrically: Vince is trying to work through balancing fame and celebrity with just being another black man. In contrast to these lyrics, Sekoff lays a pounding, bass-heavy, beat with these gritty, abrasive keyboards that make the track sound like it belongs in a rave mix. Again, as far as rap goes, there’s nothing that sounds quite like the songs Sekoff and Staples made.
“Outrun my gun, I’m the bigshot now
Prima Donna had them like “wow!”
Hitchcock of my modern day
Where the fuck is my VMA?
Where the fuck is my Grammy?”
I believe that Sekoff’s Remnants deserves its own write up, but the point is, they guy is an incredible producer and based on what little information I could find on him, he seems like someone that was already on Vince’s wavelength in more ways than one, and that chemistry allowed for some really creative songs that set the stage for what Big Fish Theory would become.
And then there’s Sophie, someone I’ve covered before and am a HUGE fan of. When Big Fish Theory was released, the only project to Sophie’s name was a compilation album, Product (2015), and while it may not share a lot of the same ideas that Staples and Sekoff have about the world, musically it’s far more experimental. Where Sekoff’s album is closer to a dance-R&B fusion, Product is more pop. Sort of. When I say pop, don’t assume it’s anything like Zedd’s, “The Middle,” (god no) because it is FAR from any of those usual pop tropes.
Product (2015)
Sophie’s idea of pop is something that I would say DOES warrant the avant-garde label. To get an idea of what I mean, just listen to “Lemonade,” or, “Hard,” two songs that just punt the metaphorical pop rulebook, and truly push the boundaries associated with the term, “pop music.” Sophie produces only two tracks on Big Fish Theory, “Yeah Right,” and, “Samo,” but that’s the second biggest contribution after Sekoff so guess what?
Stylistically, Sophie’s compositions are an amalgamation of these synthetic sounds that really feel like they have no business working together to the degree that they do, but something about the way that Sophie balances and structures them, it blends them together into these catchy and eclectic instrumentals that are also incredibly unique.
Although here lies an issue, when you have an album produced by people like Zack Sekoff and Sophie, a lot of what they do just gets reduced to, “house music,” or even, “noise.” Yes, the music is house influenced, but there’s plenty of small intricacies in these songs that differentiate them from not just rap music, but even other house, electronic, dance music. Yet, in most casual conversations, Big Fish Theory’s production is reduced to the point where I believe most people don’t really appreciate the finer details of it.
On the flip side of this, there’s Vince’s rapping. Before this album, nobody looked at Vince Staples as a political rapper, and quite a few would say they don’t go to Vince for politically charged raps, even still to this day. So, if you throw an album FULL of such lyrics at an audience that wasn’t expecting nor wanting them, it’ll turn people off. But just because the delivery here wasn’t what most people expected, doesn’t make the message itself bad.
Of course, not all of Big Fish Theory is just political, a lot of it also deals with anxiety and even suicidal thoughts. Again, these subjects aren’t foreign to Vince Staples’ discography but the way they come across on a track like, “Party People,” is more impactful to me and maybe even haunting in a way. “Party People,” instrumentally is one of Sekoff’s contributions to the album; the bass is big and booming (seriously, play it on a speaker instead of your airpods, you’ll feel the difference), the tempo is upbeat, and the percussion is driving the whole way. Yet, despite sounding like this really catchy, danceable club hit, you mostly get a deadpan delivery from Vince while he casually talks about committing suicide and seeing death and destruction around him.
Vince Staples isn’t a slouch, he’s good rapper, and a smart man that also happens to have no filter. I believe that nothing he says or does is just random. To me, everything he says is purposeful (even if it isn’t always clear), and he means what he says. I enjoy his earlier work pre-2017, and I still enjoy his output to this day (FM! Is one of my favorite/most played albums of 2018-19). With that said, he did something spectacular on Big Fish Theory thanks in no small part to the help of Zack Sekoff and Sophie’s bold and innovative production that infused house music with elements of pop, rap, and R&B. Those two gave Vince a fresh and exciting backdrop for him to talk to us about the portrayal of black people on the news and the apocalypse.
Proof:
Brown, Eric Renner. “Vince Staples Paves New Sonic Ground On Stellar 'Big Fish Theory': EW Review.” Entertainment Weekly, 23 June 2017, ew.com/music/2017/06/23/vince-staples-big-fish-theory-review/.
Keyes, Emma. “Seeking Sekoff: Sitting down with a Yale Musician.” The Yale Herald, Medium, 17 Nov. 2017, yaleherald.com/seeking-sekoff-sitting-down-with-a-yale-musician-3dd40b205033.
Madden, Joe. “Vince Staples - 'Big Fish Theory' Album Review - NME.” NME Music News, Reviews, Videos, Galleries, Tickets and Blogs | NME.COM, 21 June 2017, www.nme.com/reviews/vince-staples-big-fish-theory-review-2090986utm_campaign=crowdfire&utm_content=crowdfire&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.
Purdom, Clayton. “Vince Staples Drops His Second Straight Classic.” The A.V. Club, 20 July 2017, music.avclub.com/vince-staples-drops-his-second-straight-classic-1798191648.
“Remnants of a Winter Sun, by Zack Sekoff.” Bandcamp, 15 Jan. 2016, zacksekoff.bandcamp.com/album/remnants-of-a-winter-sun.
Skelton, Eric. “How Vince Staples Found His Bold New Sound on 'Big Fish Theory'.” Complex, Complex, 28 June 2017, www.complex.com/pigeons-and-planes/2017/06/vince-staples-big-fish-theory-producer-interview.
Yeung, Neil Z. “Big Fish Theory - Vince Staples: Songs, Reviews, Credits.” AllMusic, www.allmusic.com/album/big-fish-theory-mw0003058009.