The synths come in on Crabs in a Bucket like alarms. On Vince Staples’ Big Fish Theory It’s unclear at first, whether the subject is rushing to or from the chaos but a listener will soon realize it’s neither. They are trying to avoid the scene at all costs.
Music critics have long since made the connection between the Big Fish Theory’s title (the philosophy that a fish can only grow to the size of its tank) and Vince’s feelings of being boxed into his own identity as both a black man in America and a rapper.
Vince’s narrative is obviously different from mine but the message of the album permeates more profoundly to me considering how much of life has been taken away by the pandemic. Even writing this post feels as though I’m operating only within confines of what I presently know because new experiences have run dry.
On Party People, Vince asks how he could possibly enjoy himself in this place when carnage wreaks havoc over his city and his people. On Ramona Park is Yankee Stadium Vince begs to know if his city will remember him if he died. For different reasons, I ask the same of my city. Our politicians have taken countless missteps during this crisis leaving the population feeling abandoned.
While Vince’s racial and professional anxieties are the album’s driving force there’s also an undertone of neuroses over love. It’s clear on tracks like Alyssa Interlude, Love Can Be…, and 745 that Vince wants or at least knows that True Love and stable companionship exist but have escaped his hands because of his own unresolved trauma. Instead of pursuing the real, he wields bravado and arrogance to keep women at arm’s length. A strategy that any worthy romantic prospect would quickly identify and tire of, liberating him from any real responsibility.
So many of us invent shields to limit the risk of pain through vulnerability. In the age of dating apps and unlimited choice, it’s so easy to coast on the shallow waters of a sexual attraction rather than really getting to know someone and vice versa.
At a time when human contact can be so dangerous, what further justification is needed for putting space between one another and surviving on the fleeting thrills of casual encounters like frogs jumping from one lily pad to the next. But bound to our own solitude during a global crisis, how can we grow when we’re just running in place?
That said, the real sinker of the Big Fish Theory is that the fish knows they’re capable of more and feels a sense of guilt over it. While we might expect Vince to lean on the byproducts of gang life or his rapper lifestyle: sex, drugs, money, etc. as a means of avoiding self-acceptance, he does not. He’s aware of what lies ahead and he knows he’s stronger than those who have fallen victim, though he maybe wishes life were different. Leave it to the late SOPHIE’s chaotic and intoxicating production on Yeah Right to make the listener feel as though they’ve been the one swept up in a lifestyle of hedonism and indulgence.
I’ve uncovered a lot behaviors and habits over the last twelve months and I’ve tried to modify and grow where possible despite this diluted version of the world we’re living in. Sometimes I worry that when it is time for the world to shift back to a semblance of what it used to be, I’ll revert to an older version of myself but like Vince I trust that I’m meant to grow larger than the tank, even if it means the glass shatters.