Life Told Through Rap - Summertime '06
A one-act play about the love that tears you apart
Author’s note: This is a work of fiction. The only thing real about this story is the music.
SCENE
CHARACTERS
VINCE
LOCA
CHORUS (three young gangsters)
The scene starts with a couple (VINCE and LOCA) sitting on the steps of a white beach hut. Both of them are under a warm white spotlight, dressed in all black. Even though they are physically close together, the emotional distance between them speaks volumes with LOCA’s silence throughout this scene foreshadowing the end of a summer love and VINCE’s unrequited pleas signalling his descent into a void that he will struggle to climb out of.
VINCE: This could be forever, baby. This could be forever, maybe.
LOCA (silent)
VINCE: Do you want to talk about it or be alone?
LOCA (shrugs, slowly pulling away from VINCE and looking off into the distance)
VINCE (standing up, about to leave the steps of the beach hut): Open up your mind and tell me what you’re seeing. Hold my hand, let me take you to the land where the ocean and the sands are meeting (gestures out to the audience).
VINCE (holds LOCA’s hand which she gently pulls back)
VINCE: Look at the sun – all we need to see to know our freedom. Open up your heart, if we don't love then we fall apart.
LOCA (crying into her hoodie)
VINCE (not noticing, looking ahead, almost staring directly at the audience): Teachers told me we were slaves. My momma told me we were kings. I don't know who to listen to. I guess we’re somewhere in between.
LOCA (stops crying, sniffles, rubs her eyes and quietly sighs)
VINCE (turns back around and notices LOCA now, kneeling down to her eye-level, as if he’s proposing): My feelings told me love is real but feelings are known to get you killed. They never taught me how to be a man, only how to be a shooter.
LOCA (gets up and steps off the beach hut, VINCE follows her, grabs LOCA’s hand and LOCA turns around, placing both of her palms into his, taking in this moment, finally listening to what he has to say)
VINCE (staring directly at LOCA, trying to find the right words to make her stay): I feel as if I'm misconstrued. I spend my moments missing you. I know some things are better left unsaid, and people left alone, but I'm searching for atonement. Don’t leave me alone in this cruel, cruel world. This could be forever…
LOCA (interrupts VINCE with a kiss, she pulls back and caresses his face then walks away off-stage)
VINCE (sits down on the floor, angry at the world, angry at himself, angry at what he has become, the warm white spotlight above him gradually dimming to black)
CURTAIN
EPILOGUE
CHORUS (off-stage, repeating their lines three times, one person after the other)
YOUNG GANGSTER 1: I’m a motherf****** legend
YOUNG GANGSTER 2: I’m a gangsta Crip, f*** gangsta rap
YOUNG GANGSTER 3: Coldest n**** breathing. North side, long beach.
CHORUS (all three YOUNG GANGSTERS, together in unison): Tell it like it is!
VINCE (walks in front of the curtain, standing at center stage, dressed in all blue: navy T-shirt, faded blue denim jeans and a pair of blue suede sneakers. He clears his throat and speaks with his hands clasped behind his back, a blue spotlight now floating above him).
VINCE: Love will tear us apart. November 30th, 2005 was the beginning of the loss. The following summer multiplied it. Beaten paths, crowded with the hopeless. Same song every day, listening to the words of a dead man destroyed by his own mind and body. Why? Because at the end of the day we’re all dead anyway. At least where I come from. Love tore us all apart. Love for self, love for separation, love for the little we all had, love for each other, where we came from. Jabari, Chris, Shard, Tom, Richy, Tyson, Tony, Shelly, Phil, Marcel, Brandon, Steve, Jaron, Tay. Too many to name, too much to forget. Some lost to prison, some lost to Forest Lawn, some turned snitch. Some still here but it will never be the same. Bandanas, stealing Levis and Nike SBs. Derringers and Sidekicks. It’s crazy how little you notice and how greatly those things impact. Summer of 2006, the beginning of the end of everything I thought I knew. Youth was stolen from my city that summer and I’m left alone to tell the story. This might not make sense but that's because none of it does, we're stuck. Love tore us all apart. Summertime ‘06.
A gunshot is heard off-stage and the blue spotlight quickly turns off to black.
Further Listening
[1] Vince Staples, L.A. Leakers Freestyle (2021)
Further Reading
[1] Craig Jenkins, Vince Staples Is Showing America What It Refuses to See, Vulture
[2] David Turner, Vince Staples and the Accessibility of Black Experience, Pitchfork
Further Watching
[1] La Haine (1995)
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This is dope af! It’s so creative to write in this way. Wow I really really like this piece! And the way you added the visuals with blue suede was smooth!
I enjoyed this, the chorus at the end reminds me of the chorus in the Greek tragedy Antigone.