Vince Staples mentioned Long Beach's Ramona Park approximately 80 times on his debut album Summertime '06 and even allotted the park two of its own tracks: "Ramona Park Legend Pt. 1" and "Ramona Park Legend Pt. 2." "The sun come down and guns come out, you know Ramona Park."
Yesterday, Staples spoke at a press conference at Ramona Park to announce a new youth YMCA program called the Youth Institute, an initiative that combined the efforts of local officials and Staples financial support (he contributed an undisclosed amount). According to the Long Beach Press-Telegram, the program will help 20 eighth and ninth graders learn filmmaking, graphic design, music production, 3D printing, and product design.
“I want to be able to be one of the people that reinforces the fact that we matter just as much as the next person,” Staples told the Press-Telegram. “That’s actually the biggest thing I can do for this community.”
“I think the most important thing is opportunities,” he continued. “What I can say is, living over here my entire life, I’ve never had an opportunity given to me from the area, only examples of how to mess up, and what I didn’t want to do.”
He later expanded on these comments on Twitter before deleting the tweet: "Work hard to do something for kids so they have something other to do other kill each other this summer and y'all got Spike Lee jokes.. Lol."