The major-label rap EP is having a minor resurgence mostly for economic reasons: Labels don’t want to pay a bunch to promote untested artists, so they float unpublicized mini-albums to see whether people react. In Vince Staples’ hands, though, the EP is something else. In seven songs and about 20 minutes, the young Long Beach rapper leaves behind his old Odd Future comrades, sneering dexterously over noisily minimal beats and sounding cool as fuck doing it. And with a song like “Hands Up,” there’s a political resonance to Staples’ intensity that pushes the whole project to another level. –Tom [LISTEN]