“Yo Love” is a collaboration between Vince Staples, 6LACK and Mereba, released for Melina Matsoukas’s upcoming drama/thriller film, “Queen & Slim.” The combination of the three R&B artists is slightly unexpected, as Vince Staples has never collaborated with either before. The song itself is even more of a surprise, considering that Staples’s most recent releases have boasted the consistent uptempo, bassy sound that made him famous. “Yo Love” is not one of those songs, and is certainly more in line with the other two artists’ typical softer sound.
Although the single is not the first mellow track that Staples has been a part of, it is one of the few times we see a pure vulnerability in his subject matter. 6LACK and Mereba take on the chorus of the song, combining their smooth vocals to continue the love story Staples begins to tell at the start. It’s refreshing and exciting to see such a shift in sound from a rapper like Staples, and this single further proves the breadth of his talent. The classic, hard-rap sound of his full-length albums and most of his EPs and mixtapes cannot and should not be replaced, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t nice to switch up the tempo every once in a while. “Yo Love” is the perfect, sappy break that Staples’s discography needed.