Songfacts®:

• "Norf Norf" is North Long Beach, California, or as Vince Staples and many other locals call it, "Norfside." In the song, Staples chronicles life growing up there, which wasn't pretty: He was surrounded by drugs, violence and poverty. Thanks to his street smarts and sobriety, he survived this scene and lived to rap about it on his debut album, Summertime '06, which put him on the map in 2015. "Norf Norf" was the biggest song from the set and remains one of his most popular tracks.
• North Long Beach sounds like a hellscape in this song, but Staples has a lot of fond memories to go along with the bad, and he kept living in the area even after he got famous. "When you're blessed enough to be in a situation where everybody really cares about you, it's impossible for people to not root for you," he explained to Fader. "Nothing matters but where you come from. Without that, who are you?"
• The music video, directed by Spike Jordan, starts with a tight shot of Staples rapping the song in a vehicle. As the camera pulls out, we realize he's in the back of a squad car because he's been arrested. It's a highly acclaimed video that got millions of views, but it cost only about $5,000 to make.
• The opening line, "B--ch you thirsty, please grab a Sprite," earned Staples an endorsement deal with Sprite. He appeared in commercials for the soda in 2017. Staples really manifested this; leading up to the deal, he often tweeted about Sprite and mentioned them in interviews.
• Staples wrote this song with Clams Casino, who produced the track. Casino is a producer from New Jersey who has also worked with A$AP Rocky, Jhené Aiko and The Kid Laroi.
• In September 2016, a woman who usually listens to Christian music posted a video to YouTube where she upbraided Staples over this song, saying, "Let's just encourage kids to run from the police because that's OK, right? We wonder why this society is so messed up."
  
  She heard the song when it came on the car radio - she said she was listening to a hit music station and was horrified because her young daughters were in the car. The video went viral, and while many commenters took the woman to task for being out-of-touch and judgmental, Staples defended her, tweeting, "No person needs to be attacked for their opinion on what they see to be appropriate for their children. This misunderstanding of our community leads to miscommunication which we should convert into a progressive dialogue."
• "Norf Norf" plays a role in the first episode of The Vince Staples Show (2024), where Staples plays himself, but in fictionalized situations. In the episode, "Pink House," he ends up in jail and an officer mocks him by quoting from this song: "'I ain't never run from nothing but the police.' Well, I guess we got you."
  
  The cops turn out to be fans and Staples makes nice with them to avoid getting his head split open by an unhinged inmate. At the end of the show, the cops are watching the "Norf Norf" video and discussing the song. "I get, like, 50% of what he's saying," one of them says.