At 24 years old, Chicago’s Vic Mensa has lived through what seems like several lifetimes. His debut album The Autobiography documents his entire tale to date, offering the kind of insight and understanding that even his closest friends wouldn’t usually be privy to. Tragedy at times, comedy at others, it’s like he’s just invited the entire world into his private therapy session.
From his childhood and school years through to street violence and murder, to his flirtation – and, later, addiction – with drugs, alcohol and partying as a way to escape his inner demons and struggles with mental health. He reflects with remarkable candour and honesty about moments of near-death and even nearer suicide, before seeking help and searching for inner peace, empathy and understanding. The record ultimately concludes on a hopeful tone, with a passionate promise for a freer future.
The no-holds-barred openness of The Autobiography should come as no surprise, given the pre-emptive ‘capsule’ release The Manuscript, and last year’s powerful EP There’s A Lot Going On, a harrowing take on America’s socio-political turmoil from police brutality to the Flint water crisis, on top of his own struggles with drugs, depression, relationships and suicide.
Born Victor Kwesi Mensa, today sees Vic coming into his own as an artist, a young black man, a Chicagoan, a human being. He’s learning to be comfortable in his own skin, to address and analyse his own internal struggles, and in turn to find empathy and comprehend the world around him. Along the way, he’s learnt to put those thoughts on paper, set to the wonderful tune of hook-laden, rock-infused production, all big beats, wailing guitars and soulful samples. Having assembled a dream team of guest artists and producers (Pharrell, No ID, The-Dream, Syd, Chief Keef and Weezer among others), the final result is a stellar debut, introducing the world – in his own words – to “Victor, not Vic Mensa, the one you never meet in a XXL issue.”
While driving through Los Angeles on a Sunday night, Vic had a chat with Howl & Echoes about the album, his personal journey, rock music and more.
Earlier today you tweeted out that R Kelly should be imprisoned “for a long time”. You also recently said that it still surprises you that rappers tout abusing women. It’s ridiculous we’re still having these conversations today.
It’s baffling, but I do think that as a culture – hip-hop culture, black culture – we let R Kelly go. I am completely also at fault, I remember defending R Kelly to somebody when I was like 18, but I was wrong. We know he’s been abusing underage girls for a long time. It’s a shame that it takes something like the information just released, new revelations to remember the past, but we gotta get rid of him. R Kelly needs to be locked up. He’s a paedophile and he’s a sexual predator.
The Autobiography is so intensely personal for you. Now that it’s out in the world, do you feel like a weight’s been lifted?
It definitely does feel like a bit of a weight off my shoulders. the actual process of writing the music was something that was really therapeutic and necessary for me.
It’s cathartic to see the really positive response to it too. For a long time I’ve known the calibre of artist and writer that I am, but I was going through a lot of things that were really keeping me from creating to my potential. I was in some pretty dark times. I felt like the music I was making wasn’t reflecting me as a person, the real me. And so it feels really good to have music that I really feel proud of, and that’s honestly representative of myself as a man. I feel like it’s a step towards being more understood and less misunderstood.
Rollin’ Like A Stoner really stands out to me. It’s so important that you realised you were using drugs, partying and all that as an escape from yourself and your inner demons. Where did you find that self-awareness?
I was always aware that it was pretty escapist – that doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun though [laughs]. I’m in the middle of this shit, and at the same time cognisant that I’m running from something, but I’m also young and not realising the potential for hurting myself and others.
What I wasn’t fully aware of was that the buck stops. I didn’t know that eventually the drugs would stop working, that I would only get a comedown. I was doing molly so much, so fucking much, that even thinking about it right now makes my spine shiver. I got to a point where there was no serotonin left in my brain. I couldn’t get high anymore, I could only get that suicide Tuesday comedown.
After the high place comes a big crash, and the song is written from that high place. Coming off my first tour in Europe, I was pretty manic. I’d been taking antidepressants that I cut cold turkey, and I was drinking so much, and snorting Adderall all the time. I was in a manic state and a creative state – this is when I was working on the album I was making originally, Traffic, and I didn’t know I was gonna crash so hard, you know?
By the time it happened I just didn’t know what to do. I quickly slipped into a deep, dark, depressive place, but this was all happening at the same time as record labels offering me a million dollars. So I’m trying to blow up, but I also wanna blow my brains out.
That’s when I realised, I’m over my head and I don’t know what to do. It wasn’t really until I started to make this album, and I cut all the drugs out of my life, that I really was able to look back and be objective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lS-nrikTwU
You’ve spoken a lot of empathy and I wanted to ask about Heaven on Earth, [the first verse is a letter from Vic to Dare, Vic’s friend, Killa Cam, who was murdered in Chicago, the second is from Dare in heaven to Vic, and the third is a letter from the murderer to Dare himself], the third verse in particular, in terms of finding empathy for Dare’s murderer.
I felt like I was just channeling that whole song from somewhere else.
After I wrote it I played it for one of Dare’s best friends, it was uncanny how close my imagined sequence of events was to the real sequence of events. I talk about a bottle of Hennessy, and his friend told me it wasn’t a bottle of Hennessy, it was a bottle of Jameson. And he did just leave the liquor store, he just didn’t go in the direction that I said. Once I realised I’d somehow tapped in, I felt like I was channeling something bigger than myself.
I was trying to be real about the situation in a way that could help me to move past it. For me to be holding hatred in my heart for the man that murdered my homie, that’s really only hurting me. Hate is an emotion that I really feel harms us more than the people we hate. That’s something I have to go to sleep with and wake up with.
I’ll probably never know the man that killed Dare, so it was necessary for me in my own personal journey to empathise, and turn his killer back into a human being, so I could let go of that pain and hatred.
I wanted to talk to you about rock music: you’re obviously a fan, in Heaven on Earth you’ve got Dare hanging with Kurt Cobain, Weezer feature on the album, other songs reference Sid Vicious and Dead Kennedys, Prince, etc. When did you first get into rock? What are you listening to these days?
I was definitely into rock ‘n roll before I was into hip-hop. When I was a little kid it was more, well, corny pop-punk like Yellowcard and Green Day, and then I got into hair metal bands like ACDC, Guns N Roses was my favourite band – Sweet Child Of Mine is still one of my favourite songs of all time. Then I got into Nirvana, they became my favourite band in like, fifth grade. Then I got into bands like Weezer around the same time I started listening to hip-hop. From there I got more into punk, I really, really fell in love with The Clash and The Sex Pistols.
Then I started listening to David Bowie and Prince, he’s one of the best fucking guitarists and singers of all time. The Descendants. Right now there’s a band, hardcore/hip-hop group Ho99o9, they’re fucking sick as fuck.
I’m always listening to Prince. But really, I would say now, The Clash is just my favourite band. They’re the best one.
So it must have been amazing to get to get Weezer on Homewrecker.
It was so dope, when I got into the studio with Rivers [Cuomo], he loved the song, he was just a really cool dude, he gave me his email and invited me to some of his shows.
It was dope for me, because I was really able to marry the two worlds of music that are my home base, and to bring some new ideas and sonics to hip-hop. I feel like ‘90s alternative rock is some shit that we haven’t really explored in hip-hop, and a lot of times those worlds are really close.
We’ve been a lot of places in hip-hop, but that’s definitely one place we haven’t spent much time in. I like pushing the envelope a bit and contributing to the culture with something fresh.
Given the personal nature of the album, did you spend much time considering how the audience would perceive or interpret it?
With this album I was not considering the people listening very much [laughs]. Not that I don’t appreciate it. I really gave a real window into some of my most personal experiences and emotions so if somebody listens to it and connects to it, that means the world to me, it’s not like it’s any random shit that I did, this is like, really, really big.
But in writing it, I was just trying to be as honest and accurate and thoughtful as possible, more than thinking about how it would be perceived or what a person listening would think. I was asking myself, did I get this concept right? Tthere are certain songs with a story I tried to tell multiple times and might have written three, four or five songs all about the same thing. I had to nail every concept. I had to bring it to its most foundational level, so that the narrative was complete.
Vic Mensa’s debut album The Autobiography is out now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ug-04B_Iqs&feature=youtu.be
Chicago’s Vic Mensa has announced his long-awaited debut album, The Autobiography, set for release later this month on July 28.
The 23-year-old Roc Nation rapper first came to attention with 2013’s Innanetape, and has since seen a remarkable shift in style, themes and delivery; to say he’s grown up before our eyes would be the understatement of the century (and a point of conflict for many of his fans). Last year’s tremendous There’s A lot Going On EP revealed a great deal of internal conflict, admission of mental health, substance abuse and relationship struggles among other issues, including external topics like police brutality and the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.
In case it wasn’t obvious that he’s grown up and changed, new single Wings announces the introduction of “Victor, not Vic Mensa, the one you never meet in a XXL issue.”
The Autobiography comes shortly after The Manuscript, a four-track “capsule” (aka EP) preempting the album by providing context about where he is in his life right now. One of its tracks will feature on the full album, Rollin’ Like A Stoner, a satirical anti-party anthem-that-sounds-like-a-party-song, not unlike Kendrick Lamar’s Swimming Pools (Drank). OMG ft. Pusha T and Rage have both been tacked on as bonus tracks, bringing the tracklist total to 15.
Giving the revealing nature of his last releases, on top of the album title, it’s likely that the album really will sound like an autobiography; expect real, detailed, personal stories about love, loss and life. “This is my blood sweat and tears,” he wrote in press release. “I’m so infinitely grateful to everyone that’s been here with me for the ride. A lot of you were down with me when I was going through some of the hardest parts of my life, and I wrote an album about them, my debut album. I got so much love for the people that support me and I really did this album for y’all. Based on a true story.”
The album is another notch on Roc Nation’s bulging belt this year. Executive produced by No I.D, who is currently enjoying some serious time in the spotlight thanks to his brilliant work on Jay-Z’s new 4:44, the album features a carefully selected guest list including The-Dream, Syd, Chief Keef, Joey Purp and even, bizarrely, Weezer.
Ahead of the album, Vic has also dropped a confronting new single, Wings ft. Pharrell Williams and Saul Williams. The song covers a really wide range of topics, assumedly preparing us for the heavy nature of the album.
Opening on a psychedelic instrumental that wouldn’t be ill fitting on Tame Impala’s latest record, he begs to be taken away from the drama surrounding him, commenting on the volatile nature of the rap game. From there he questions his own success and personal value, asking if his friends appreciate him, or the attention he gets. He speaks about his depression, drug addiction and suicidal behaviour, before ending on “Climb the tallest building and spread your wings”. The line – and the subsequent hook of “Jumping, jumping, jumping jumping, falling, falling, falling to the sky” could be interpreted a couple ways; spreading his wings and jumping could mean rising and succeeding, but it could also mean defeat, resignation, even death. It’s likely an intentional contradiction – one he clearly battles with often, and one we’ll hear a lot more of on The Autobiography.
Listen here via Apple Music or below via Spotify, and get excited.
Image: Frank Ockenfels III
It was Thanksgiving weekend recently in the United States and really, what better time than to join the fight against the potentially environmentally destructive and culturally catastrophic Dakota Access Pipeline? That was exactly how Chicago’s Vic Mensa spent his weekend when he joined the growing number of activists opposing the planned construction at the Standing Rock Native American reservation, this past Sunday afternoon and took to Facebook to help spread further awareness and hopefully ignite action.
On his Facebook Live stream, the rapper spoke about the need for unity against the proposed pipeline, which will undoubtedly result in the contamination of the Missouri River— the only source of water for the Standing Rock Reservation—as well as uproot sacred land and tribal burial grounds. Protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline began earlier this year and have drawn people from all throughout North America, creating the biggest gathering of Native Tribes recorded in the past 100 years. Joining the protests on Sunday afternoon, Mensa declared, “this needs to be a time of healing.” He made a call to arms, stating that at times like these, there needs to be solidarity.
https://www.facebook.com/VicMensa1/videos/1543260802357553/
He went on to tweet afterwards:
standing rock is BLM. standing rock is LGBTQ rights. standing rock is the latino struggle. all this shit is one
— vino (@VicMensa) November 28, 2016
standing rock is the most important struggle to support right now. what has been done to native americans for 500+ years cant continue
— vino (@VicMensa) November 28, 2016
This is not the first time the rapper has used his platform to speak about and get involved with issues of social, cultural and racial injustices. He has long been vocal about the Flint Water Crisis while this time last year he joined the Black Live Matter protests in Chicago. Just a few weeks ago, he dropped the video for his confronting track 16 Shots, which directly recounts the police killing of Laquan McDonald. Speaking about the song and the video (which he shared for the first time at a Justice For Flint benefit) in an interview with Complex, he said that “to me, Laquan McDonald represents Emmet Till, which represents every name down the line and since then a lot of things have changed, but one main thing [that] hasn’t changed is that our lives are not respected.”
Following the Pulse shooting in Orlando, Florida, Mensa recruited Halsey, Lil B and Le1f to produce Free Love. The nearly 6-minute track calls out the struggles of the LGBTQ community, making him one of a very few members of the hip-hop community to speak out following the shooting.
Protesters have been told that due to “safety concerns” federal officials plan to close the Standing Rock campsite on December 5th. Mensa plans to return to Standing Rock on December 4th and has urged fans and peers to do the same in a number of Instagram posts, saying that: “When one of our freedom is on the line all of our freedom is on the line. Fight for freedom.”
Image: Variance Magazine
Gifs: The Movement
In 2008, three police officers were acquitted of the murder of Sean Bell – who they had shot dead two years prior outside a strip club in Queens, New York, as he left his bachelor party the night before he was to be married. Despite firing over 50 bullets at Bell, who was unarmed, and wounding two of his friends, the officers were deemed not guilty in his shooting death. Following the verdict, rapper The Game responded with the song 911 Is A Joke (Cop Killa) – dedicating it along with his track My Life to Bell.
In a statement ahead of the track’s release, The Game said that he was “outraged and speaking out for my generation that are afraid to speak out against police brutality and murder… I grew in Compton and had to stay silent because of the fear that was prevalent in my community, but now that I have a voice I’m speaking out.” What he found, however, was that it became difficult to find artists who were willing to speak up with him. In recently resurfaced interview footage following the release of the song, the rapper is seen crying as he describes the disheartening experience of being unable to convince people to collaborate with him on the track for fear of speaking out: “I reached out to a lot of rappers and a lot of them… I just got … excuses. Nobody wanted to stand up… We don’t have a problem putting out a mixtape and dissing each other, but when it comes to the problems that affect us like police brutality, excessive force… Nobody wants to stand up for that.” As the interview progresses, he says that he doesn’t want to be a part of the hip-hop community anymore because no one wanted to be vocal anymore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWYyzCpHUDs&feature=youtu.be&t=1m55s
In the time since the interview, a number of artists have spoken out, be it through statements or music, on the issues facing black people in the United States, as well as throwing their support behind the Black Lives Matter movement. From TINK, Immortal Technique, Killer Mike, Talib Kweli, Kendrick Lamar, J Cole and more, the list is ever expanding, unfortunately prompted by the ever-expanding list of victims. Rappers and industry heavyweights are throwing their voices behind the movement, even calling out each other when it comes to ignorant and misguided comments or lack of involvement.
Recently, following the release of his video for 16 Shots, which details the graphic, violent shooting death of Laquan McDonald in 2014, Vic Mensa commented on Lil Wayne distancing himself from the movement when asked to comment by a Reddit user. “I think it’s a very ignorant, selfish and isolated position to take… even someone as big as Wane is just a black man minus all of his ice and fame, and can be treated the same way.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPWXOAYlgOc
Image: Billoard
It’s now been over a week since the new orange overlord of the free world was voted into power, and the backlash has hasn’t let up one bit. After his arresting Jimmy Kimmel performance just before the election, Vic Mensa has spoken out again, penning an open letter with a strong and familiar message to his fans and wider community.
Mensa wasn’t immune to the initial shock of the result, but identifies that this is an opportunity to inflict change in the movement.
“Then, when I woke up in the morning, I realized that this had to happen because we’ve been pacified by having Barack [Obama] in office. That pacification would have only continued by having Hillary elected.”
The Chicago-born rapper implores unity in fighting for a positive cause and a change in motivation behind all movements against oppression. Mensa goes on to say that this alteration to the revolution won’t happen “until we can regroup and re-identify the real issues in our society”
He cites the catch twenty-two of an imperialist and capitalist system that thrive on hatred and limiting the power of the masses.
“For us to make real change, we’re gonna need everyone and people of all different walks of life to recognize the part that they play and how these powers at hand affect them too. I feel like these ideas of racism, bigotry, xenophobia, Islamophobia and homophobia are so damaging to both the hater and the hated because having that type of energy on your heart and on your mind [is hard]”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAfr5cuJOxE&w=560&h=315]
Trumps campaign thrived on a message of ‘Yes, this is the answer to our problems!’, unfortunately the answer’s he has to offer are horribly misguided.
The 23-year-old’s poignant essay is summarised beautifully in a concluding paragraph that recognises positivity and a clear unified direction as the most necessary weapons in the fight against systematic oppression.
“We need to unify and decide what it is that we really believe in — that’s what we need to fight for. We can’t just fight against injustice. We gotta fight for justice.”
You can read Vic Mensa’s full essay here.
Image: Vic Mensa
Earlier this year, Chicago MC Vic Mensa released his powerful track 16 Shots. The track is about Chicago teenager Laquan McDonald, who was shot 16 times by police officer Jason Van Dyke in 2014.
On the eve of one of, if not America’s most controversial elections ever, Vic Mensa performed the powerful anti-police brutality track live on Jimmy Kimmel Live He was joined on stage by former Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker.
Mensa began the performance by going a capella to announce and emphasise the message of the song. He then jumped on stage, and while he performed, he engaged in a dramatic struggle against his back-up performers in police riot gear.
In the last minute of his performance Mensa stopped the music and used his platform to deliver a powerful and politically-charged message to everyone to get out there and vote tomorrow:
“I’m a young black man from Chicago, and I’m tired of not being able to trust the police. I want to have faith in the men and women sworn to protect me. I don’t want to see another 17-year-old kid like Laquan McDonald murdered in the street. So when I hear a candidate talking about ‘law and order’ and ‘stop and frisk is the answer to our problems’ – you don’t know our problems in Chicago, and you damn sure don’t speak for us. Tomorrow we have the biggest election of our lifetime, so you gotta get out and vote against hate, because Donald Trump is a racist and if you don’t vote, racism wins.”
Watch the full performance below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAfr5cuJOxE
Image: DJBooth
Chicago rapper Vic Mensa may have been sober for the last six months, but in a recent interview he opened up about a time when that wasn’t the case. Anyone who’s checked out Mensa’s EP There’s Alot Going On may have noted the lyric “I did acid in the studio one day and almost killed myself” on the title track. It turns out that particular line holds more truth than you might have thought.
Talking to the Phoenix New Times, Mensa clarifies that although he still has a drink of an evening, he has left drugs behind. Like a number of other artists, he describes how at an early point his career he was relying heavily on different substances to fuel his creativity; “It was really like a handicap, but I got to a point where I just felt like I needed drugs to write, to be creative, and thought it was psychedelic drugs.”
Asked directly about that lyric, Mensa confirms that the track was inspired by real events. Telling how his overuse of certain substances just caused him to have bad trips, he relates how he progressed to acid. “I was in the studio with some of my friends and we did acid and we started buggin’ out, somehow things just took a really negative turn. I just felt really low and at the bottom of it, and I was on the ground trying to sink into the floor.” He also told how he happened to have a toy pistol in his car, and in retrospect he is sincerely grateful that it wasn’t a real one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4VflaXIJCQ
Mensa confessed that that experience actually left him “scarred” for at least a year while he felt the depressing after effects of the bad trip. Saying that “I was just thinking about bridges and all that suicidal shit,” he goes on to imply that he would never touch acid again but he also puts his experience down to his state of mind as well as the drug itself.
It seems that Mensa is exploring more than just his previous drug addiction in his music, with themes of personal relationships and childhood across the album. Questioned about whether he’s worried about alienating fans with darker concepts in his music, he replied “No. I’m just worried about being real, making dope music, and it’ll reach the people that are ready for it, and hopefully make some of those who aren’t ready for it open their eyes and their ears and their hearts.”
Image: DJBooth
Rejoice: Vic Mensa has revealed that his as-yet-untitled debut LP is well on its way to being finished. The chronically-delayed project has undergone many setbacks, and in an exclusive interview with All Hip Hop, Mensa revealed that the most significant setback came from within.
We already know that the Chicago rapper isn’t a huge fan of hosting scores of huge guests on his work because of the personal nature of his songs. We also know he’s done some serious soul-searching and has opted to use his powerful voice to shine a light on important social issues, as evidenced in Free Love, where he addressed the Orlando massacre and LGBTQIA* rights as well as 16 Shots, which unpacks police brutality. Now he’s shared just how deep that desire to create art that is inherently meaningful goes: Mensa scrapped the title and most of the songs he wrote for his debut album in pursuit of something more.
Originally, the LP was slated to be called Traffic, with Mensa embarking on his Traffic Tour last year. Then something changed.
“I made an album and then I didn’t feel like it was the right representation,” he said, “So I started making a new album. That’s where the songs from There’s Alot Going On came out of. I would say it’s about 75% done.”
Vic Mensa referred to the songs he’s working on now as “very autobiographical”, an approach that worked exceptionally well for him on his There’s Alot Going On EP released last month. He describes this newfound philosophy as being “very therapeutic… like writing in the mirror”.
Mensa asserts that spreading awareness of various social issues is the key to overcoming them. “That’s why I say the things I say in my music, to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. So that people understand – the people from Chicago – I can help them through this shit.”
Read more: Mensa Calls Out Justin Timberlake In New Freestyle
Image: Vic Mensa/Instagram
If you remember a month back, Justin Timberlake got into a bit of strife following his slip up during his Twitter conversations regarding the BET awards. After acknowledging Jesse Williams’ powerful speech, the pop singer replied to a comment which snapped, “stop appropriating our music and culture.” Timberlake’s reply was the wrongfully so “we are the same,” a seemingly #AllLivesMatter response to the #BlackLivesMatter movement speech.
After that, Chicago rapper Vic Mensa chimed in, boldly saying, “Don’t tell us shit unless you show us you care,” alongside this,
“Our problem here is that Justin Timberlake himself–you know–is definitely benefiting from using black culture for his sound, his dance moves, his dancers, and blowing up off of it. But if you roll down Justin Timberlake’s Twitter for the past two years, which I just did, you see nothing that supports black people when it’s more difficult, when there’s a struggle.”
While Vic maintains he doesn’t hate the singer, nor did he intend to “bash” him in his speech, he has brought the subject back up with an exclusive BBC 1 Extra freestyle which builds on what Mensa started in late June. Rapping over Pusha T’s Numbers On The Boards, he delivers nothing short of fire, with his always impeccably-targeted lyricism revolving around race and police brutality, oh and this time JT as well.
“For the record: I ain’t got no problem with Justin Timberlake/That’s the media spin, don’t believe the shit they say,” he raps. “All I’m saying is you got niggas that love you/So show that love back, ’cause we’re here in the struggle.”
Vic Mensa’s EP There’s Alot Going On, which dropped just a few months ago, conveyed a lot of similar messages to his recent freestyles, with the world’s current social status obviously affecting the rapper quite dramatically. Check out the video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=KYc5lLkSN3w
Image: HypeTrak