How Vic Mensa is soundtracking a conflicted America

Vic Mensa has moved fluidly through styles, lyrical content and collaborators. From the pulsating, sinister basslines of Kanye collab “U Mad” to the clubland sing-songs of “Down On My Luck”, the Chicago-born rapper seems to have reached a point of musical peace just at the right time.

‘Peace’ might be the wrong word though, because Mensa’s at the forefront of the political and musical intersection. Mensa channels the anger and passion of a generation who know exactly who’s wronging them, and what they’re going to do about it, while also turning the critical lens on himself. His latest EP, There’s Alot Going On, traverses the racial tension of America with that of his own journey with mental health, community conflict, and drugs, its artwork depicting Mensa with a target on his chest. Meanwhile, recent song “Free Love” (dropped in June alongside New York and Chicago’s Pride weekend) features Le1f, Halsey, Lil B and Malik Yusef, and was constructed after a family member told him she was queer.

Though he’s just 23-years-old, Mensa is exploring the power of his voice and his actions: he recently pulled out of a performance when a venue tweeted racist sentiments, and the backlash closed the venue down. His EP is available to download for free if you register to vote, and he’s been pounding the pavement with his peers to prove Black Lives Matter. He's proving that streetlamp-shaking change can take place on the streets of Baton Rouge, in a freestyle, or with a 140-character tweet.

During his visit to London, Dazed spoke to the young artist who’s moved so freely from band life and Chicago streets to Roc Nation and world stages, shaping America’s social change and finding music to be his ultimate maker.

So you’ve been playing over in the UK, with Wireless as the international debut of your EP, There’s Alot Going On. 

Vic Mensa: That was really dope, it happened to be in the middle of a lot of turmoil back home, but I feel as if the whole world’s been grieving. I did a piece where I read an obituary list of names including Alton Sterling, Phillando Castille, Eric Garner, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, all the way down to Emmett Till before I played “16 Shots”. It’s dope being across the pond and seeing that it still resonates.

And “16 Shots” is quite a personal narrative for you to tell right?

Vic Mensa: Laquan McDonald was a high school kid, 17 years old, who was gunned down by a police officer in Chicago as he walked away. He put 16 rounds into him and the city withheld the video footage for a year so as not to derail Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s re-election (campaign). I heard about the release and got on the next flight there. The police were fighting us more than we were fighting them. They were arresting people, calling five-foot women ‘bitches’, pinning people with bikes and batons. It inspired me to write.

“Some artists who didn’t speak out before are now finding a voice because it’s repulsive to ignore. You play a part in making things better or you’re making it worse” — Vic Mensa

Being at the grassroots when these movements happen must be difficult to deal with emotionally and physically. How do you channel this into your songs, being so close?

Vic Mensa: That’s very natural to me; I felt very close to it all. Laquan was like a little brother to my best friend. In the case of Mike Brown or Tamir Rice, you know these are all kids that look like me in a picture. Channelling the struggle that they and their families face feels organic for me. I try to finish songs in one session, just to fully express the idea naturally. I wrote “16 Shots” though and ended up working on it for another month or two, just getting it totally right.

So there was a scheme that if people registered to vote they could get your EP for free. Why link voting to your music?

Vic Mensa: A kid named Nick who works with me was showing me an old DIY punk TV show called Why Be Something You're Not? that created a mailing list and they’d send a video of their own kind of anti-MTV show to share their message. I just had the idea to connect voter registration to it, and enforce my message: putting the power in the listener’s hands, as my music challenges the power structure that’s often corrupted.

So do you think it’s on musicians to socially and politically mobilise people?

Vic Mensa: I think it’s on people who care. I care – it’s on me. Some artists who didn’t speak out before are now finding a voice because it’s repulsive to ignore. You play a part in making things better or you’re making it worse. Music – especially rap – is one of, if not the biggest mediums that the black community has to further our place in society and free ourselves, so I think in rap music there is a responsibility, but not everyone assumes it ‘cause it's not everybody’s path.

What do you think then is next for the Black Lives Matter movement – where does it go from here for you? 

Vic Mensa: The Black Lives Matter movement needs specific solutions, like legislation, the establishment of an independent police review organisation, something elected that can move the needle closer to convictions and 100 per cent police accountability. The facts, videos, and vigils show that black people are guilty until proven innocent. Everyone has responsibility and our community has issues, but when we fight each other it's labelled black-on-black crime and we’re thugs and murderers – when a white kid goes and shoots up a school, it’s not white-on-white crime, he's mentally ill and misguided.

“Black Lives Matter is not a movement as much as it’s a true, emphatic statement; a self-evident truth” — Vic Mensa

You recently pulled a show from a Detroit venue (Populux) for tweeting a racist sentiment, and a lot of other artists followed suit.

Vic Mensa: Most of the world is really racist and Americans are just being exposed at alarming rates. ‘Make America Great Again’ is ‘Make America White Again’. Populux hurt me because Black Lives Matter is not a movement as much as it’s a true, emphatic statement; a self-evident truth. It’s going to hurt their pockets and that gets to the root of shit, impacting that fiscal flow ‘cause that’s what people respect over bodies.

You also touch on more personal struggles: your experiences with infidelity, mental health. It’s difficult for any artist to wade into very dark struggles, how do you perform with the close to the bone stuff?

Vic Mensa: Writing about painful times in my life is my way of coming to terms with them. So when I was recording a song “There’s Alot Going On”, it was almost like I was not so much rapping into a mic but into a mirror. I know that if it’s dope or important it makes me emotional, chills, crying. Making music is about finding me, more than your average rap shit and bragging about getting money. Drug dependency was one of the most difficult things for me to overcome. It meant I couldn’t have written the song a month before because I was still at the bottom. It was a statement in itself that I could even put pen to paper. I impress myself when finding pearls of wisdom and things that I could equate to the writing of philosophers I’ve read, like James Baldwin. 

How did “Free Love” with Halsey, Le1f and Lil B come about?

Vic Mensa: A family member of mine told me that she identified as queer. I always supported gay marriage and people doing what they thought was right, but it took that personal connection. I wanted to talk about through music but I didn’t think it sounded that fresh at first. Poppy Beats made me come back to it and I wrote a verse. My light director, who’s gay, was like ‘Pride parade is this weekend, you should put this out.’ Where I’m from, open homosexuality was not a part of my upbringing. I didn’t have gay friends, it’s frowned upon among young black men in the city, so just getting comfortable was a choice I had to make. It was dope when we performed at this gay club in Chicago, somewhere that at 15 I thought I’d never be. It was a good party.

“I didn’t feel very racial when I was a kid because my mum’s white and my dad’s African. I wasn’t really accepted fully by black kids, but then I would be the only one to get kicked out of a sleepover with all the white kids” — Vic Mensa

It’s an on-going process, especially as a young artist, to learn. What music did you grow up with?

Vic Mensa: I grew up with a lot of rock music like Nirvana, Guns and Roses, Smashing Pumpkins, Jimi Hendrix; my mom was listening to jazz like John Coltrane and Miles Davis. My uncle is a famous African highlife musician from Ghana, so I would listen to Highlife and World music. I didn’t get into hip-hop until later.

What was it like growing up in Chicago, but having that Ghanaian influence?

Vic Mensa: I didn’t feel very racial when I was a kid because my mum’s white and my dad’s African. I wasn’t really accepted fully by black kids, but then I would be the only one to get kicked out of a sleepover with all the white kids. I used to just want to be one or the other. When I got to 12, I started getting harassed by police and people are afraid of me, even though I’m a tiny kid and everyone thinks I’m trying to steal up the Chinese beauty supply store. I was like ‘Okay, I’m black’ and then ran with that, and I’m glad ‘cause I love black people. Black Americans are just one of the most interesting, creative, astounding races on Earth. So many pieces of modern pop culture have an origin in an African-American culture.

You recently clarified comments you made about Justin Timberlake and cultural appropriation, but the sentiment about mainstream culture’s co-option of black culture is still so prevalent. 

Vic Mensa: There was a lot of media manipulation, but there’s been so much going on in the black community and I think artists that work with so many black artists should use their platform to support. People listen to my music and then have the audacity to come sideways at Black Lives Matter. It’s like watching basketball and they are like ‘Oh, they’re basketball players, they’re not thinking about the fact that they’re really black people’ and that’s how they see us as musicians, where our struggle isn’t as explicit. Justin tweeted something about Alton Sterling so I think he might have heard me. It was never a slight on him though.

What do you think about the nuances of social media? It’s a mobilising weapon, but also something that desensitises a lot of people.

Vic Mensa: I think social media is pushing civil rights further than anything since Martin, Malcolm, and Huey in the 60s – it makes things undeniable. You can’t tell us that Alton Sterling pulled a gun on the police. You can’t spin that story on us now and you can’t tell us that Philando Castile deserved to be shot in front of his girlfriend and his daughter in his car. I think it can be a little bit damaging at times because (things) become trending and fleeting topics, but I think the good far outweighs the bad in relation to this movement.

“I think social media is pushing civil rights further than anything since Martin, Malcolm, and Huey in the 60s – it makes things undeniable. You can’t tell us that Alton Sterling pulled a gun on the police” — Vic Mensa

Is there a bit disparity between your older stuff and what’s coming with the next album?

Vic Mensa: It’s coming this year; it’s at about 70 per cent. The narrative is there, but I’m tweaking. I’m excited because putting together the EP, I knew more or less how people would gravitate to: “16 Shots” and “Shades of Blue”. There’s no real party tracks, it’s all to-the-core. I’m glad that’s what people gravitated towards; I know I’m heading in the right direction. I think I’m more alike to my first releases than in between. At 16, I was always rapping about the shit I saw out of my window in Chicago, but now I’ve more experience. I used to talk about fucked up girlfriends in my life back then and I guess I do that now. I don’t think I have a penchant for tragedy, there's comedy in there too, but it’s heavy.

What’s the plan when you arrive back home?

Vic Mensa: Heading to Baton Rouge ASAP. That’s why I’m going home, I was going to be here the whole time but I got to cut it short. I’m salty about that, but I have to touch the ground.