State Champ Radio Vic Mensa
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Name: Vic Mensa
Occupation: Rapper/Activist
Location: Chicago
How We Know Him: Signed to JAY-Z’s Roc Nation, the 26-year-old proudly reps his hometown musically and culturally.
Why We Chose Him: Never one to mince his words, Vic is never afraid to bring attention to the socio-economic issues plaguing Chicago, and the nation, while also doing something about it.
What’s Next: Via his Save Money Save Life organization he plans to train 11,000 kids as street medics, he’s giving out shoes in the community and still pumping out music.
IG: @vicmensa
In mid-September, Public Enemy’s frontman and activist for the culture, Chuck D, sent a tweet out into the world. He didn’t use many characters but his message was firm and direct: “Support @VicMensa.”
Vic Mensa, 26, has fans from all walks of life. In 2013, he dropped his first solo mixtape Innanetape. Since then, he’s worked with everyone from Pusha T to Chance the Rapper and of course, Kanye West. Perhaps one of the characteristics that Mensa’s most famous for is his ability to evolve without much explanation. Most recently, he dropped a rock album with Travis Barker on the drums, titled Punx93. The LP shares its name with Mensa’s clothing line which recently hosted a show at New York Fashion Week this fall. When he speaks about his pieces, his voice rises and falls passionately.
“The gritty reality of Chicago is something that I express through 93PUNX, although you may not automatically associate that with rock & roll fashion, at the end of the day it’s street culture,” Vic Mensa tells Hip-Hop Wired.
He adds, “93PUNX is the brainchild of myself and Conrad Muscarella. We both grew up skateboarding and attribute a lot of our sensibilities and style to that culture. We tried to incorporate people of all shades and backgrounds in our look book to show that this clothing and movement is really for everybody, black, white, Latinx, straight, trans & everything else! We wanted to recreate the energy of the legendary New York club CBGB. It was so amazing seeing everything come together in the way that it did.“
Mensa has remained open to growth, both musically and on a personal level, especially as it relates to community efforts. His SavemoneySavelife foundation is dedicated to fighting racism and injustice in the States and Vic Mensa is no one’s figurehead. Two weeks before Chuck tweeted his 16 characters of public praise, the rapper made good on his word and popped up in Los Angeles to perform an Anti-ICE concert from the flatbed of a truck.
Currently, his non-profit, alongside NFL player Nick Kwiatkoski, is collecting shoes for a drive later this fall, meant to benefit Chicago youth who’ve been affected by the city’s gun violence and homelessness. “I do the things I do in Chicago because the city gave me so much,” he tells Hip Hop Wired. “I understand that it’s only right to return the support. Chicago means everything to me, it is the soil that grows my creative expression, the foundation of my being.”
The sneaker event, in its second year, is aptly titled The Anti-Bait Truck—not to antagonize but to make a lucid point regarding the Chicago Police Department and their alleged willingness to entrap the disenfranchised.
“One of my primary goals with my non-profit organization moving forward is providing free mental health services for people in the community,” Mensa shares. “We’ve been working with a school in the city called Camelot that takes all the long term suspension and expulsion students, so I am aiming to hire med students to provide therapy in school for these kids.”
If nothing else, Vic Mensa is a musician who rides for his city, against small-minded comments from internet DJs and politicians alike. He’s vocal about holding Chicago close to his heart and is planning innovative movements promoting change while talking heads on TV make the city’s woes, their bullet points. His day one fans have had to accept that Mensa won’t fit into anyone’s set limitations, and why should he? There isn’t much growth to be had from inside a box.
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Check out more honorees from iOne Digital’s The Creative Class.
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The heated beef between Chicago rapper Vic Mensa and host DJ Akademiks is now squashed, as each cites their personal growth as the main reason.
On Monday (September 18th), the “Feel That” rapper appeared on the latest episode of the Off The Record podcast hosted by the DJ and media personality who slyly announced it in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter: “So… I Sat Down with Vic Mensa Again after our last explosive encounter in 2017.”
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The episode was a surprise to many who recall the beef between the two being seriously savage. It began in 2017 as Vic Mensa appeared on Complex’s Everyday Struggle which Akademiks hosted alongside Joe Budden. He took offense to Akademiks’ coverage of drill rappers in his hometown of Chicago, going directly at him for “sensationalizing” the violence. “I wanted to slap you in your face, honestly,” Mensa said at the time. “And I’m just seeing you here. I’m like, this is a tame environment, so I will keep it to my words.”
This time around, he spoke about the reason why he was so upset. “In all honesty, I was coming from a place of pain man,” Vic Mensa said. “Tray 57, who I knew as Nigel that I grew up with, he went in the direction that he did and he became a drill artist.” He continued: “He was always gangbanging and when he passed away, I learned about it on your platform the next day. You know, it was peppered with certain judgments and insults.”
For his part, Akademiks reflected on his actions at the time later in the episode, admitting to being “insensitive” to the violence in Chicago at that time and how it was affecting people. He also took accountability for having a role in “inciting” more of those issues through his The War In Chiraq YouTube channel and confessed that ego played a part in his not doing so earlier.
Vic Mensa and Akademiks spoke at length – over two hours – discussing that past conflict and also the nagging perception that drill rap and Hip-Hop culture overall has been trying to shrug off. Mensa also talked about the process of creating his new album, Victor.
Check out the entire episode above.
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Vic Mensa continues his track record of giving back to the city that made him, this time turning his attention to the unhoused individuals across the metropolis. Joining with activist Englewood Barbie, the Chicago rapper slept on his hometown streets in support of the homeless and a new fundraising effort to build a homeless shelter.
TMZ reports that Vic Mensa and Englewood Barbie gathered in a tent camp under a viaduct on Tuesday (Feb. 28) with temps going down into the 30s on the final night of February. The pair launched a new campaign that hopes to raise $1 million to go toward the building of a new homeless shelter for those currently housed in the camp.
“We outside tonight in Chicago sleeping under the viaduct, raising money to help my homegirl Englewood Barbie to build her own housing to provide shelter to the unhoused people of Chicago,” Mensa says in a clip from the fundraiser.
Check out videos of Vic Mensa and Englewood Barbie speaking at the event below.
The link to the fundraiser, which has raised over $126,000 thus far, can be found here.
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Photo: Gilbert Carrasquillo / Getty
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Vic Mensa went deep in depth about solidifying his spirit, and the beef he had with DJ Akademiks in the past, via a new interview.
The Chicago native sat down for a lengthy profile with Paper, in which he spoke heavily about his creative and personal journey to this point. Going back to Ghana, where his father’s family still resides, has been vital. “I’ve been able to build some pretty phenomenal things using that privilege and treat it as an opportunity to play that role to be the bridge between Black America and Africa,” Mensa said.
While the There’s A Lot Going On artist has been striving towards bettering himself on all fronts, he did touch upon a recent moment where a clip where he publicly called out media personality DJ Akademiks for exploitation of the Chicago drill scene and violence re-emerged. Mensa said it came from a personal connection.
“Because a kid that I grew up with and went to karate with when we were five years old ended up being a street n***a, gang banging, et cetera. He was also a very talented rapper. When he got killed, there was music involved, there were big drill artists involved, and I heard about it on Akademiks’ parasitic platform. So that’s why I was upset,” he said.
Mensa prefaced that by speaking at length about the differences between the emerging drill scene in Ghana and what already exists in Chicago. “Their music largely reflects their realities, which are not the same as American drill realities. Ghana is a very peaceful place. People don’t get killed like that. There’s a lot of struggle though, so their music is rooted in struggle,” he remarked.
The former Ye collaborator also spoke about his commitment to sobriety, which helped him confront various moments in his past and recalibrate his relationships. He also talked about how he’s come to accept being labeled a conscious rapper: “I can never be mad at the idea of being a conscious rapper. The truth is just that I’m a multifaceted person.”
Vic Mensa also spoke about his foray into punk music, and how he and Chance The Rapper linked up along with Erykah Badu and other artists to organize and perform at the Black Star Line Festival that took place in January.
—Photo: Momodu Mansaray / Getty
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Vic Mensa is not new to using his platform to help the less fortunate and does so once again for natives of his father’s homeland. The Chicago rapper is heading a major effort to bring drinking water to his ancestral village in Ghana by way of his nonprofit.
Vic Mensa, 29, shared in a statement from a story published by Billboard that his nonprofit, Let Them Drink Water, will bring clean drinking water to his family’s village and other surrounding areas.
“We’re building 3 Boreholes in different communities in Ghana to provide clean drinking water; the first being the Asokore Zongo in Koforidua where my family lives, which is already built. The other locations are a nearby community called Efiduase and then our ancestral village in the Volta Region Amedzope,” Mensa offered in that statement. “Most people in communities like this in Ghana experience constant water borne diseases.”
Mensa is gearing up to perform at the Black Star Line Festival, which takes place in Accra, Ghana on Jan. 6 and features fellow Chicago stars Chance The Rapper and Jeremih, along with T-Pain, Erykah Badu, M.anifiest, and more. Proceeds from the festival will go towards building the boreholes, which cost $15,000 each to build.
Salute to Vic Mensa for his efforts to bring clean water to Ghana, and best wishes to him and the rest of the performers.
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Photo: Jamie McCarthy / Getty
Vic Mensa (and his dad) are bringing clear water to their homeland.
Born Victor Kwesi Mensah, the Chicago-made rapper and creative remembers his roots, capitalizing on his success and resources to bring a better quality of life for his fellow Ghanaians through access to clean water. Mensa visited his ancestral village alongside his father who was born in Ghana and heads a non-profit called Let Them Drink Water, and bore witness to the community’s severe water contamination issue. The pair decided to develop a solution, by building a new Borehole — a manual pump which provide clean water, but are unfortunately rare across Africa. After one successful borehole that brought access to water for hundreds of thousands, Mensa decided to build two more in nearby villages.
“We’re building 3 Boreholes in different communities in Ghana to provide clean drinking water; the first being the Asokore Zongo in Koforidua where my family lives, which is already built. The other locations are a nearby community called Efiduase and then our ancestral village in the Volta Region Amedzope,” Mensa said in a statement. “Most people in communities like this in Ghana experience constant water borne diseases.”
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To help fund the boreholes that can cost up to $15,000 each to build, Mensa partnered with the Black Star Line Festival taking place in Accra Ghana on Jan. 6. The festival will feature performances from Mensa, Chance the Rapper, Erykah Badu, T-Pain, Jeremih, Sarkodie, Tobe Nwigwe, Asakaa Boys and M.anifest. “This festival is about connecting Black people of the globe,” he told TMZ in an interview. “Beyond all of those colonial boundaries. It’s something that has been on my mind for a long time.”
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