Vic Mensa Is Using his 24 Hours a Day

This year saw Mensa jumping into the fashion collaboration game with Wolverine, the speech circuit at Harvard and Princeton, the non-profit world with his SaveMoneySaveLife foundation, the Hollywood spotlight with a guest spot on Rel, and the op-ed writing game with a piece in, naturally, Time magazine. Oh, he also just dropped a brand-new EP, Hooligans, last week. So, when the multi-talented artist says that 24 hours in a day is not enough, you know he means it. “But, yeah, I make it stretch.”

What makes Mensa rare isn’t that he’s a busy guy, it’s that he’ll put everything on hold to make a real connection with someone. Even within our technologically-impaired call, he calls back several times—nearly every answer ending with “you know?” He wants to make sure that you’re on his same level.

This desire for a deeper connection runs through all of Mensa’s creative outlets, and it’s especially present in the eclectic features list that runs through Hooligans. There are only eight tracks on the EP and each guest—from The Neighbourhood’s Jesse Rutherford to Ty Dolla $ign—is thoughtful. “I feel like with rap albums today, it’s all about who you get on it,” says Mensa, thinking about his own features. “I try to make music with people whose stories I understand—who I know personally and who I have a real relationship with. So, you’ll see that everybody I collaborate with in general and, you know, particularly on this tape, I have some common ground with.”

“The 1 That Got Away/No Shoes,” one of the stronger tracks on Hooligans, highlights Mensa and Charlie Wilson’s friendship based on honesty and understanding. While most know Wilson as the legendary soul singer and former leader of The Gap Band (or maybe you’d recognize his voice as the hook on Kanye West’s “Bound 2”), Wilson’s history of drug addiction, homelessness and recovery is what brought him into Mensa’s world. “We did a panel on mental health in hip hop a couple years back…and I really learned about his story and connected with him through that experience,” Mensa says about his friendship with Wilson. “I was just so inspired by him and learning all of those things that he had been through, so I just stayed in contact with him.”

Mensa’s strength is how passionate he is—about his art, his beliefs and his community. “I make music for the reason of primarily trying to express myself, my life and situation: what I experience,” he explains. “When I was doing The Autobiography, my approach was very much like an author trying to tell one singular story…My main goal was to tell it in as much vivid, detailed descriptions as possible. [Hooligans] was definitely made less intentionally than that. It’s not one continuous thread, its more so different records that I made throughout the year and liked…[these records] represented certain energies I wanted to express.” The result is a hook-filled EP on the fun side of Mensa’s discography, but still full of the same reality checks that run deep throughout his career. “There’s always some revolutionary aspect to the shit I’m talking about [in my records],” he says. “There’s always something speaking about mental health, addiction, depression and shit like that. I oftentimes will touch, in one way or another, upon violence and just aggression because it’s just been a part of my life.”

Mensa has also been diving into his social work to unite fellow Chicagoans who have had similar childhoods and experiences. “I try to always make sure that I spend time doing things for the community because that’s what I’m supposed to do,” he says about the SaveMoneySaveLife foundation. “I’m a man of the community and that’s my duty—to be a protector of my people—so that’s always something that I have time for.” Even though Mensa has moved to Los Angeles, the Silver Lake neighborhood specifically, his commitment to the city of Chicago is strong. “I guess being a bit older, yes, my relationship with the city has changed in that I have more resources and I’m able to do more to help the city and support the city in any reciprocation for all the support the city has given me.”

Through programs like the Anti Bait truck, which gave free shoes to children who were targeted as part of a police “bait truck” sting operation this summer, and Street Medics, a program that Mensa’s foundation has started to train civilians as trauma and mental health first responders in Chicago, SaveMoneySaveLife has become an vital part of his hometown. “We’ve got hundreds of kids trained already and we’re focusing on expanding that program, you know, rapidly.”

And while music is still the strongest thread that runs through Mensa’s life, community building and other ways to connect to people through art have started to inspire him lately. “I guess the actualization of giving back and making that a priority of mine in my actions, that’s something that I feel is more recent because I didn’t have the resources to do things like that before. In general, I always wanted to impact people with music the way that 2Pac impacted me. That goal and dream hasn’t changed. I’ve developed other goals and dreams, too, like being a fashion designer and expressing my art in that way.”

2019 will find Mensa doubling down on honing his many crafts, especially fashion. “Growing up in the hood and wearing skinny acid wash jeans and big, bright, fucking sneakers, sweatshirts and shit, niggas definitely looking at you sideways,” he says with a laugh. “Then, you fast forward and the same styles that I was wearing when I was in high school—the little fucking pants and all that shit—that shit is what niggas in the hood are wearing now!” Mensa’s been “messing with” his clothes since the early SaveMoney days and wants to take that to the next level. His eclectic inspirations of rock music and high fashion has put him in the unique position to change the tide of hip hop fashion again—especially with a new punk album on the way.

Most importantly, though, Mensa is excited to continue his journey of self-improvement: “I’ve always been extremely confident and also very self-deprecating. I have a lyric in the punk album that I’m working on (that’s coming out like next year hopefully in the spring) where I say, ‘My greatest contradiction is to be so narcissistic and to be so pessimistic at the same time.’ I’ve always been 100 percent extremely full of myself and, also, been my biggest enemy.” Instead of getting bogged down in that anxiety, Mensa has been teaching himself about the power of positive thinking: “It’s all about perspective. [Life] is however you want to look at it. If you wake up in the morning and you remind yourself of the very real facts that you’re infinitely blessed. I was woken up this morning to be alive.”

Once again, he takes a few of those precious moments in his packed 24 hours to contemplate his existence and what a miracle that is. “Being alive, being 25 years old, waking up and having resources, having a voice, having a roof over my head, having enough food to eat. [It’s] all blessings. Niggas just gotta keep reminding yourself.” With everything that Mensa is involved in, it’s impossible to forget.