The Press Box - Vic Mensa on ‘The Autobiography,’ Sobriety, and Empathy (Ep. 336)

Episode Date: July 28, 2017

The Ringer’s Micah Peters sits down with rapper Vic Mensa to discuss his upcoming album ‘The Autobiography’ (0:30), becoming sober while battling depression (4:40), forgiving the man who killed his friend (10:00), and working with producer No I.D. (16:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hello, my name is Michael Peters, and I'm a staff writer with The Ringer, and this is a special edition of the Channel 33 podcast. I'm here with rapper Vic Minza. How you doing today, man? Yo, what's up? So, around the release of the manuscript, you went to Real Talk 92.3, and you were talking about the upcoming album, the autobiography out on Friday, July 28th. And you said that it was going to be more personal. And on the first song, which samples this Dorando record called Dittina,

which I only know that because I saw it in a Breaking Bad episode. I think that's where the producer Smoko Ono saw it, too. Seriously? Yeah. That one scene where he, like, puts the thing in the hood of the car. I haven't seen the scene. You haven't seen it? I knew the song already because my boys, the omize, a really dope band from Chicago.

that's the version that you hear right at the beginning of the record. They've been playing that song for like 10 years in their live concerts. So that's how I knew of the song. I always thought it was their song, actually. Oh, really? Yeah. So did, was it Smoker that told you that it was actually Dorando that sang it? I mean, I wasn't surprised, you know, because I kind of thought it could be a cover,

but I had never heard the original, I don't think. I think I had only heard their version. And when I came back and they had the, they had the, they had to, the beat going, smoke going poppy beats, I was just like, oh, we got to get the omize version because, you know, they've been playing this song forever. So my boy Carter Lang, who also worked on the song, didn't I? And it's in the band, Omis, was able to find like an ill live recording to them doing it. And I thought it was like a perfect opening to the song. Yeah, absolutely. You talk a lot about like near escapes on this album. And also a lot about your mental

state at various points throughout your life. I mean, it's very brave in that regard, especially with the fact that pride is kind of the primary ethos and rap music and depression is still somewhat stigmatized, except for like, say, say in 2014 you had Earl sweatshirt, Kendrick, Future, Heems, all rapping about depression, stewarding the idea at some length on their albums. Like, take, for instance, Cody and Crazy is not a song for happy people. It's one of my favorite songs by Future, man. That is my favorite future song, yeah. Yeah.

So who are you on this, on the autobiography? Because you've been of several different people in the last couple years. Just me on the autobiography. And that's why it's the autobiography, you know. In all the years from making the Internet tape while I was making that up until I made the autobiography, I was going so many different places, you know, first of all, because I was growing up and kind of trying to find myself,

but I was also, like, deeply dependent on drugs and in a really dark place for basically the whole time, you know? I could be a pretty dark person, but you multiply that with, like, serious substance abuse, and oftentimes a person can forget who they are. That's really what happened to me. So I'm progressively coming into more and more attention and notoriety and more money while also kind of straying further away from who I am and what I believe in. So I'm out here in Europe, you know, like while and out performing for

thousands of people doing music that I just don't believe in, you know? I just didn't want to say I feel that. I was empty. I was empty making that music and I was just like having a lot of trouble seeing the sun and feeling a loss of responsibility to the bigger ideas that really define me as a person. I'm a person that I was reading Malcolm Max and Huey Newton when I was 16. My first tattoo is free Huey and a black panther on my shoulder, you know. I was reading Michio Kaku string theory when I was 17. And I just, I'm a thinker, you know, and I came into rap to make people think. So as I started to kind of come into some fame or whatever you would call it,

and a lot of fucking drugs and just like depression, the music straight, away from my home territory, which is like real honest, thoughtful music. And I stopped doing drugs. I have a girlfriend that, you know, was selfless enough to look past all of the pain that I had caused her from a place of pain myself to push me to get better, you know, and make me fucking talk to a therapist and, you know, seek real help. and I quit doing drugs. I was like January 2016

and fast, like five days later, you know, February 2016 is when I started writing this album and it all started to come back to me. You know, I was like forgetting that it was possible to wake up in the morning not thinking about how much I dread, like being on earth another day or go to sleep without thinking about killing myself, you know.

I forgot that it was possible to not be 24-7 suicidal. And when I stopped doing drugs and, you know, went to therapy and psychiatry, I found focus again, clarity just to be just me, writing these songs with no external influence, no weed, no fucking alcohol. I wrote this entire album, like, 100% sober. and just came back to being myself, you know, felt like me again. I didn't feel like me when I was so dark and like just kind of making pointless music.

I didn't feel like myself. I felt like really weird, really strange. And so to answer your question though, who I am on this album, you know, clearly it's just me being me because I didn't make up any of these stories. I'm just telling the truth of my stories. So I guess it's up to somebody else. who listens to it to decide who I am,

but I'm going to tell you how I became the way I am and what happened. Yeah, you do face a lot of those things very directly. Like, say, speaking to the drug addiction, like directly on spread your wings, I think it was. Yeah, wings. Yeah. There's just like this radical honesty on the album.

Like, say, for instance, heaven on earth, where you talk about the, killing of your friend from three different perspectives, yours, your friends from heaven, and the killers, which I thought was remarkable. I mean, like, how do you go through that, like, what was the process of writing a song like that? You know, that song was really easy to write, actually, because once I got to this point where I started writing this album, it all just started coming out of me. It had been repressed in me for so long. I remember I had a conversation with my therapist a couple months before I started writing the album.

The album's writing took place between February 2016 and February 2017, basically. I was having a conversation with my therapist maybe in even maybe the summer before that or it might have been January. It might have been cold outside. I can't remember, but it was before February 2016. And I had an album that I was working on. It was called Traffic. And I was telling him like, man, I can't fucking.

I can't do this album, man. It's fucking dark and it's guilty. And it's so self-loathing and just like it was where I was at. You know, it was like where I was at. And I was like, I want to make, you know, and we're walking down the street. And there was like some girl that maybe I liked her or I saw her and she said something to me. It was just something like small, you know, get a girl's number on the street. thing or whatever.

And it was just like some fucking charismatic like me as a person. I was like, yo, I want to make music like that like fucking like me as a person. Like I'm a funny person. Like I'm passionate. I'm emotional so I could be dark as fuck. But I could also be, you know,

very buoyant and alive and shit. And I was like, I got, it's killing me inside that I'm, that my music doesn't reflect me as a person. And so once I got to the point of February 2016, where I had cut the drugs out of my life and I was really like

taking care of myself all of these stories just started coming out of me so I had had a concept for a while to make a song that the concept I had written down was conversations with Dare because Dare is Cam who is the man killed in heaven on earth and when I started writing a song

I heard the beat from Smoko and Poppy Beats and I heard the sample and it said this could be heaven right here on earth. And I was like, immediately I knew that this was the canvas for that concept. And when I write songs, I'm like really tense and shit. So I'm just like chain smoking cigarettes, like pacing back and forth in this room. And I don't write things down. But I wrote that song really fast just because it had to come out of me, you know?

And then I had the first two verses and I showed it to my girlfriend. and she was like you should do a third verse from the perspective of the killer, which was just an ill fucking idea, you know? Yeah, you never really hear people getting like you, I mean, the, my dead friend is speaking back to me from beyond the grave thing is a thing that happens fairly often in rap, but like you rarely ever see the person on the other side of the gun humanized in that way, I guess. I think that a major thing about this album and a major,

emotion that I wanted to convey was empathy. I believe that that's what's missing. You know, that's the missing link right now in humanity. And the reason why we're experiencing such turmoil and widespread just chaos and destruction and hatred is because human beings in all societies are being misled to identify. identify more with their differences than their similarities. And like being spun around and having a veil put over their eyes so they don't see another man of another color or another creed as alike to them and as a brother and

empathize with their pain. So when I wrote that third verse, I wanted to explore what could be happening in this man's life that took him, that pushed him to take my man's life, you know, because the violence in Chicago is often simplified into just numbers, statistics, and savage black people out of control, you know? Basically, in that third verse, I wanted to humanize the killer, man. You know, you never, you never think about it like that. Like, the way that we're giving the news is always, like, this mean man.

in a mugshot, you know? And at the end of the day, inside that mean, man, like somewhere there's like a hurt-scared little boy. And I wanted to explore that hurt-scared, desperate part of my friend's killer to be able to forgive, man, you know, move past it because that's what we can't do. It's like fucking, that's honestly the situation

in Chicago and a lot of people don't realize is that you have this vicious cycle because there's bodies behind it and like he will never stop hating them because they killed his brother. And I don't want to be chained to hatred. I don't want to have to hate this man because he killed my big brother. And I don't want to have that burden on my back. So I want to see, you know, what's human about him. So maybe I could get him. get past it, I could let it go. And that's what the song Heaven on Earth was for me. That is a lot.

But just to give the listeners the sense that this is not like completely morbidly serious all the way throughout. Like you have fun on the record. Like you have a lot of fun. Like it seems like you have the most fun rapping on OMG with Push a T. I mean like it's this kind of a beat that Farrell pulled from like his gangster girls days. It's like very like it has the low growling guitar riff. And I mean like you're talking about hopping out of foreign cars with dirty vans and stuff like that.

Was that just, you know, I'm having, I just was having fun in the studio when this happened or? Well, I made OMG and Wings like basically in the same session with Forrell. One day we made OMG and then the next day we made Wings. we made wings. So really, of all the music that he played me the first day, that was just the one I gravitated to the most. There was another record we were messing around with, but then my man Malik Yousaf came in the studio

and I was like, you know, listen to this verse that I just wrote for this one. And it was cool, but I wasn't really into it. And then I had the other beat, though. You know, I had them both on the drive. And I was like, all right, listen to this one. And it came on. and so Wu-Tang and it's like so just gully.

And he was like, what? You know, we gotta do that one. And then, you know. He was on concrete. Yeah, just started spitting and just having fun with it. And, you know, I like, I'm a lyricist, honestly. And that's like what's enjoyable for me is putting it together. That's like the most fun that I could have.

And so I wanted to include that song as a bonus track on the album, not on the album proper because the actual album, I felt every song had to be a part of the narrative, you know, because it's like it references itself and it's, you know, really live and breathing and it's a journey. And I wanted to make sure that I stayed within that journey. And I didn't pick my head up.

And I wasn't really, I wasn't there as a rapper so much as I was there, like, as an author, just observing my own. own life and speaking about it. I didn't want to be there as like a, you know, materialistic. Like, I'm fucking doing these things. I got bitches and, you know, and all the things that I eloquently say in, oh my goodness. Yeah. Like those, that's not the concept or the content for this album. Yeah. The album, like, just to make a plaintiff statement, just sounds really good. Thank you, man. No idea a lot. Yeah. Right. What is,

What was the process like? No ID. I chased no ID down. I was like, let's not even act like this was an easy thing. I was like, no ID, you're going to produce this shit. You're going to executive produce this shit. And I chased them down for some months. No ID is like the sculptor.

You know? It's like I draw the blueprint and find the stones and bring them to no ID. and he's like chipping away but he'll leave he'll just do it outline and be like okay now fill in the face you know yeah but no ID really helped me

make it a cohesive album and focus not dwell too much on any particular part of this story you know there were a lot more records there were other records that were also autobiography records and and really spoke to things but maybe I doubled up on

certain parts of the concept and kind of took it places that I didn't need to within this idea. And no ID was very instrumental in telling me everything he didn't like. You know what I mean? It took a long time before he even liked anything. But, you know. Like you go through an idea? He's like, no. I don't like that one.

But it's for the best, really. and honestly, like, no idea's approach is just, it's scientific, you know. I mean, it's also very passionate and emotional and just and heartfelt, but it comes with a lot of information, you know, the way that, like, a piano player can sit down at the keys and just improvise, but does know the scales of fifths and diminished and dominant and augmented, You know, they know these things. They might not sit down and fucking, like, think about it.

But that's how I know ideas with production is that, you know, he goes off of a feeling and an energy. But, you know, he knows about, like, changing, we change certain songs, like, rolling like a stoner used to be. I feel like the music sounded like kind of, it was like more rocky. It sounded a little bit like some kid cuddie or something. And he was like, we should change that to the relative minor and switched it. He completely remade the beat. It was 100% a different beat.

And he was like, we should take the relative minor key and make this darker and speed it up a little bit. And Did and I was a record that had like hip hop drums. And he was like, we should take this halftime. So it's just like approaching the songs as a song. You know, I think in hip hop producer often gets thought of as just like a guy that like bangs on a drum machine and then leaves it, right,

and then a rapper comes in and wraps and that's it. But our process was a lot more collaborative and very musical. You know, there's a lot of instrumentation on this album. Pretty much all the synthesizers and stuff is like real outboard shit and, you know, just messing around having fun with pedals. And like he's a gearhead. Like No ID has all the fucking, he's got all the Rollins. He got all the Juno, Jupiters, Moogs, and Oberheims, and fucking every single.

He's got every single box, you know what I mean? Like every box, keyboard, and instrument. And so not only did he bring a critical and reimaginative, imaginative is a word, so maybe you're reimaginative perspective. Just bringing fresh eyes to the same problem. And he also brought just like all the fucking tools, you know, and the players. Well, I mean, like, you know, there's not really too many better people to have when you are trying to convey a point clearly and effectively.

And he's from the south side of Chicago, you know. So it's like we speak the same language. And really, he's like one of my biggest influences anyway because common was my favorite. a rapper growing up. So one day it all makes sense and resurrection and can I borrow a dollar. Those are my motherfucking joints. What else were you listening to while you were during the recording process? Well, I was recording this album.

Well, when I was dealing with a bunch of just drama, street shit in Chicago, like in the middle of it, I was listening to Straight Mob Deep, just like on repeat. Marvin Gaye, what's going on? That's definitely Yeah, Marvin G. What's Going on is a record that I was listening to a lot. I was listening to some Frank Sinatra and Stevie Wonder.

Hove. Definitely listening to Hove. Definitely listening to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Nas. Illmatic. Yeah. Prince. Tide Dollar Sign.

Free T.C. We were definitely listening to horses in the stable. You know that it's written by a woman? By my home girl, Tish. Yeah, Tish is my girl. I love Tish, man. She's so dope.

She's amazing. Well, I appreciate you taking this time out today to talk to me. Thank you, man. This has been a special edition of the Channel 33 podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name is Micah Peters. I'm a staff writer with The Ringer, and this has been Vic Minza, rapper from Chicago. His album, The Autobiography, is out this Friday, July 28th.

Go listen to that.