Vic Mensa has a new project, a band named 93PUNX, and his first single with them is to spread awareness about the ICE detention centers in the United States. He released the new song and music video on Friday morning, a visual inspired by ICE director Matthew Albence's controversial quote where he called the detention centers "summer camp." A number of children have died while being in custody of ICE and Mensa uses the visual of his new single "Camp America" to show the "twisted alternate reality."
“I thought that was a crazy f**king idea and wanted to create a world with this song that imagined that twisted alternate reality, where it was fun for kids to be held as prisoners, drinking out of toilets, away from their parents, and somehow enjoy it like one might at a summer camp," he told The Daily Beast. “My intention for using white kids as opposed to minority children is to point out the blatantly obvious fact that this would never happen to white kids in this country or maybe anywhere on this earth. Although the nature of the actions the kids were involved in was graphic or shocking, it was all taken from actual occurrences reported at ‘detention’ centers.”
“All of the children’s parents were present and the children were really smart and understood the political statement being made—they wanted to be a part of it," Mensa continued. "Nothing about this is about shaming white children; it’s about showing that this simply would never happen to white children.” Check out both the song and the visual and let us know what you think.
