Vic Mensa is currently out on the road at the moment opening up for Jay Z’s nationwide “4:44” tour, and while in New York City this past weekend the Chicago rapper sat down with Billboard for a pretty lengthy interview.
While Vic talked about opening for Jay, most of the interview was surrounded by the topic of mental health and the drug culture happening in hip-hop. Vic would first talk about the blame in which drug manufacturers and doctors should be taking, but aren’t.
"I have a lot of personal experience bouncing around between psychiatrists and therapists and being fed pills, while at the same time being told that if I don’t stop doing drugs I’m gonna ruin my life. They act like what they’re giving us is not drugs," he said. "[…] I really start to ask, like, at what point and time do we start holding the manufacturers of Xanax accountable? The prescribers of Xanax and Percocet, at what point and time do the people that literally make these products in labs and mass produce them—when are these people criminals?”
He continued: "They are making the murder weapon, and there’s no way I can propose that this is the most effective, logical treatment for these mental illnesses."
Later, Vic would go onto admit that he played a part in glorifying the drug use in his music, but claims he regrets it and no longer does it. However he does name drop ATL rapper Future for being one of the main influences in the culture, even saying what he does for record sales is horribly irresponsible.
“To be honest, it’s like, on one hand I almost don’t even feel that I have a right to chastise anybody because I’ve fucking done it. I’ve rapped about Xanax. I regret it. I don’t rap about it anymore, but I have some lines about taking Xanax. I just think that we’re in such a dangerous place now because it’s been normalized and the drug abuse has been reduced to like a marketing tactic. You got Future talking about “I just rap about drugs because I know that’s what sells, that’s what people want to hear.” While people are overdosing left and right.”
“It’s really representative of the state of the nation, but it’s also horribly irresponsible because you got kids that idolize these people and will do anything they do. They’re being misled but their fucking heroes and getting addicted to Xans or Percocets and dying from them. So, it’s pretty fucked.”
Read the full interview over at Billboard, where Vic also goes onto address Lil Peep’s death & more, and let us know what do you think? Should rappers be aware of their influence or is it not their problem?
(Included below is our own recent interview with Vic, where he talks more about Lil Peep’s death & condemns popping pills.)
