Vic Mensa has never been one to bite his tongue in regards to the state of his home city of Chicago.
On Monday (Jun 19), during an interview on Complex‘s “Everyday Struggle” with Joe Budden and DJ Akademiks, Mensa started off the interview light discussing hot topics. Vic also talked about his current project, The Manuscript, where Mensa reveals that he created the album with the idea of being able to put who he is into proper perspective.
“I call my album the capsule because it’s similar to a clothing capsule collection. It’s like a piece on there for every demographic and each piece serves its own purpose. It’s really like a precursor to my album dropping this summer and I felt like I wanted to put a couple things so you can really get my perspective as opposed to putting the entire weight of the album into one single or song because is the album is one story or narrative that can’t really be encapsulated in one record.”
But even while explaining his album, you can tell that Vic was a light short towards Akademiks, then things finally came to a head when DJ Akademiks brought up the state of Chicago Hip-Hop. While discussing the influential scene, Mensa stated that while he was excited that artists like himself and Chance the Rapper were artists to become successful doing the alternative; Drill music was still very influential in Hip-Hop as a whole. When Akademiks asked about his feelings towards artists profiting off of the popular subgenre without understanding it’s root in violence, Vic let him have it, attributing Akademiks as being one of the people he was asking about.
When Akademiks asked about his feelings towards artists profiting off of the popular subgenre without understanding it’s root in violence, Vic erupted, attributing Akademiks as being one of the main people glorifying the violence.
“I wanted to slap you in your face honestly,” Mensa said irritated. “I’m just seeing you here for the first time and this is a tame environment so I am going to keep it to my words, but it’s people like you who sensationalized and made a following off of clowning situations that we go through in real life. I think niggas didn’t have no right, you speciafically like you didn’t never have a right. Whatever gave you the right to have a perspective on our people dying on a daily basis.”
But Mensa didn’t stop there, he went on to claim that Akademiks violation of recognizing the seriousness of what is going on in Chicago was not only ignorant but disrespectful.
“There was nothing constructive about what you were doing. Nothing clown and to tell you the truth I really think you’re a bitch to be honest because there is a video that you put up about a person named Tre-57, making all these jokes calling him stupid, nigga this is not a video game; that’s a nigga that I grew up with that I have known since I was five-years-old. To see you clowning him on the internet with this corny ass little voice and make jokes about it, I was waiting to see you.”
Since the episode aired DJ Akademiks has addressed the issue stating, he was caught off guard by the incident and has nothing but love for Chicago artists.
“I have nothing but love for Chicago artists and feel like artists like Chief Keef are some of the most influential. I have never offered anything but honest critiques and that’s how I got my following. However, I am never above artists and I don’ t want people watching to get this f*cked up, I never above an artist. We may have a difference of opinion on what I say or have said about them, but they always have the option to come up here and voice it. He said what he had to say and I’m no thug, but I want it to be clear I have never clowned anyone who died or did Drill or the Chicago culture.”
Check out his entire response below.
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