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Music

Pet Peeves With Vic Mensa: Twitter Is Not the Answer

We spoke to the Chicago native about what really grinds his gears, including being approached in bathrooms, extra-sexual Bieber fans, and the difficulty of installing software.

It’s not easy being Vic Mensa. Not only do you have to deal with the constant pressure that comes from being the face of the Save Money collective, but there’s also the struggle of constantly having to leap higher in order to pass the bar you’ve just set for yourself. Most of the world was introduced to the Chicago native after his guest appearance on “Cocoa Butter Kisses” off Chance the Rapper’s Acid Rap tape where Vic managed to shine even when placed alongside the lyrical tornado known as Twista. A few month’s later, The Innanetape was released, marking Vic’s first solo project since becoming known to the general rap audience. The tape was vibrant and cohesive, marked by very few lulls in the action and enough frantic rapping to keep the replay value high. But more importantly, it provided casual listeners with proof that the “Cocoa Butter Kisses” verse was not an anomaly.

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Since The Innanetape, Vic continues to seek ways to grow as a musician. He’s worked closely with artists in the beat scene, rapping over Disclosure’s “When A Fire Starts To Burn,” and collaborating with Kaytranada in anticipation of Vic’s debut album. He may keep raising the bar higher and higher, but Vic continues to clear it with enough ease to have both critics and fans wondering where his ceiling lies. Part of this high-jump routine includes Vic performing his first headlining show outside of America when he takes the stage with Redway on May 1st in Toronto (btw, we have tickets). We spoke to him about the pet peeves he’s picked up since becoming Vic Mensa.

Pet Peeve: Getting Incriminated in Airport Bathrooms
Where have I’ve been approached by strangers? Urinals man, bathrooms, that’s somewhere where people need to leave you alone but they don’t. Like motherfuckers trying to talk to you when you’re taking a piss, it’s kind of frustrating. This wasn’t a fan or anything, but I was in O’Hare the other day coming back from a trip, I went to the bathroom and this dude, this drunk dude who just got off the plane with me, he wanted to responded to everything I was saying. But I was trying to rap shit, the dude was like, “what you talking about? You talking about drugs?” I just immediately was taken aback because, I was on probation and shit, so I’m not trying to be in airport bathroom talking about drugs. I ended up having to leave, cause I have a temper.

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Don’t Fuck With The Crew
I was at a party, and I’ve been travelling a lot and shit, and I’m not at home all that much, so I want to hang out with my homies. This kid, who said he was a fan of mine, he just hella starts talking to me being all in my face and shit, rapping Chance’s lyrics to me. I was like, “you bothering me, get out my face bro.” So he stormed off all angrily, some weird ass kid with a lip ring, and apparently during the rest of the party, he was running around saying “VIC MENSA BITCH ASS”. So I left the party, I see him super drunk on the wall getting interrogated by the homies. They tapped his pockets, and took everything he had cause he was pushing girls and saying crazy shit to girls and touching them. So they robbed him and they beat his ass.

Getting Pictures Taken OF Me
I don’t like people taking pictures of me. I’m cool with taking a picture with me. I don’t like when someone is taking a picture of me, I don’t like standing somewhere and having people 10 steps away taking pics with their phone. I see them taking pictures of me. I call them out all the time and catch them red handed.

Assuming Twitter Is The Answer
Honestly I respect that manage to find my email address and email me, more than the people that get frustrated online because I’m not listening to the mixtape they sent me on Twitter. If you have my email, that means you looked for it, it’s not like it’s in my twitter bio. If someone goes through the motions enough to find my personal email, and send me something, I probably won’t listen to it. But I respect their hustle more than those that just sit on twitter and send me shit, and get mad if I don’t listen to it.

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Angsty Beliebers
The connection from from Chance to Justin Bieber connects me with the strangest people online. The online Bieber fans, they’re like the weirdest people, and they say strange sexual shit. “Fuck me in the ass,” shit like that. And they have names like Bieberhole and shit… weird.

Just, Technology
Protools is hard to install, so that’s pissed me off for some months. I get frustrated when I can’t play music on a car system and shit. If theres no aux or if it only connects to an iPhone 4 plug. I just get frustrated when it’s hard to listen to some shit. I have T-Mobile so it sucks, and it’s mad difficult with bad service in a lot of place. If I’m on the road and driving anywhere and not in a real major city its extra hard to download anything online, or to upload any pages. I’ll be trying to watch something, or download a song in my email, and it takes stupid long cause of T-Mobile’s ass.

Give Me Space in the Studio
I like my own space and shit. Even in the studio, I just like to sit at the board in front of the speakers, solo. So when somebody is coming all close to me and shit, that shit kinda bugs me. And then when someone has people in the studio that want to say something about what you’re doing and give their input, but they don’t make music though, those people’s input should stay in their mouth.

Just Give Me Space
The worst thing about travelling is the aisle seats and the middle seats. The lack of a window seat is a pet peeve regarding travelling far. Oh, and fat ass people, fat people are the worst on planes because they spread into your seat. I prefer fat people over babies, I haven’t had to sit with babies for a while. I made it.

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Slava Pastuk hates everything - @SlavaP

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We're giving away tickets to see Vic Mensa and Redway on May 1st!

Read our profile on Vic Mensa here.

See the premiere of Redway's music video.