In a recent cover story with Spin, rapper and philanthropist Vic Mensa shared his stance when it comes to police brutality and Black-on-Black violence.
“Honestly, that’s like sharks in the water or lions in the jungle. There’s a few of ’em and you gotta watch out for ’em, but there’s way more hyenas and jackals,” says Mensa. “The police are not your biggest issue. They may be the definitive factor on if you live or die today, but you’re gonna deal with much more run of the mill violence from your own kind.”
He added, “Because that’s just the psyche and the programming of our communities. So it’s like you as a young black man learn that you must become the aggressor unless you wanna be a victim,” says Mensa. “And so that becomes the color of all interactions and all conversations.”
Mensa’s sentiments come from his own run-ins with the law, as well as the continuous cases we see involving police and Black men, especially.
In 2022, the Chicago rapper was detained at the Metropolitan Washington International Airport for allegedly having drugs in his luggage. Mensa pled guilty and was handed a 12-month probation sentence.
“Obviously it’s whacked to have to go to jail and be plastered all across global news. But I think it’s pretty beautiful that, just a few months after that, I was able to launch the first Black-owned legal cannabis company in my state,” he spoke of his arrest in the cover.
Mensa launched his inaugural cannabis brand, 93 Boyz, after his release.
Five years prior, Mensa found himself also pleading no contest to carrying a concealed firearm. In result, he served two years probation.
“I’ve been harassed by police my whole life and seen people who looked like me treated like animals at the hands of law enforcement,” he said in 2015 per AllHipHop. “That’s how I feel, F**k police. I see the news every f**king day. Police officers are killing Black kids every day and never going to jail.”
He added, “In our system, it doesn’t matter what evidence there is behind a situation. The institution of police, of law enforcement, is crooked, criminal and held unaccountable.”
From the onset of his career, the Roc Nation signee spoke out unapologetically about his views on police and Black people. On his 2016 mixtape There’s Alot Going On he actually made the song “16 Shots” addressing the police shooting of then 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.
He raps, “I can’t imagine if it was my own mama/ Got her first born son stole from her, he never had a chance/ And we all know its cause he Black/ shot ’em 16 times, how f**ked up is that?/ Now the police superintendent wanna double back/ Cops speeding up to the block like a runnin’ back/ Tension is high, man these ni**as is irate/ You can see it in they eyes, they wanna violate.“
Revisit the accompanying visual to “16 Shots” below and check out Vic Mensa’s full cover story with Spin here.