To whom it may concern

I don’t want to say some cliche shit like thank you for reading this, so I won’t. Over the past 2+ years since I released a body of work, I’ve been more places, seen more things and met more people than I can remember. I had a lot of days when I didn’t think I would ever see the present day. Countless moments I asked myself, “WHY ME?” I was stuck in a vicious cycle of self-destructive depression. I leaned on drugs to give me the wings to fly away from my dark reality. “ANYWHERE BUT HERE,” I wished, as my eyes grew wide, snorting powder off of a dirty public toilet. As my relationship with myself fell apart, my relationships with people around me grew violent and volatile, full of resentment and lies. It seemed like everywhere I turned there was something to be upset with, especially when I looked inward. I knew the person that I was born to be. A fighter, a leader. A revolutionary, a channel of ideas and emotions endlessly larger than myself. But it began to all feel like a cruel joke. And I was the only one not laughing. If you’ve never experienced anxiety or depression this may all sound foreign to you. But I’m not writing this to tell you my sob story. I’m writing this to tell you that there is hope. The world is at a turning point. There are a lot of things going on that we have to either change, or die, to put it poetically. The cars we drive, the food we eat, the phones and computers you’re reading this on, are all literally killing that big blue earth we see in photos taken from the stars. And down on the ground we’ve got a lot of problems of our own, but I don’t have to tell you that. I will anyway. With the eyes of the world at our fingertips, injustices everywhere have been given the world’s stage within minutes of action. A cop shoots an unarmed black man in the back of the head in Oakland, and people will be protesting it in New York an hour later. But protests aren’t going to bring Oscar Grant back to life. or LaQuan McDonald. or Mike Brown. or Tamir Rice. Nothing we say or do can reverse the poison in the brains of the kids who drank lead from their kitchen sink in Flint, Michigan. Those damages cannot be taken back. But they can be stopped from happening again. What I’m asking you is not to give a fuck about me, my music, or my story. What I’m asking of you is to give a fuck about US. Us as a people. Us as ONE. As human beings who laugh, cry, sing, bleed and dream. As I look up at the starless night above the Chicago skyline, I can’t help but feel so small. There’s so much world around me, so many people with families and experiences I’ll never know anything about. It’s easy not to give a fuck about them. But I’ve never been one for the easy way out. Getting this far was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and lord knows I’m only getting started. I could care less about what a blog writer or music critic has to say about me or what I do. I don’t do this for them. I know that someone out there reading this is going through shit just like me. This is for you. There is always hope. Never forget that. Yesterday doesn’t define you; it doesn’t define US. We are God. We hold the power in our hands. I’ve come to a point where I realize that everything I’ve gone through up to this point was for a reason. I had to experience certain things so painful that I thought I’d never come back from them to be able to tell you about it. To know how fucking blessed I am to be breathing this summer air, killing myself slowly smoking this cigarette. I know I’m not perfect. But I think that’s what makes it so special
To quote Cody Chestnut, “It ain’t Rock, it ain’t Roll (it ain’t HIP HOP) if we don’t disagree.” You don’t have to understand me, or see eye to eye with me; just know I’m giving you my truth. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me god. But fuck the judge, the prosecutor and the district attorney. Justice will be served only if we deliver it to ourselves. All rise and face the defendant in the mirror; we’re going to need all the help we can get if we’re gonna make things right, cause’ There’s Alot Going On

Keep Fighting The Good Fight

Vic Mensa