Quotes from Vic Mensa

Everyone's life is for sale in America.

And being that my father is gone in immigrant and I have you know - that I owe my existence to immigration, I think that the fear of immigration that has existed in American history from the first day, I just find it to be wrong.

Oftentimes I feel like I can, through the music, paint a picture of something that I can't look anywhere and see in my real life.

I don't see why clothes have to be women's or men's. It seems pretty limiting. I buy women's pants, women's shoes - everything, really.

The disparity between the haves and have-nots was always blatantly obvious to me, and it's that exact gap that drove me to start writing and pick up a pen. I wanted to explain and understand the world around me because it was easy to see it was corrupted.

I have the kind of conscience that it doesn't feel right if I watch other people suffer and I do nothing about it.

But I love Chicago summers on Lake Michigan, Philly cheesesteaks on South Street, falling in love in Brooklyn, street fairs in Asheville, North Carolina.

I came from a two-parent household and my father is a PhD from west Africa, but at the same time I grew up five blocks from where Obama lived and five blocks from the projects.

No I.D. helped me to just identify certain energies that I might not have really represented yet in the music that he picked up on just in my personality, or in the person he perceived me to be.

I never look at it as if any of my successes were given to me through fate. Getting record deals, making the songs I've made, having fans and working with the people I work with aren't chance. I know that dedication and work have gotten me to where I am and will get me to where I wanna go.

My foundation mainly works in Chicago, and the city needs a lot of help. I'm glad that was able to be incorporated into what I'm doing with Wolverine. It's important to keep one foot firmly planted at home and try to benefit my people well.

I used to print out lyrics from Nas songs and write my own lyrics in the same syllable count but with different words and different rhymes.

I might have 'couch syndrome.' I'm always sleeping on the couch at home, even when I have a comfortable bed. I'm used to it.

Prince is one of my biggest idols of all time, and he's the real King of Pop.

We're not able to hide behind myths of this being a post-racial society because Donald Trump has outlined exactly how a large portion of America feels.

I have a responsibility to my fellow my community, to my fellow man, and woman. With that said, I create from a place of selfishness, but I'm also cognizant of potential impact on others. And I try to make that impact positive.

So whether that's taking a bunch of people from Chicago down to Standing Rock or being in Flint, Michigan, or being in Palestine or Baton Rouge after Alton Sterling's killing, I've been trying to, just as a man, be present and stand with the struggling and oppressed people around the world.

Coming from Chicago, Lollapalooza is the one weekend of the summer when actual Chicagoans are kept out.

I'm from Chicago and that's where I created all of my most prized possesions, which are my songs.

Anybody who's dealt with addiction and depression knows that sometimes they can make you forget who you are and kind of bring out a different person, somebody you don't know as well.

It's anxiety that led to a depression that I've been dealing with since I was 16, 17. That was the first time I was ever prescribed medication for either of those disorders I guess you would call it.

Human beings desire comfort and familiarity.

From a musical standpoint, I was inspired by '90s hip hop, with a lot of drums and the tempos. I'm always inspired by David Bowie and Prince.

I had white family members, black family members, white friends, black friends by the time I was 16.