Quotes from Vic Mensa

I was raised by a woman and I'm the middle child of two sisters who are young Black women.

I've been combing through the Wolverine archives and advertisements from the sixties and seventies. I'm looking to take inspiration from designs of the past and bring them into the future.

So much of my life and my style and sensibility are influenced by skateboarding. It's counter-culture and skateboarding is my introduction to counter-culture.

I can remember being a young kid, twelve, thirteen years old just with my headphones on, on the train, listening to rappers paint these vivid pictures. Listening to Mobb Deep and feeling like I was in Queensbridge even though I'm on the Southside of Chicago.

I'm one of the only people I know that often sleeps in boots.

There's a lot of times when I feel nihilistic, and lose hope, like I'm just lost in the world. But there's a lot of times when I can kinda be in control of destiny.

Thinking about the artists I've loved through the years, my favorites are the ones who've made music with cultural, societal and political significance.

You know, I think the idea of activism, more so a revolutionary mindset, is something that has been with me for most of my life, especially since I was about 16 years old.

I'm not motivated by money or fame. I'm more driven by the electricity of creativity. The idea of being one of the legends that inspired me, being like Tupac.

They say depression is just anger turned inward. Sometimes I turn it outwards, sometimes I turn it inward, but I know it's about self-worth.

I just love The Cure. I think that their songwriting is so next level, and I really like the juxtaposition between this bad boy attitude and a softer, more emotional idea.

No I.D. is like an alchemist and he'll only give you so much at one time. It's for the best at the end of the day, cause through the process of working with No I.D. I was able to soak up his perspective for songwriting and production and keeping music alive.

I wanted to go to a place with my first album that was just to the root, to the heart of emotion, and just unbridled by anything that wasn't truly in my heart.

Every time Emma Gonzalez speaks, I listen.

I think first of all my purpose is to be me. I didn't come here to specifically be a role model or anything.

Emotion is a broad spectrum and I just been to a lot of sides of my own emotions.

I always try to take performances as an opportunity to implant my spirit into the hearts and minds of anyone in a hundred-yard vicinity.

You can live an entire lifetime in Chicago and not hear a gunshot, but if you go in a certain neighborhood then you can live your whole lifetime hearing gunshots all the time.

Nirvana is my favourite band.

But I think your biggest crime as a citizen of society or America or the world is to be ignorant by choice. There's no excuse for that. I feel, when the information is at my fingertips, I could never choose to be ignorant.

Skateboarding was my introduction to rap and the first rap song that I really liked was KRS-One 'Step Into A World.'

I just stand by the things I believe in and if that upsets people, which it often does, then we got a situation on our hands. Everybody is okay and safe. I'm just blessed to be awake.

My mother was from upstate New York; she's of Irish and German descent. My father was from Ghana.

Because many people deny the Palestinian struggle. They deny them everything. They deny them humanity, they deny them the right to be on the land they were born in. They deny them the right to return to the homes that were stolen from them, to build Israel.