Quotes from Vic Mensa

The things I have to say on and off the record are important, and I say them because I want to be heard.

On family trips and vacations, I remember walking around with my little sister and making funny songs on the spot.

I love putting in work for the city that raised me with my foundation SaveMoneySaveLife, and putting resources into the streets of Chicago.

I just thought I could broaden my impact and my reach by starting a non-profit and putting investment into our community.

A lot of the most prolific painters died broke and weren't appreciated in their time. I'm trying to remember who exactly I was thinking of - like Rembrandt, van Gogh or Gauguin. Some of those guys, they got whole floors of museums to themselves but weren't really appreciated in their time at all.

I think that everybody has their own interpretations of what it means to be American. But from my vantage point, being black and successful in the Unites States of America is the epitome of being American.

My purpose is to unite people, to bring us together. And above all, to be a champion for justice and a vehement opponent of oppression and justice.

My body is what? Like 99 percent water or something. But I drink all of my water out of, like, plastic containers. You know what I mean? What is plastic? My body is not one percent plastic, but the way that I ingest the water that runs through all of my veins is almost strictly out of plastic. There's something wrong with that.

I don't love America; I love people and places in America. How could I truly love an entity that views me as subhuman, that wrote in its constitution for me to be considered three-fifths of a person?

I'm really into vintage clothes. So I've been... vintage shopping and kind of adding and reconstructing things and just doing a little bit of designing.

To be an American is to be indoctrinated with racism, violence, capitalism and manifest destiny, the principles upon which the land of the free was founded.

Chicago, I feel, is a microcosm for the segregated, violent environment that is America. I try to not only speak about these things in music, but also try to address these things in real life tangibly with action.

Chicago is complicated and complex and very violent but also very rich with history and tradition and art and culture - it's all these things.

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.