2016 will forever be remembered as the Summer of Save Money — which caps off at Lollapalooza this weekend with performances from Vic Mensa, Joey Purp, and Towkio. And for the Chicago Reader’s Lollapalooza issue, Leor Galil interviews Vic Mensa and begs the question “Can Vic Mensa Radicalize Lollapalooza.”
They dig deep into Vic’s role as an activist (which goes back years — he’s no new jack) and explore his most recent musical output and how it will translate at Lollapalooza. Vic has been outspoken as long as I’ve known him, and now the whole world is paying attention. Happy to see the Reader cover this. Read the full piece here:
Mensa, 23, has plenty to talk about these days. He confronts racial injustice, police violence, and poverty on the ferocious There’s Alot Going On (his debut EP for Roc Nation, released in June), rapping about the poisoned victims and corrupt architects of the Flint water crisis (“Shades of Blue”) and the death of Laquan McDonald at the hands of CPD officer Jason Van Dyke (“16 Shots”). Events since then—the fatal police shootings of Sterling and Philando Castile, the redoubled conservative pushback against Black Lives Matter after the killings of police in Dallas and Baton Rouge, the horrifyingly absurd Republican National Convention—have kept these wounds open. By comparison, the occasion for my interview with Mensa felt a little trivial: Lollapalooza.