VIC MENSA/THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY REVIEW

It’s been four years since Vic Mensa broke out for real along with Chance the Rapper and the rest of the Save Money crew in 2013, which begs the question: where does longevity stem from in 2017 hip-hop?

In Vic’s case, it certainly didn’t have to come from a massive discography or a even big single. A scattershot mixtape in 2013, a couple singles, and a recent EP constitute Vic’s output in the four years between when his career started, and his debut, The Autobiography, dropped. So, what then? For me, it always seemed to me as though Vic was keeping his name in the conversion through his seemingly endless willingness to interject into almost any cultural dialog, taking hard stances on progressive political issues as well as more minor debates within rap culture with equal intensity. Put simply: it never felt like Vic Mensa was solely an advocate of himself, which is an undeniably en vogue attitude in hop hop. Fortunately, that “bigger-picture” mentality translates to the new music, at least mostly: The Autobiography is a mixed bag, but commendably individualistic, for better and for worse.



For better: Vic is another recent acolyte of producer No I.D., who has most recently executive produced excellent albums from JAY-Z and Vince Staples, and also less recently laid out the blueprint for Kanye’s early winning production strategies and produced some of the biggest hits of late nineties/early two-thousands rap. No I.D.’s executive production credit generally guarantees quality but also crucially keeps from locking artists to a specific sound or formula: The Autobiography is about as different from 4:44 as 4:44 was from Summertime ’06. The sonics on The Autobiography remind me first and foremost of Dr. Dre’s most recent, Compton: it’s hyper glitzy, full of expensive sounding samples, blown out drums, and choirs of layered and auto-tuned vocal harmonies courtesy sometimes of Vic, and sometimes of the album’s many guest vocalists (Ty Dolls $ign, Pharrell, etc.) Even better than the opulent production is the actual, honest to god personality that comes through on every song on The Autobiography, even the clunkers. Mensa seems to be making an attempt to subvert or at the very least buck all of the 2017 rapper platitudes that populate a lot of the debuts of this year in favor of trying to produce a more authentic self portrait (hence the name,) warts and all. Furthermore, that devotion to an honest portrayal of self results in some seriously powerful stuff all over this album: the last time I heard something as caustic and self loathing as “Wings” had to be “u” off of Kendrick’s monumental To Pimp A Butterfly, and tracks like “Heaven on Earth” and “Memories On 47th St.” possess an autobiographical (ha!) flair that reminded me of the most introspective moments of Acid Rap or one of the better Tyler, the Creator albums. I’m drawing these comparisons not because Vic sounds like he’s imitating these artists, but more to try and position him in that middle/upper echelon of rappers where I think he belongs at the very least - this may be Vic’s debut, but he’s been around too long to get lumped in with the new guys.



For worse: what tends to manifest usually in The Autobiography as a unique personality and a willingness to separate himself from his peers manifests at other times as a persona that’s cringey at best, offensive at worst. It’s the same sort of issue I’ve had with rappers like Ab-Soul, Childish Gambino, and others for awhile now: these guys, Vic unfortunately included, seem to think they’re “saving hip-hop,” and, for some reason, a lot of really bad lyrics tend to slip through the cracks with those types. The just-cringey stuff includes lines about (not joking) smoking weed with Kurt Cobain in heaven, who, of course, loves Vic Mensa’s music, among other corny bars that sound like Because The Internet leftovers. I’m also not entirely into the song “Down For Some Ignorance,” which attempts a trick Ab-Soul tried to pull on his really bad 2013 album These Days: the ignorant trap banger that’s also a heavy handed critique of trap bangers - I guess how you feel about this song will largely depend on how smart you think that is. However, those missteps are forgivable compared to straight up offensively bad songs like “Coffee and Cigarettes,” which is just pure cringe. It’s this sort of indietronica ballad about a girl he loved when he was younger that isn’t just really awkward and mean towards this girl, it’s also really poorly performed; I don’t think anyone wanted 5 minutes of Vic’s attempt falsetto crooning, let alone about how angry he is about a girl that didn’t want to be with him. There’s also an otherwise awesome song (”Homewrecker”) that I’d listen to a lot more, were it not for the song being about how Vic thinks his girlfriend is the bad guy for getting angry when he cheats. For all of the progressive political activist posturing Vic Mensa does on this album and in his public life, his relationship with women on The Autobiography is seriously kind of questionable, is all I’m saying.



So Vic Mensa finally puts himself out there to be judged by the public on The Autobiography. The impression he left on me is that he’s a smart guy with a good ear and voice that if trained, might even sound better than Donald Glover’s singing voice. The issue is, I don’t know if he’s smart enough (artistically speaking, of course) to avoid the missteps of other rappers trying to occupy this lane (cringey bars, savior complex, bad singing); on this album, unfortunately, he made a lot of those mistakes. Still, I don’t see myself writing Vic Mensa off, and I don’t think others should either. For all of his time spent in the public eye, he’s clearly done a lot to develop his artistry and I don’t see him slowing down on that front any time soon - I just hope he streamlines his efforts towards what worked on The Autobiography and sheds the cringe material. (GOOD)





SIDE NOTE: Does anyone else think it’s awesome that Vic used the same font for his cover that Radiohead used for The Bends?

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