It only takes a minute into his debut album for Vic Mensa to say “I told you so.” The 24-year old Chicago rapper has been obsessing over this moment for years. He’s actually talking to his parents and friends, which makes the moment all the more endearing in its lack of snark. It’s goodwill he carries through the rest of The Autobiography, an unimaginative and over-promising title for an artist’s first major milestone, but one that’s not overly lofty in describing Mensa’s album-length character building.

With its long windup and veteran industry legend No I.D. helming the ship as executive producer, The Autobiography feels like a purposeful statement of intent, a careful step in the Vic Mensa legacy-building business. Mensa has the industry trappings of a nascent star: JAY-Z’s personal and major label backing, deep roots in the Chicago hip-hop scene that graduated artists like Chance the Rapper and Joey Purp, an opening spot on a Justin Bieber tour. Part of the appeal of Mensa’s debut has been its purposefully and grandly shrouded expectations. Last year, Vic publicly scrapped plans for an album called Traffic, this in the middle of leaning ever more into his punk rock image while espousing a burning activist bent. He was there in 2015 protesting the Chicago Police Department’s killing of Laquan McDonald and then joined in last year at Standing Rock as a conspicuous quasi-celebrity voice against the Dakota Access Pipeline. As his name has grown, Mensa has lent it to progressive issues and made music that reflects that commitment. The Autobiography is an obvious turn inward, but Vic also digs his heels into this political ground.

Perhaps Mensa has been less urgent in developing his artistry, but The Autobiography gathers up all his charms, including his most compelling case as a genre-agnostic vocalist alongside some missed-the-mark rock crossovers. “Rollin’ Like a Stoner” is a big, clunky Kid Cudi homage about addiction, the titular chorus more than a little corny, but the angsty sentiment entirely sincere. The simple pleasure of hearing Vic’s versatile raps makes it easy to forgive him for the type of low-hanging lyricism he dabbles with throughout. “They say, ‘Vic, are you okay?’/Dude, no way,” he sputters here, and at another point he just belts out an unadorned “Rockstar life!” The Weezer feature on the next song, “Homewrecker,” must have been years in the making, but it’s really just Rivers Cuomo wailing out the song’s title on the outro. The follow-up “Gorgeous” is a more petty song about cheating, but it’s also less cumbersome without the burdens of the winding storytelling featured on “Homewrecker.” Even though he’s nurtured his singing voice into a powerful soulful rock tool, the Internet’s Syd helps Vic out on the hook, a surging electronic affair built on plodding piano changes. Even when he swings and misses on the power pop outings, The Autobiography never casts Vic out of pocket despite all the mood switching. Still, it’s his rapping that got him here.

As much as he is a naturally voracious emcee, Mensa is also writerly. His bars can sound productively picked at and pored over, or clunky and pent-up when overly pampered. (The cover of The Autobiography shows Mensa sitting on the ground, pen in hand, surrounded by crumpled up paper, a trite advertisement that he’s been taking this whole thing super-duper seriously.) The Autobiography splits those tendencies down the middle, casting its star as a remarkable, easy-to-digest rapper with an affinity for half-baked wordplay. The sound of Mensa’s rapping never grates the ear, but he also says stuff like “It’s hard to put this shit in words/It’s like Macklemore at the Grammys, man/I just feel like you got some shit you didn’t deserve.” There he’s rapping heartfelt about the death of a close friend, and that awkward, years-old rap industry reference sounds entirely out of place, especially on a song that’s otherwise an accomplished storytelling feat, each verse a chapter written by a mourning Vic, the looking-down-from-heaven victim, and the guilt-ridden murderer himself. The-Dream pops up here and then on a later reprise, his voice sounding hauntingly angelic over the twinkling hook.

Tracks like “The Fire Next Time” and “OMG” cast Vic as the cypher-ready emcee he originally built his name on, just with pricier, star-level production, and in that latter case, an expanding rolodex in the form of a Pusha T feature. Still, there’s nothing here better than that beginning moment of the album. “Say I Didn’t” is triumphant and expensive, a red carpet for the rest of the record. The Darondo sample has been beaten to death but sounds fresh in the hands of a troupe of producers that includes No I.D. and BOOTS. “You used to hate to hear the phone ring/Now you can’t wait to hear the phone ring,” Vic raps at his once dubious father, tacking on an affected, “Ain’t that a beautiful thing.” It’s an unpretentious way of saying he’s come a long way without needing to tell the whole story, just that things are better for him now. He might smack you in the face with it, but Vic’s style leaves nothing to interpretation. As long as he’s clear where he stands, that dramatic lucidity suits him just fine.