Save Money’s #2 Voice

Vic Mensa is no Chance The Rapper, despite what many of their lyrics may tell us. The pair grew up in the same circle of friends and created the Chicago MC group “SaveMoney” together, but Vic (born Victor Mensah) is not at the same lyrical or aesthetic levels as Chance. Like his counterpart, he cultivated his artistic talent at Chicago’s YouMedia program that offers open mic’s and other instruction in the arts. There, and through the emerging young Hip Hop scene, Vic helped start the briefly famous seven-member group Kids These Days that bleneded rock, hip hop, jazz and soul into their own distinctive sound. The group incorporated other incredibly talented artists like Nico Segal, a trumpet player who recently toured with Frank Ocean, and Macie Stewart who has one of the loveliest female voices around today. After the band produced its first major work “Traphouse Rock” they disbanded to allow the blossoming of individual careers. Shortly before the official end of the band, Vic had already begun working on his biggest project to date, Innanetape.

The mixtape, which has been downloaded over 40,000 times from the site datpiff, is a top-heavy collection of tracks with decent samples, moderately good features and creative melodies. It lacks consistency, lyrical depth and polish. To put it in perspective, Chance’s Acid Rap came out over six months ago and I still jam to any track that appears on my music shuffle. Innanetape dropped only one month ago and I have already had my fill. The truly outstanding songs: “Orange Soda,” “Lovely Day,” “Tweakin’” and “Holy Holy” only sustained my attention for a few weeks before they became stale; I don’t feel the burning desire to hear every musical note and distinguish every hidden word like I do when listening to Chance. Vic Mensa is a gifted MC, but he has yet to find an aspect of his music that will separate him from the very competitive pool of rising artists.

He shows a tremendous amount of promise in the first handful of tracks. When my friend started playing the song “Orange Soda” in the car before the entire Innanetape project came out, I was convinced he was playing an old N.E.R.D. song I had never heard. It mimics the exact same soulful, drum-heavy, call and response and melodically complex sound that Pharrell’s group perfected a few years ago. On an aesthetic level, this is where Vic reaches his maximum potential, and where he can really soar in the future. The same is true for “Lovely Day” and “Tweakin’,” tracks that offer solid lyricism, quick rapping and a unique sound. However, only one song really stands out as a tremendous, album-worthy track. The only song of the mixtape’s second half I enjoy, “Holy Holy” featuring Ab-Soul and BJ The Chicago Kid is stylistic, intricately introspective and astutely socially conscience. BJ The Chicago Kid supplies wonderful harmonies over a soft drum/shaker beat, and Vic finds his true gift for flowing between rap and song. This track is powerful, and is the only one on Innanetape that I would listen to lying on my bed, eyes closed, attempting to really connect with the piece of art. The other tracks are too insubstantial to listen to more than a dozen times without getting bored.

To be clear, Innanetape is in no way a bad mixtape, but Vic Mensa clearly has a lot of work to do before he can climb the ranks as quickly as his friend Chance. The partnership between the two is undoubtedly a wonderful advantage for the MC; the two collaborate on almost every individual project they have, and continually make references to their sibling-like competitiveness, oftentimes alluding to their equal levels of talent. Respectfully, I utterly disagree with this evaluation (Chance is just too many strides ahead of Vic) but respect the support and companionship the two display. Neither has signed to a major label yet, and they seem perfectly content to remain SaveMoney artists for the immediate future– a decision that I for one consider this a very fortunate thing indeed.

Orange Soda