Any way you look at it, Vic Mensa is a staple in Chicago’s innovative musical landscape. The college-aged musician has been swerving through all the correct lanes since 2009 and has countless solo material under his belt, along with his role as a lead member of one of the nation’s most exciting young bands in Kids These Days. What’s next you may ask? I spoke to Mensa last night at SoundScape where he was working on his a new solo project, which is tentatively titled The Internet.
“I had this beat machine for a little while and just bullshitted with it for mad long,” Vic says about the early stages of the project, one that will feature mostly his own production. “When I was on tour I was just sitting around, fucking with the beat machine because I was on the bus for so long. When I got off tour, I got into a groove of making simple ideas enough to write a song to.”
With Traphouse Rock released, and some time off before their next tour, Vic has time to focus on his own solo project, one that was born out of a mushroom trip in which he convinced himself he was the Internet. He stuck with the concept after the shrooms wore off and saw real world parallels to his crazy trip. “The climate of the world we live in, the fabric of the society we live in, is so amorphous right now, something that’s constantly changing,” he said during a break in recording. “I think the Internet is a representation of continuous change on its own, and I am that mothafucka.”
Vic is in the earliest stages of the project and has no expectations or reasons to rush out the music, but we could see something this spring or summer. Before then, he is still playing shows with Kids These Days and continuing to build with is SAVEMONEY camp. We’ll keep you posted on the new project as time goes on. For now, keep bumping that Traphouse Rock.