Vic Mensa had nothing but praise for IShowSpeed’s 28-day livestream run across Africa last month.
The rapper and actor appeared on the Wednesday (Feb. 18) episode of the One54 Africa podcast, and around the one-hour, 22-minute mark, he shared his thoughts on Speed’s recent international journey.
Between late December and January, the popular streamer traveled to 20 African nations — including Nigeria, Senegal, and Kenya — and was even granted an official Ghanaian passport.
Mensa, who co-founded the Black Star Line Festival alongside Chance the Rapper in Accra, Ghana, applauded Speed for helping reshape global perceptions of the continent.
“Speed’s tour is singlehandedly undoing a massive amount of propaganda in the minds of so many,” Vic said. “Not just the youth, either, like just in the minds of so many American people.”
“I see older Black people. I see younger—I even see white kids saying things like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know everyone wasn’t in loin cloths running from baboons.’ Which sounds ridiculous but, also, Americans are not educated,” Mensa said. “They’re able to keep this massive finesse going because Americans are not educated. Americans not only lack education, they’re constantly force-fed anti-intellectual propaganda.”
The Sundiata artist went on to say that by bringing his massive online audience along for the ride, Speed gave them “a firsthand account of the glory of Africa.”
“It’s almost like they’re traveling with him,” Vic explained. “You watch somebody go through a whole continent and some of these kids are probably watching him like five, 10 hours a day … They’re experiencing Africa with him.”
Vic made it clear he was tuned into the streams, even pointing out a moment when Speed wondered why he couldn’t buy diamonds in Botswana despite the country being one of the world’s leading diamond producers.
“It’s like literally eroding the colonial myth because that’s how they keep the thing going, is by these contracts and these false histories,” Mensa added.
And while the tour shifted perspectives for many of Speed’s viewers who’ve never stepped foot in Africa, it also left a lasting impression on the 21-year-old streamer himself.
“This tour [opened] my eyes … it sparked up something deep within me, very deep, like something from the root of me. It kinda [talked] to me in terms of like, I can do this,” IShowSpeed said in the clip below.
