Vic Mensa has shared the story behind his emotional viral video about music streaming that surfaced back in June.
During the Oct. 21 episode of REVOLT’s Off the Record, the rapper revealed around the seven-minute mark that he had taken LSD before recording the clip.
Mensa explained that he made the video to express what it feels like to be an independent artist handling everything on his own.
“I think I started to just consider the fact that I’ve been doing this a long time and have never owned my music for the vast majority of the time that I’ve been creating as an artist,” he said. “That’s an emotional experience—to realize that you’ve put a decade into something and be like, tangibly, I don’t own it.”
Vic went on to reveal that he had actually planned to take a microdose of LSD but ended up taking a full macrodose by mistake because the bottles looked identical.
“So that morning, I had actually accidentally took the macro dose of LSD and I came back home and I was in a super emotional state. But it was genuine, it was genuine emotion,” he explained. “And as I’ve been working on filmmaking and content and social media, I think I’ve just started to think about turning the camera on in real moments.”
He added that he was “broke down” at the time, feeling the heavy pressure of being an artist in today’s industry who’s “up against significant systemic challenges.”
The Chicago rapper shared that once he realized he was “tripping,” he stepped outside to meditate and ended up having an epiphany—to create an EP tentatively titled Sundiata. But as the emotional clip began circulating online, Vic’s manager soon called to tell him it had made its way to The Shade Room.
Although he admitted that, at first, it felt like his “life was over,” Vic said he’s now learned to draw just as much strength from “vulnerability” as from “bravado.”
“Doing things that are very uncomfortable for me and being vulnerable, exercising restraint—like, I find more strength in that right now,” he said. “I’ve lived a whole life of proving that I’m a man by physical violence.”
In the tearful video, Vic opened up about the financial struggles many independent artists face, noting how those pressures often take a toll on their mental health.
