On Wednesday, Hot 97 released Vic Mensa's scorching freestyle for Funkmaster Flex where Vic talked some stuff. Today? Hot released a 56(!)-minute conversation between Flex and Vic, and it featured them getting into a lot.
To kick things off, Flex wanted to get a sense of Vic's knowledge on hip-hop history after he mentioned MC Shan, which resulted in Vic breaking down the reason KRS-One had beef with Shan. Flex also asked Vic about him mentioning drug kingpin Alpo in his rhymes, which led Vic to reveal that he picked up information about him as part of the game Jay Z left him in conversations. But there were plenty more jewels from Vic to come.
At around the 19-minute mark, Flex asked Vic straight up why it feels like Chicago is so "intense," especially when it comes to the street life, and Vic kept it a buck. "I think, with Chicago, it's very important to recognize that it's by design," he said. "This goes to the planning of Chicago."
Vic went on to explain that, after the devastating Chicago fire that took place in the 1870s, the city was constructed to "set the city up a certain way." Vic said Chicago is "still divided," and he referred to it as "one of the most segregated cities in America." Vic also said there's a "separate but equal" mentality that resides throughout the city, which he describes as being a "toxic environment" for the city's residents.
After diving headfirst into the issues of violence in Chicago, Flex asked Vic about artists who may glorify those violent actions in their material. Vic countered by mentioning guys like Lil Durk, who he feels is "taking a stand as a role model in other ways." This brought Flex to ask Vic how artists like Chance the Rapper and Kanye West affect the community (that part of the conversation starts at the 32:42 mark in the video above), and Vic said that Chance "does a lot of great things" for those in Chicago. "His heart is in the right place with the community," Vic said.
He also spoke on how he and Chance share a similar mindset, primarily because they grew up in the rougher areas of Chicago but went to the nicer schools and had a real family unit in place to support them.
"I think Chance's influence in the city is major," Vic continued, "and Kanye is the one that really laid the groundwork for that. Kanye is the one that gave us, gave somebody like me coming up, a person to look to who was from my city and from the south side, but he was rapping about 'It wasn't coke and birds/It was more like spoken word.'"
Vic went on to talk more about how Kanye inspired him. "There's a lot of people in Chicago coming from a different angle," he said. "I think often times because we as human beings gravitate towards the blood and tooth and nail that that's just what you see, but the bigger picture is a lot more complex, and there's a lot more color to it, and Kanye is the one that, he really threw those first splashes on the canvas."
Elsewhere in the interview, Vic talked about why he didn't totally rock with Obama's time in office. Flex also attempted to explain his epic 2Pac rant to Vic after Vic—who calls himself a 'Pac stan—mentioned it in his freestyle. Flex spent the majority of the tail end of the conversation breaking it down to Vic, who admitted he didn't even hear Flex's rant. You can check out Vic's full interview with Flex up above.
