In celebration of this weekend’s NYC Pride parade, Vic Mensa has released a politically charged song called “Free Love.” On the track, he enlisted some of music’s biggest LGBT supporters to assist him on the track: You have Halsey, Malik Yusef, Lil B, and the openly gay rapper Le1f.
In the song, Vic takes a strong stance for LGBT rights, as he raps “You can fuck who you want to fuck/ You can love who you want to love/ If you pride put your lighters up/ They can’t fight this flame we burning […] What ever happened to free love/ I wanna know, I wanna know.”
Before releasing “Free Love” on SoundCloud, the Chicago rapper went to social media to explain why he was moved to create the song. He says there was a time when he believed he couldn’t fight for LGBT rights because he didn’t feel attached to it; however, after a family member came out earlier this year, he couldn’t help but fight for issues that meant so much to someone he loved.
“[I] didn’t really feel like it was my battle to fight. I didn’t know any gay people growing up […] and I just felt as if I should stand for things I know,” he wrote. “It wasn’t until a member of my own family revealed to me that they identified as queer this year that it really started to sink in with me […] I realize now that as a creature of love, the battles of people fighting to love are also mine. And I will stand with them. Will You?”
You can listen to the song, produced by Papi Beatz, below.
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