Creativity comes from the mind, body, and soul, but early in Vic Mensa’s career, it came from drugs. In an interview with “Spin Magazine,” the Chicago rapper opened up his early life.
“The first drug I really felt dependent on was mushrooms,” Mensa said. “I started doing them abusively. Probably 100 times a year when I was like 19. But it wasn’t soul-searching. I started to lean on it as a creative crutch, and eventually, it just stopped working and I started having bad trips. I would feel like my throat was closing and I was dying.”
Mensa said he would try a variety of drugs to fuel his creativity while he was in the studio.
“I’m rolling up a dollar bill, on my hands and knees railing it off the bathroom floor, definitely with piss mixed up in it,” Mensa said. “That stopped working and just tanked my serotonin.
“I would use each drug to the max until it stopped working. And then I was feeling like I couldn’t create, because I needed these drugs but the drugs weren’t working,” Mensa said. “I was hellbent on killing myself. I was on a full warpath of suicide.”
Mensa said he was able to find himself during an ayahuasca ceremony.
“I had a vision of seeing my mother’s blonde hair from my five-year-old eyes,” Mensa said. “A higher voice came to me and said, ‘I used to want blue eyes. That is the root of my pain.’ I thought that was so revealing. It’s the first place I can really pinpoint it to within this lifetime: a sense of unworthiness because of not looking like my parents.”
If you or someone you know needs help, contact the 24-hour National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.
