Issue 10 is available now. Buy it here.
Stay informed on our latest news!
Recommended articles
Vic Mensa: Rowdy for a Reason
It's not just that he started the SaveMoneySaveLife foundation, which combats racism in America and funds three Chicago programs focused on health and the arts, but Vic's importance lays even more so in that he prioritizes being on the frontlines of these movements and has been since he was a teenager less than a decade ago, before all the fame. In 2019, it feels modern to turn concern into action, and having used his influence to actualize life-saving initiatives throughout the country, Vic Mensa seems like a pretty appealing ambassador for modernity.
office sat down with the rapper to see what he's been up to recently. From releasing an EP late last year to honing in on his growing presence in the fashion world, it seems that he's been up to a lot.
Jacket by 93 Punks, pants by Ann Demeulemeester.
You’re very involved in the fashion world. Where does your relationship with fashion stem from? Have you always been into it?
I mean, I’ve been into fashion since I was about 11 or 12 years old, collecting a lot of Nike SP’s and Jordans. I started to customize my clothes and acid wash my Levi’s and shit like that, cut up my denim jackets and do that to sweaters I bought off Ebay and shit. Right around that era is when I started to be into fashion.
Do you think your perspective of the world, or even how people look at you, changed when you cut off your famous locks?
My perspective on the world didn’t change, not in an overall micro sense. I think my perspective on the world changes as the world changes. But the way people started to see me, potentially. All that superficial shit is not what matters to me, though. Girls like it, so that’s cool to me.
You’re relatively young and early on in your career, but it seems like you’ve got your hands in so many different areas—from being heavily involved in the fashion world to your foundation SavemoneySavelife. It feels very modern. Do you think this all happened naturally?
I’ve always been revolutionary-minded and politically inclined. So, as I’ve been able to gain more of a broad sphere of influence, and also get more resources, some of the community outreach initiatives that I stand behind and that I spent time actualizing naturally fell into place. I was already involved in things, at all the marches, and being in Standing Rock and being in Flint, Michigan when the water crisis first began. It was a national story that I was aware of. From spending time in Palestine to being in Baton Rouge when Alton Sterling was killed out there, you know, it was just a natural evolution because these were already things that were important to me. I was reading Malcolm X and shit when I was 16 years old, so now I’m just a bit older and more capable of implementing the revolutionary politics and mindframe that I was inundated with from a very young age.
Vintage top & pants by Jean Paul Gaultier (left); Top by AMIRI, vintage pants by Maison Margiela.
Has your ability to enact change grown as you’ve gotten more popular?
100%. As an example, at the event that we did last summer there was an action that we put together called the Anti-Bait truck. Chicago police send bait trucks and bait cars in general into low-income, ghetto neighborhoods to catch people stealing. There was the highly-publicized case of that type of bait-and-switch community that happened on the most violent weekend of last year. We were able to put together the Anti-Bait truck event where all my friends and collaborators and everyone who works with the foundation were able to come together, and we received tremendous support from the global community. Sean King helped us to put together an Amazon link where people from across the globe could buy shoes and donated them for us to give away in Inglewood where these bait trucks had taken place. That’s something that completely wasn’t possible for me years ago when I didn’t have some type of platform.
Are you addicted to being busy?
Yeah, for sure. I’m working on a lot of different projects all the time. I’m inspired by them and I’m interested in them. So, if I’m not working on something, then I feel like I’m wasting time and that I’m not fulfilling when I feel to be my purpose or just doing the things that bring me satisfaction and happiness. Everyone has things that they enjoy to do, and what I enjoy to do is not to be “working,” but I enjoy accomplishing and creating things. When I create something that I like, it’s an unparalleled feeling—to bring something into manifestation that didn’t exist before. I’ve been able to express myself and create, and in a way that impresses me. When I impress myself with what I’ve done, I feel good about that, you know? I don’t feel that good when I’m not doing anything.
Have you seen the Michael Jackson documentary?
I watched about an hour of the first installment. I doubt I’ll continue to watch. I’m okay.
Top by We Are Confederacy, vintage pants by Maison Margiela (left); vintage jacket by Tom Ford for Gucci (right).
I mean, it’s such a big topic of discussion in the music industry right now—this question of how you separate the art from the artist, or if you even can What do you think?
The way I feel about the Mike shit, man, is like, I have no doubt in my mind that Michael Jackson committed heinous crimes, and he point blank raped little boys. That’s a hard pill to swallow, no pun intended. He is also the greatest performer, 100%. He has one of the greatest music catalogues of all time, on a short list at that. I personally have always been way more of a Prince fan than a Michael Jackson fan, and I know they had a rivalry.
But I do love Michael Jackson’s music. At this point in time, I feel that I still would listen to it. I still wanna listen to it. Who knows if that will change in the future? I don’t listen to R. Kelly anymore. I just don’t feel comfortable or even feel like listening to R. Kelly. I do think the things that Michael Jackson did were even worse. I don’t listen to R. Kelly anymore, but when I was a kid, I used to vehemently defend R. Kelly. I don’t even know what my arguments must’ve been. It’s like, I’m from Chicago, I idolize this nigga. At this point in time, I’ve never had such a specifically deep connection to Michael Jackson’s music although I do love it. I’m obviously a huge fan of his music, so I don’t know if it makes sense that that’s why I don’t necessarily feel compelled to cancel it, because I was never that emotionally invested.
Separating the artist from the art goes on a case by case basis, I think. The way I see it, I highly doubt it’s possible to mute Michael Jackson. I don’t think that the biggest musician of all time--and I’m pretty sure that shit is a fact--can be cancelled because the music is so interwoven into the fabric of global society.
He is pop culture, in a way.
This is the king of pop. It’s engraved into so many different areas of culture, from film to fashion. This nigga can dance. There’s nothing that this nigga didn’t heavily influence as far as pop culture goes. How do you just get rid of him? Can we still posthumously hold him accountable and consider him to be the child rapist that he is? 100%. I guess only time can tell if it’s even possible to try and silence him. Even in that, he’s omnipresent.
You released your EP, Hooligans, in December. What are you working on now?
I’m doing a side project called 93PUNX. I’ve been working on that day in and day out, night in and night out. That has an accompanying clothing line, which I wore some of in the shoot for office. It has a lot of heavily customized leathers, that’s our specialty. We’ve been working for two years now just making the clothes because we started off just making them for me, and then people would ask, where did you get this and blah blah blah. So, we decided to make it into a line. We’re working on the 93PUNX album and clothing line simultaneously. I’m also writing and producing and cultivating an artist project that is really, really dope. It’s far different from the shit that I do. It’s straight fucking’ face-tatted, gang banger, hard ass, murderous bank robbing music. So, I’m working on that as I do the 93PUNX album and clothing line, all to be released quite imminently. All of these things will begin to be released in the spring going into the summertime.
Listen to ‘Hooligans’ here.
Recommended articles
A Day in the Life of El Perro Del Mar
office caught up with the artist to uncover more about her sort of intangible aura that keeps all of us listening and coming back for more.
Tell me a bit about yourself and how El Perro Del Mar came to fruition.
My name is Sarah. I’m a musician and artist. I’ve been doing that my entire adult life. I think that the point I found my pseudonym as El Perro Del Mar was around when I was 27 and it really marked a point in my life where I found my right place and my right voice as a musician. So it took my quite a while, but from that point, I’ve just been making music in any kind of shape or form, but always under El Perro Del Mar.
What is the difference between Sarah Assbring and El Perro Del Mar?
El Perro Del Mar is very much my way of being able to express all of the different personalities and emotions that I feel. It’s the umbrella that I use, the toolbox I have to express myself and the way I need to do, but maybe not in the way I can do when I’m just Sarah.
Throughout your countless artistic expressions, what is the most important thing you’ve learned along the way?
At one point in life, I was really in a very fragile, tumultuous state of mind. I was asking for means to be alive. For the first time in my life I was doubting whether music was the thing that I was going to make, whether it was the key to being a happy person. And I think that’s when I found out that it is. I did it in a easy that made sense to me, in a sort of existential way that made me happy. That’s what I’ve learned.
How did you create the name El Perro Del Mar?
The reason I chose the name El Perro Del Mar was because I had a meeting with a stray dog and I felt like there was a bare and unfaked being with that dog that I really wanted to hold on to and that was the very core of what I wanted to be and what I wanted to do. So that is something that I always try to go back to everytime I make a new record.
Shirt by Carin Wester (left); shirt by Carin Wester, dress by Whyred (right).
That’s such an unique approach.
I hold onto that very much and every time I feel like maybe I have forgotten it, I have to go back again. It’s painstaking because when I start, I always end up at that moment where I have to deconstruct everything and fall to the floor, and really ask myself, “Why do I do this? Is it worth it?” Then I end up having that bare, raw, naked reason where I know, “yes this is the place, this is where I’m supposed to be.” It’s very existential. It’s the same feeling as knowing I have to eat. I have to breathe. I have to write. A lot of things have happened since that day, but I always carry that principle with me. It’s very important still, and I know that the day when it’s not important anymore I wouldn’t go through it again. I wouldn’t make music and have this work if it wasn’t clear for me.
Is this kind of ultimate revelation just as groundbreaking each time?
It is actually. I think that is one of the key reasons why my music is different. I’ve heard why every album for me sounds different in some way. But that is a reason why. That is why I have to go through that surge within me. I need to find that revelation again and again. I do this by experiencing new sounds, playing new instruments, looking elsewhere for music. It takes me to different places each time.
What is the most profound thing you’ve discovered recently?
I just found out a couple of weeks ago this Moroccan kind of music that’s called Gnawa. It’s this sort of exorcistic, ritualistic, very simple, beat-drive music. There are people going around the village playing this music during the day or night and you just fall into this trascendental beat that lasts for hours. It’s very rave-like. That is an example of when I stumble upon something where I’m like, “wow this exists and has been existing for a very long time.” It’s very much to do with being being together—melting together. The more I discover, the more I realize that everything is connected.
Jacket & pants by Remake, shirt by Acne Studios, coat by ARKET, shoes by Ganni (left); shirt by Carin Wester, dress by Whyred (right).
What’s one standard you’ve never felt the need to fulfill?
I’ve always been free with the idea of what I should be and I still feel that way. The older I get, the stronger I hold this ideal of what I want to be, but I’m sometimes I don’t feel as driven to fulfill certain things. I’m very basic when it comes to my own life. I just need to create and do it constantly. As long as I can do that, I’m happy with a simple life. Age brings a wisdom that there isn’t much to worry about.
What is the last movie watched and loved?
I saw a documentary on Joe Strummer the other night. I was so fulfilled, but kind of blue after. He was a genius but also had the sadness within him. He would always say, “dont worry about it, just do it” That kind of a very cliche thing. He ended up dying from a heart disease that he had all his life and he could’ve died at any moment, but he didnt know it. That rings very true when you think you have to make what you have to make. I’ve always had that feeling even when I was little. Waking up with those kind of itchy hands, where you feel like you have to make something. I have that still. All I have to do is make sure I go through with it and if I didn’t, I would be very unhappy.
I feel like you have such an ongoing sense of fulfillment. What has been your proudest moment to date?
I always say this and it’s making me tired of myself, but absolutely my son. I was so surprised at being able to have a child and everytime I look at him I’m shocked that sort of thing is possible. I would never do something better than him.
What are you most looking forward to in the near future?
My dream today is to write the film score for a beautiful film. That’s what I’m intending to do and most excited about making. Of course, I’m always excited about making music, too.
Listen to El Perro Del Mar here.
Lead image: Jacket & pants by Remake, shirt by Acne Studios.
