Sex, drugs, rap and roll. Vic Mensa's transparency about his dysfunctional lifestyle is sobering throughout his confessional Autobiography, released this summer. But on his latest video, "Rollin' Like a Stoner," he gazes back at his real-life battle with addiction through rock-star-colored lenses.
Directed by Mensa, "Rollin'" is full of trippy B-movie visuals that find the Chicago artist exploring the larger-than-life excess and addiction he devolved into in the years leading up to Autobiography. "Rollin' like a stoner, outta control / 'Cause I got a problem nobody knows," he raps, in leather jackets as he floats between his motorcycle and drop-top, driving under the influence.
With so many of the genre's stars spinning drugged-out, depressive, suicidal narratives in 2017, Mensa's absurd self-depiction — which ends with his name lit up on a theater marquee — is a reminder that their disastrous lifestyle is our entertainment.
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