Source: @JustInMyView / R1 Digital
As the music world continues to mourn the loss of Juice WRLD, Vic Mensa has stepped forward to reveal what he thinks is partly to blame.
TMZ spoke to the Chicago MC in LA, asking him about his opinion on Lil Pump dropping “Drug Addicts” — whic has over 150 views on Youtube with Charlie Sheen-assisted visuals–from his setlist at L.A.’s Rolling Loud Festival. Instead, in honor of Juice WRLD’s death, he decided a “Lucid Dreams” tribute was more fitting.
“I think that, as members of the hip-hop community, we need to take responsibility for the things that we say,” he said. “We need to recognize that the shit we talk about influences children. So when we are steady pushing a message of lean and Percocets and Xans, we are polluting the minds of the youth.”
He went on to explain that they are role models and that speaking about your reality in your rap is great, but glorifying the dangerous parts is problematic.
“We have a responsibility to give it to them in a real way. Not to say that you can’t talk about your real life and the things that are happening but I think that we need to start holding each other and ourselves accountable for our glorification of the drug culture, 100 percent. That’s just what it is. Anything else, that’s parasitic to our people to just act like this is the shit to be on lean all the time.”
Mensa has previously spoken out about hard drug use in rap culture, even taking responsibility for glorifying the drug epidemic in his own lyrics, and admitted regret in ever referencing prescription drugs in his music in 2017.
Juice WRLD passed away on December at the age of 21 after suffering from a seizure following a flight from Los Angeles to Chicago. Allegedly, he overdosed after swallowing several Percocet pills to hide them from the police.
