Vic Mensa says he was on a “full warpath of suicide” when taking drugs for creativity

Vic Mensa once leaned on drugs for creativity, but it could have resulted in a self-inflicted death. In his new Spin Magazine cover story, he discusses how his drug use affected his life.

“The first drug I really felt dependent on was mushrooms,” Vic 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.”

He then started doing molly and ecstasy “in the pursuit of boosted creativity.” They eventually stopped working, decreasing his serotonin levels and resulting in his use of Adderall. “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,” he said. “And so I was hellbent on killing myself. I was on a full warpath of suicide.”

Vic also discussed his 2022 arrest and noted that while police brutality is an issue, it pales in comparison to the Black-on-Black violence in many communities.

“The police are not your biggest issue,” he said. “They may be the definitive factor on if you live or die today, but you’re gonna deal with much more run-of-the-mill violence from your own kind. Because that’s just the psyche and the programming of our communities.” 

He continued, “So it’s like you as a young Black man learn that you must become the aggressor unless you wanna be a victim.”

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