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Speaker 1: Yeah, rapp rate our podcast Allie Wilson, speed out, beat out,

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Speaker 1: What's upby great? We be back at it, men, because

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Speaker 1: this guy's making a lot of noise. Man longer waited, Man,

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Speaker 1: The autobiography is here, Man vic Menza, How are you, sir?

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Speaker 1: I'm good Man. Thank you for having me. Congratulations, Man,

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Speaker 1: thank you very much. Talk about this journey, man, because

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Speaker 1: I know, like, does it because you put out so

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Speaker 1: much music, like, does it feel like a debut? Does

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Speaker 1: it feel like a new a new chapter right now?

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Speaker 1: It really does. Man. I really feel as if I'm

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Speaker 1: putting my first major major foot into carbon footprint, you know,

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Speaker 1: kind of in the history. Because this album is is

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Speaker 1: for me really returning to square one and the themes

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Speaker 1: I'm touching on and and the you know, just the

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Speaker 1: lyrical content and the production, the styles included and sampled,

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Speaker 1: the people involved, and it feels everyweight. It just feels

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Speaker 1: like the way that I would want to do a

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Speaker 1: debut album. And I've I've put out different music at

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Speaker 1: different times, it had different directions and different energies, and

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Speaker 1: this is what feels the most me and it's it's

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Speaker 1: the most personal, it's the most revealing, the most honest,

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Speaker 1: and that's why it's my debut album. It's like a

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Speaker 1: process you've been constantly like tinkering with it, right. You

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Speaker 1: talk a little about that process of just getting into

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Speaker 1: the place where you feel like, Okay, this is the

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Speaker 1: story I want to tell, right, Well, honestly, that's that's

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Speaker 1: basically the story of the album. For the most part.

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Speaker 1: It's like it's it's taken you more or less through

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Speaker 1: the last like I guess four so years of my life,

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Speaker 1: four or five years of my life, which we're just

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Speaker 1: very tumultuous, and I'm growing and like anybody that's growing up,

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Speaker 1: you try things, uh, you're trying to find yourself and

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Speaker 1: figure yourself out, and you know, adding like an element

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Speaker 1: of uh public opinion and pressure and people watching you

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Speaker 1: and at the same time like being around the world,

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Speaker 1: like coming in the large sums of money. It could

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Speaker 1: just be uh, like anybody's growing process, but magnified and

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Speaker 1: like with a bunch of exclamation points after it. So

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Speaker 1: every time you fall, it's like you fall harder and

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Speaker 1: you come up part, you know what I mean, everybody

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Speaker 1: got something to say and ultimate peaks and valleys word up.

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Speaker 1: That's and that's exactly what I'm talking about in the album.

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Speaker 1: And that was the process really, And you know, there

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Speaker 1: were certain points in time where there was music that

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Speaker 1: I made and I released that I didn't I didn't

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Speaker 1: really feel like it reflected me, and I didn't feel

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Speaker 1: like I was saying the things that I wanted to say.

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Speaker 1: And sometimes I went down a path that was maybe

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Speaker 1: you know, following trends or following what I felt was

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Speaker 1: expected of me, and and at points in time it

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Speaker 1: did well for me, but it never did well to me,

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Speaker 1: if you understand what I'm saying. So it's kind of

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Speaker 1: like this is m music that I say it's the debut,

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Speaker 1: not only because you know it is proper, but it's

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Speaker 1: also like it's music that I know I could stand

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Speaker 1: on in fifteen years, twenty years and be like, I

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Speaker 1: can I can honor this song that I wrote for

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Speaker 1: my homie that got killed in Chicago. I could honor

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Speaker 1: you know, having on Earth. Yeah, I can honor these

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Speaker 1: different these different records and these different experiences, and I

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Speaker 1: think that they're gonna be around for a long time.

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Speaker 1: You have this record called Almost There, and you say,

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Speaker 1: fans always said he want the old VIC back, but like,

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Speaker 1: what does the old vic What do you think they

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Speaker 1: mean by that? I don't even know what they mean,

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Speaker 1: you know. You know, people say that like about any artists,

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Speaker 1: about any artists, and I've I've probably said it about

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Speaker 1: an artist before. I try to catch myself when I

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Speaker 1: find myself doing that, because I'm like, I want to

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Speaker 1: allow artists space to grow, even though I might love

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Speaker 1: what they've done before. And I think that's the whole

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Speaker 1: thing about about artists, and you know, rappers specifically really

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Speaker 1: because it's it's so verbose, and like my favorite rappers

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Speaker 1: have always been really lyrical, and you knew a lot

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Speaker 1: about them just by listening to their music, so you

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Speaker 1: connect to them and you kind of feel like you

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Speaker 1: know them, and then when you see them go somewhere

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Speaker 1: that you didn't expect or you didn't want, then it

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Speaker 1: can like it can kind of like it can feel

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Speaker 1: like your friends switched up on you, you know, when

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Speaker 1: really it's just it's just them growing and being a person,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I'm sure you're not the

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Speaker 1: same exactly today as you were twenty years ago, you

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Speaker 1: know what I mean? You feel like more fans coming

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Speaker 1: to you. One of the Internet VIC or like there's

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Speaker 1: a lot going on VIC. I think a lot of

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Speaker 1: people did connect to me, um with you know, things

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Speaker 1: I was talking about, and there's a lot going on,

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Speaker 1: a lot of people do talk to me about, Like

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Speaker 1: I think when I was saying the old VIC there

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Speaker 1: people were really thinking about like Internet tape and stuff

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Speaker 1: like that, and and I'm trying to tell them, I'm like, see,

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Speaker 1: if you really really was doing your homework and digging

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Speaker 1: and and and knowing what's going on, like you would know.

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Speaker 1: I had like a I had a mixtape when I

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Speaker 1: was sixteen, which is how I first first met no

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Speaker 1: I D called straight Up. That's like lyrically and and

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Speaker 1: and sonically is way more in line with the autobiography

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Speaker 1: and my album right now and something like almost there

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Speaker 1: or even though there's a lot going on than it is.

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Speaker 1: The Internet, the Internet was that was the beginning of

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Speaker 1: when I was really on drugs. Like you said that

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Speaker 1: whole tape musoms, Yeah, it was like that was and

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Speaker 1: at first it was an experimental thing. But you know

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Speaker 1: that's why it's like so fucking like carefree and like

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Speaker 1: very like just out there, you know, and it's like, um,

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Speaker 1: and I'm I'm experimental, but I don't really look at

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Speaker 1: that music and listen to that music as like being

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Speaker 1: like a reflection of like me at center, you know

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Speaker 1: what I mean. Like, I think the way that that

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Speaker 1: I'm writing now really reminds me more of the way

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Speaker 1: I was writing when I was sixteen seventeen than anything

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Speaker 1: kind of in between, because there was a point of

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Speaker 1: time from when I was like nineteen until I was

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Speaker 1: like twenty two and started making this album, which is

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Speaker 1: when I made the song. There's a lot going on

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Speaker 1: and things like that, um all between them, I was

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Speaker 1: kind of I was spiraling out of control. Man. I

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Speaker 1: was like I was very dependent on drugs and my

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Speaker 1: mental state was deteriorating, and my relationships were deteriorating, and

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Speaker 1: ship was like although I was like coming into money

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Speaker 1: and like being on stages and going around the world,

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Speaker 1: I was not happy. You know, we hear that a lot.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you talk about it too, Like we hear

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Speaker 1: a lot of artists talk about depression. We're allowed to

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Speaker 1: talk about you know, oh, medication, Opie really Molly Perker said,

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Speaker 1: all these kind of drugs over counter drugs, Like it's changed.

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Speaker 1: It's not like a crack thing. It's not like that

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Speaker 1: type of smoke crept smoke and crack the crack, the

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Speaker 1: light up, the crack crack back. But do you think

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Speaker 1: what do you think it was? Do you think it was?

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Speaker 1: What do you think was all this stuff coming at you? Like?

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Speaker 1: What do you attributed to that you think that you

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Speaker 1: became to align on the drugs during that period, because

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Speaker 1: it looks like on service, all these blessings are coming

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Speaker 1: your way right right signed the back Nation, Kaye wants

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Speaker 1: to work with you. All these people want to work

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Speaker 1: with you. Like what's going on? It makes you like

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Speaker 1: go down that path you think? You know, I really

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Speaker 1: explore that in the album. I was kind of what

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Speaker 1: the process of the album was like for me. Was

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Speaker 1: I brought in Uh, a friend of mine and Cathy

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Speaker 1: Ian Dolly and she's a she's a writer that helped

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Speaker 1: me stepped in kind of like as a biographer for

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Speaker 1: the autobiography, and you know, she's asking me questions. We're

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Speaker 1: going through my whole life experience, like from early childhood,

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Speaker 1: and you know, I'm exploring different things that I was

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Speaker 1: seeing around me that kind of influenced me, influenced me

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Speaker 1: later and whether it was like issues with kind of

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Speaker 1: feeling ostracizing, unaccepted in different worlds because because my my

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Speaker 1: family is like multicultural, you know, and I never really

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Speaker 1: felt like I was fully accepted with black people or

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Speaker 1: definitely not considered to be white, you know. Um so

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Speaker 1: from a young age, I feel like that's something that

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Speaker 1: was in my mind. Then you know, I grow up

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Speaker 1: or I start to grow up, and I'm looking outside

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Speaker 1: and and although I'm in a two parent household, um

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Speaker 1: like watching kids selling crack and fiends buying crack, like

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Speaker 1: across the street, and you know, people being shot and

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Speaker 1: all of these things. And I'm seeing like people close

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Speaker 1: to me shooting up Heroin waving needles at me. And

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Speaker 1: you know, you take all these things in. You know,

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Speaker 1: you're eleven, twelve, third in fourteen, grow up a little bit,

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Speaker 1: start doing what I'm doing. But I was always kind

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Speaker 1: of of the I'm gonna I'm gonna give it to you,

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Speaker 1: but I ain't, you know, I'm not doing drugs. That

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Speaker 1: was always kind of like a mentality I had. And

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Speaker 1: then you know, as we got a little bit older, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, the mentality just kind of changed and and

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Speaker 1: things became like a lot more accepted and everybody's trying

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Speaker 1: this and trying that, and people are different. But for me,

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Speaker 1: it took me down a path of like kind of

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Speaker 1: losing who I was because I've always um well not always,

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Speaker 1: but from a young age, like around fifteen years old.

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Speaker 1: UM is when like I first ever saw a therapist

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Speaker 1: and I remember they gave me like some psychiastric medications

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Speaker 1: zo Loft, and it was making me have zapps in

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Speaker 1: my brain. I was like, I can't funk with this.

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Speaker 1: This is weird, but you know, I was. I was

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Speaker 1: definitely experiencing like anxiety to a major degree and starting

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Speaker 1: to s and things that are kind of like genetic,

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Speaker 1: you know, things that can be triggered also by marijuana.

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Speaker 1: A lot of people don't know, you know, I started

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Speaker 1: smoking weed when I was eleven, and I remember when

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Speaker 1: I started having the anxiety, and right then the weeds

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Speaker 1: started to affect me differently, and then I started to

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Speaker 1: like not go all the way back