Vic Mensa Brings Chicago House To The Middle Of The Afternoon

Vic Mensa Brings Chicago House To The Middle Of The Afternoon

Young Chicago rapper Vic Mensa was going places as a sort of lite version of his friend Chance The Rapper, but he’s going places faster as a futuristic dance-rapper. Opening up the main stage early in the afternoon, he looked like a minor character from the movie Hackers: bleached hair, Doc Martens, all-black clothes. The soul-rap remnants of his set left over from his pre-makeover set didn’t fit well with the music he’s making now; the Common-esque goofy freestyle was especially unfortunate. But when he morphed into a child of the bass, on tracks like his Kanye West collabs “Wolves” and the awesomely brand-new “U Mad,” he looked like an absolute force. Late in his set, he covered Kid Cudi’s “The Pursuit Of Happiness” and in effect showed where his career should go. He should be the version of Cudi who doesn’t absolutely blow it. And he went straight from that into his best song and his closest thing to a “Day N Nite,” the liquid Chicago house banger “Down On My Luck.” It destroyed.