The FADER spent a week with the rapper Vic Mensa in Chicago shooting our first video cover story, Down To Start A Riot. Mensa had recently joined Kanye West on stage at the BRIT Awards and was, along with the rest of his SAVEMONEY crew, teetering on the edge of breaking out in a major way.
Citing the versatility of SAVEMONEY’s sound and the breadth of their projects, the documentary’s director Aaron Brown says that, “It was cool to see what [Mensa and the SAVEMONEY guys] were doing, because they were doing something that has a lot more dimension.” Brown spent time with Vic in the studio, where there was work to be done and fun to be had; followed him through the streets of Hyde Park, where he recalls seeing the body of a slain classmate as a teenager and where he is now stopped by admirers on the street; and he filmed him freestyling on a subway platform.