The back-and-forth, pass-the-mic flow is an old-school staple of rap that just doesn’t get utilized enough in today’s digital file-sharing era. Maybe too few MCs are ever actually in the same room to be able to convincingly pull it off. Fortunately, fast-rising GOOD Music rapper Valee and outspoken superstar Vic Mensa share a city, which makes that link-up way easier, allowing them to perfectly portray the dynamic lyrical style on “Dim Sum.”
They also link up for the VHS-inspired video for the song, which finds Mensa uncharacteristically flexing over the whistling, hypnotic beat, which was produced by Apex Martin, Mike Dean, and Cubeatz. The dreadlocked pair of rappers roam an Asian novelties store wielding katana swords and take over a Chinese restaurant to keep the theme intact as they trade bars over the last verse like seasoned vets. The vocal differences and disparate lyrical approaches lend a — forgive the term here — yin-and-yang quality to the third verse, which is an absolute must to make this style work.
When he’s not flexing like an anime character in person, Vic’s flexing like an anime character as… an anime character in his Instagram webseries “Mind Of Mensa.” The animated Vic is currently on a quest to master kung-fu with the help of Kanye West and a talking wolf, and it’s worth checking out for its trippy visuals and goofball humor.
