Opening up for Jay-Z is not easy work, but Vic Mensa did his damndest on last year’s 4:44 tour to tame the beast and entertain Jay’s arena crowds nightly. It’s not an enviable position, warming an arena full of people up for the greatest of all time, but Vic’s performance was admirable and impassioned, and each night he decided to finish his time on Jay’s stage with the fiery examination of the current climate in America, “We Could Be Free.” Now, Vic is taking his promotion of the fiery track even further with the release of a second video for the song, this one just as thoughtful and packed with poignant imagery as the song.
Vic talked about the visual with Zane Lowe, calling the song and video the apex of “the realization that freedom is possible” while giving Zane a sort of director’s commentary on the video, including a shot by shot breakdown of the messages he was trying to convey. “In the world, globally, there’s a lot of division based on a lot of fear,” Vic said. “I wanted to present an alternative that is without fear, and more so based in humanity, and that’s what the song ‘We Could Be Free’ represents.”
In the end, Lowe’s mind was blown, offering a genuine “whoa” at one point, before saying, “There’s violence in the video to reflect the times that we’re in, but it never feels gratuitous.” Lowe praised the video, finally telling Vic, “That’s a really hard line to walk, and only a really great song can pull that over the line.”
Check out Vic Mensa and Zane Lowe’s conversation about the “We Could Be Free” video below.
