**Post Malone & Vic Mensa** | all images by **Bukunmi Grace**
It's rare that you find artists who are willing to be vulnerable and share ideas and thoughts or serious issues that aren't vague, but sharp and candid. At Day n Night Festival a few weekends ago in Los Angeles, we met up with Vic Mensa and Post Malone, who were both slated to be interviewed separately. Upon arrival to their trailers--after their solo performances, it was evident the the convo the pair was having shouldn't be broken up. So we let them talk and they welcomed in our recorder.
Here, Post and Vic chat about gun laws, North Korea being a threat to the U.S. and Mensa learns of Malone's video game theory for maintaining a faithful relationship.
* * *
**Vic Mensa:** First question for you: How do you feel about gun laws in America?
**Post Malone:** I don’t even have a gun, but I don’t think there’s no reason not to. I think the gun laws are slowly becoming more centralized. You’re on the East Coast in New York and West Coast in LA, but you have manifest destiny that causes people to move around and we need to meet somewhere right in the middle. Ultimately, I think it’s bullshit but with everything that’s happening I think the right to bear arms is important. Even if you have to do it in a funny type of way.
**Post Malone:** Well, what do you think about everything going on currently in the world? I know how you feel about America but how do you feel about North Korea?
**Vic Mensa:** I think North Korea is a major diversion from domestic struggles. Miniature military power. I think the whole point of focusing on North Korea and saying that if they make a verbal threat we’re going to respond with physical force, I think that that’s to normalize physical force and take the tension away from the fact that white supremacists are beating up and killing people in Charlottesville and that there’s no water clean for drinking in Flint, Michigan. I feel like North Korea is a non-factor, but it’s a good focus for an administration and a government that wants to keep us disillusioned and keep us confused so that we don’t focus on our problems.
**Post Malone:** And I agree, I think a lot of that is media manipulation.
**Vic Mensa:** It’s all media. It’s propaganda. It’s major propaganda.
**Post Malone:** Okay though, Korea has hydrogen bombs. Korea has nuclear bombs. Korea is so small. Korea is so small that if they were an actual threat--and this is a shoutout to my boy Kim Jong-un: We will fuck you up. It’ll be immediate. It’ll be fucking immediately. This motherfucker is gonna be bones and ash. It’s nothing but that.
But I agree. I definitely agree and I think that people nowadays are--especially government leaders and politicians and definitely everybody who’s leading the charge against civil problems and domestic problems and foreign problems--I think they’re taking advantage of this opportunity to really separate us. I think there’s really a lot of separation between our own fucking states and peoples to where it’s just so easy to pick us off once we’re all divided, and I think that’s been happening for a long time.
**Vic Mensa:** Okay, so I have a question that’s completely changing gears. I was in my dressing room earlier, and I looked over and I saw you and your girl in the same vicinity. I’ve had a relationship underneath the public eye, and I saw just how hectic it can be. So I just wanted to ask how you feel about… \[Laughs\] This is a tough question. How do you feel about being in a relationship while being in the industry of entertainment.
**Post Malone:** It’s tough. It’s hard. It’s hard shit. It’s um…
**Vic Mensa:** What keeps you dedicated and motivated? Cause I’ve been there. I’ve been there 100% with somebody that I loved to death. And all of this shit is superficial. What I have with this person is tangible to me, you know what I’m saying?
**Post Malone:** Say if I was cool, say if I was tight, then I might be out like, boogieing and partying. And hey, don’t get me wrong, I like to get a little fucked up and have some fun with my boys every once in awhile. I think what’s important is, _[PlayerUnknown's Battleground](https://www.playbattlegrounds.com/main.pu)._ I think _PlayerUnknown's Battleground_ really saved my relationship.
**Vic Mensa:** What is that?
**Post Malone:** It’s a video game.
**Vic Mensa:** What’s up with that? What’s the answer?
**Post Malone:** So I think that _Playerunknown's Battleground_, or from now on we’ll reference it as “PUBG,” really saved my relationship because hey, I don’t want to go fucking party. I would be blessed to get two kills in that game. So, I think that really saved my relationship.
**Vic Mensa:** That’s deep shit.
**Post Malone:** Video games are good for monogamy. Humans are known to be monogamous. I have no desire to go out and find some stranger when I could just hang out with Ash. And she’ll make me some pizza rolls.
**Vic Mensa:** Totino’s?
**Post Malone:** Yes, def' Totino’s pizza rolls.
**Vic Mensa:** Well because, I’m in a relationship too, you know.
**Post Malone:** Still?
**Vic Mensa:** No, it’s a different relationship that I was in at a different point of time, but I do find that just peeping the game and just having been in situations where I’m on everybody’s radar and I got a lot of people clamoring for my attention. I came to realize just through trial and error that I wasn’t taking anything meaningful from those interactions, you know what I’m saying? At the end of the day, I like to feel like I’m learning and I’m growing everyday. Even though I’m not so used to being, like, with one woman or something like that, I’m learning how to live with normalcy.
Not "normal" in the sense of mundane or boring. Just as opposed to being on ten at all points of time, you know what I’m saying? Cause that’s easy to fucking do when a lot of like, beautiful women want talk to you. It’s easy to just be like, "Uh, you, you, you, you, you, y’all come with me." That’s easy to do, but I would always find that afterwards… I was in [Bootsy Bellows](http://www.bootsybellows.com/) last night, and I was thinking about this.
**Post Malone:** And I’m ugly, so my girlfriend has nothing to do, but you got a nice jawline.
**Vic Mensa:** But you got diamonds in your teeth, son. That shit is gonna help.
**Vic Mensa:** I was in Bootsy Bellows last night. Usually I'll be in a club reading books and shit, 'cause I don’t really love it. I don’t love it. But I was in the club, and I was just kinda like \[bored\]. My man was like, "You’re a strong man with all of this temptation around you." And I was like "Man, this ain’t tough to me." These hoes ain't tempting me.
**Post Malone:** These hoes is nerds!
**Vic Mensa:** \[Laughs\] Okay, that’s the end of the interview!
* * *
Written by Bukunmi Grace
.jpg)
.jpg)
