Vic Mensa quietly entered into fatherhood last year and is now ready to share his greatest gift with the world—his son, Mansa Musa Mensa.
The rapper and his girlfriend of three years, Melanie, made the formal announcement with Us Weekly and shared first look images of their family of three, ahead of the release of his “I Wanna Be Ready” music video. Mansa is named as the featured artist.
“With the world being the way it is and the internet, I just wanted to take my time,” he explained. “I wanted to protect our peace and protect Melanie’s peace and the process of pregnancy and his infancy and [it] just felt like the right time.”
Vic directed the “I Wanna Be Ready” visual himself. Of that creative endeavor, he shared, “I really wanted to make this art piece to present his birth to the world through this art piece. So, once I really put that together, then that’s when I felt like I wanted to share with the world.”
He and Melanie chose their son’s name to honor his African ancestry. “Mansa Musa [is] a 13th-century emperor of Mali and the Mali Empire was widely regarded as being the wealthiest man in all of human history … Mansa Musa is just a very well-known figure in African history and amongst African people of the diaspora all across the globe, primarily for his wealth,” said the Chicago native. Vic noted that his son’s nickname is “Triple M.”
Despite only being eight months old, Mansa has already been to Portugal and Mexico twice, and Vic’s homeland of Ghana. “Taking him to Ghana, though, that’s something I wanted to start young,” he shared. “My father’s from Ghana and my entire father’s side of the family lives in Ghana. And I didn’t go until I was 11 years old, but I didn’t really start planting my roots and building my own relationship with the continent and the country until maybe 2020, [or] 2021. So, I want to start him from infancy.”
Vic credited his sobriety in helping him “be a better father” and is currently finishing his next album, which he’s “primarily producing.”
Watch the full “I Wanna Be Ready” visual above.
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