Today we bring you the premiere of the new video by Chicago’s finest, Vic Spencer. “Rehab Resort” is from the upcoming album, Psychological Cheat Sheet, out next week. Check the video above, and then peep the interview below.
“Rehab Resort” is from the new album, Psychological Cheat Sheet. Tell us what we can expect from the new project?
Psychological Cheat Sheet is a pot of frustrations, gumbo style. Somethings that I probably would post on social media, I put in my rhymes instead. Expect broken hearts, hurt feelings, expect envy from various rappers. Everybody is not going to give themselves or be vulnerable for listeners. I will, though.
You are very prolific and always in the studio, which I’ve heard you describe as an addiction. Is this because of a constant itch to want to create, a way to keep your name out there at all times and monetise your as much work as possible, or a bit of both?
Before I had a opportunity to be in the studio weekly, I used to record on a boombox and cassette tape. I used a karaoke machine to record my voice. I did that daily. I was doing this in 2008, still. I always told myself that if I had an opportunity to record as much as possible, no matter how old I get, I’m gonna record as much as possible.
Let’s talk about Chicago hip-hop. It feels like there’s a lot of space between the big stars like Ye, Common and Chance The Rapper, and indy/underground artists like Tree, Chris Crack and yourself. But you’ve also worked with artists like Chance. Do you feel like you can be a bridge between the two lanes, and how do you feel about the local scene in general?
I feel the local scene in Chicago is segregated. I feel like a lot of artists that are successful, they hang with the more successful people: the people that got record deals, THEY ALL HANG TOGETHER. Look out for one another. Be at each other shows. While the rest of Chicago competes with one another. I can never be a bridge because I’ve been blackballed in Chicago so much by so many Chicago artists. Sure, I worked with Chance the Rapper but what happened after that?? Nothing at all. Nothing reciprocated. So that’s what I mean when artists are on a higher platform they stay there, they literally just grab a chair, lemonade and stay there and whoever is there that’s who they are give their attention to, nothing else. I’m an on the ground MC. Chance the Rapper has no time for me.
Speaking of Chance, I went back and watched the “National Geographical” video from 2014. You both look young as fuck lol! It must feel good to see his career having taken off so much since then. Are you guys still tight?
I loved “National Geographical”. Actually that song was done before he got on that song. That’s when Chance was broke. He called my phone daily, come to my house smoke my cigarettes, everything. Recently spoke to Chance about a situation where he was under-paying artists that was on his first album and I kind of made a joke about it. It took for me to do that to get Chance the Rapper’s attention. I wasn’t even trying to get his attention. I think we just as tight as just speaking to one another, being cordial. I recently asked Chance “do you want to hang out and take our daughters to some type of fun place.” He ignored me so I don’t know. I’m just being 100 with you. I don’t be on no music shit with celebs.
Something else I noticed looking back on your older music is how different your voice was compared to today – it’s a lot deeper and grimier now. Is this a natural change, maybe due to getting old or too much weed (!), or is it a stylistic choice? I know Evidence has talked about how he sounds different now because he used to put on a different voice, but now embraces what he really sounds like.
I think my voice is changing with age. I smoke weed but I don’t think it has done anything to mess up my voice. I think that I always had this baritone sound and I think that it’s important that my pockets don’t change but the voice does, you see growth in the voice but the pockets remain the same. It’s personal to me. My heart is being put back together as we speak. So it’s gonna be a lot of grimey, it’s gonna be a lot of heartfelt.
One of the things I respect about you is the humbleness. You tweet about how good it is to see your own music on vinyl, how happy it makes you to see people in your circle do good, trips to juvenile court and other real-life shit. It’s a refreshing lack of ego you don’t see a lot in hip-hop. It is important to you for people to see you like that?
I think it’s very important for people to see me in that vein. Because all rappers do is talk about themselves. They never talk about what they can completed or what they did for the community. I seen rappers say “if you got a record a good deed and it wasn’t a good deed”. I think that’s the wackest excuse to why you don’t do what you need to do to assist another person. All my goals that I wanted to complete in life musically are simple, never outlandish. I remember saying “I want to hear myself on vinyl” and now I got a whole bunch of vinyl that you could actually collect. I think that that’s important to speak out about that. All my homies dropped albums last year. I love to see people around me working. I love positive things, I love to talk about positive things, I love to tweet about positive things. Now if I tweet about something negative, that means something has occurred.
From your social media posts, it sounds like you have a lot of other projects cooking for this year. What’s next up after Psychological Cheat Sheet?
I have an album with Stu Bangas that could drop next. I have a weed album called No Shawn Skemps that’s dropping on 4/20 this year regardless. Spencer for Higher 3 with Sonnyjim is dropping this year. IM NOT PLAYING! I have a album with my in house producer/engineer Doc da Mindbenda. I’m working on music that’s gonna drop in 2021 and 2022 right now.
Any final thoughts or shout outs?
Shouts to everyone except those that I don’t fuck with.
***
Psychological Cheat Sheet is out next week. Follow Vic Spencer on Twitter and Instagram. Interview by Grown Up Rap Editor Ben Pedroche.