Before Vic Mensa released his first solo mixtape, INNANETAPE, with Chicago-based label Closed Sessions in 2013, he’d already proven himself as a leader and collaborator with other gifted Chi-town musicians. He co-founded the successful band Kids These Days and the collective Savemoney, alongside respective groupmates and budding stars Chance the Rapper and Nico Segal (who would later be known as Donnie Trumpet). After landing tours, festival spots, and a late-night TV appearance before Kids These Days’ breakup, Vic used this as an opportunity to spread his wings further creatively. He uses a genre-bending sonic palette and vibrant, elastic vocal inflections to rap about police brutality (“Yap Yap”), intoxication (“Tweakin’”), shady industry politics (“Orange Soda”), and deep-seated insecurities (“Fear & Doubt”), on the cusp of realizing his potential but frustrated that he wasn’t further along already. Vic Mensa would later go on to sign with JAŸ-Z’s Roc Nation, earn a Grammy nomination writing for Kanye West, and become just as known for peeling oranges on camera in his garden as he is for dropping jewels on wax. But none of that happens without INNANETAPE, the electric introduction to one of rap’s most thoughtful voices.