The city of Chicago has produced a number of upstarts that have been able to turn a local buzz and critical acclaim into tangible success, but Vic Mensa, one of Chi-Town's more touted talents, had been noticeably absent from the party until recently. Solidifying himself as a star-in-the-making with his 2013 mixtape Innanetape, Mensa would earn a slot on XXL's 2014 Freshman Class cover and drop his official debut single "Down On My Luck," a jittery offering that would showcase his versatility and crossover potential that same year.

When news of Vic Mensa inking a deal with JAY-Z's Roc Nation label broke in 2015, the stars appeared aligned for Mensa to enjoy a breakout rookie campaign in 2016. However, his debut album, initially titled Traffic, which was reported as being "80-90% done" as of 2015, would not surface until 2016, with Mensa releasing the EP There's A Lot Going On as a consolation.

Indeed, there was a lot going on in the life of Vic Mensa that would stall his coming out party as a major label artist, much of which he expounds on throughout his debut album, The Autobiography, a collection of songs that delve into his backstory and documents his lowest moments to date. Executive produced by No I.D., The Autobiography contains an array of soundscapes over which Vic spins tales of ghetto strife, suicidal thoughts and racial tension in a poignant manner that is ripe with emotion.

With features including Pharrell, Weezer, Syd, The-Dream, Ty Dolla $ign, Pusha T, Joey Purp, Chief Keef, Mike Dean, Om'Mas Keith, DJ Dahi, and Tricky Stewart among the boards men that contribute to the album, The Autobiography is an explosive offering that makes for an impressive introduction on the part of Vic Mensa.

XXL took a deep dive into The Autobiography and picked out 20 of the hottest lyrics from Vic Mensa's debut that are sure to stand out upon pressing play.

  • "Say I Didn’t"

    Vic Mensa

    "Thanksgiving pull up with my Beamer and my gold chain/I know I'm tootin' my own horn like Coltrane/But didn't I, didn't I tell you 'bout your baby boy?/I used to rock the wife beater like baby boy/And now I'm suit and tied up without a day in court/Picked the house out, I put up the down payment for it"

  • "Memories on 47th St."

    Vic Mensa

    "Kept me from off the corner where Stones and GDs was warrin'/And Kings and BDs and VLs all had dreams of bein' Jordan/Even dope fiends was scorin', swish, tryna be like Mike/Shootin' through that baseline in their veins tryna reach that height/I was a little rockstar, dressed up like Jimi Hendrix/In Hyde park in the good part in the hood like Hemi engines"

  • "Memories on 47th St."

    Vic Mensa

    "My classmates sellin' yay/Sebastian got me high that first time in the back of an abandoned truck by Webster Place/Couldn't feel my face/Sprayin' paint to see my name on trains, trying not to catch a case/Age 13 at Cam's granny house, watchin' him shoot up the Ace/He took the needle out and waved it in my face/If I ain't tell that boy, 'Be easy, dog,' I coulda died of AIDS"—Vic Mensa

  • "Rollin' Like a Stoner"

    Vic Mensa

    "They say 'Vic, are you okay?'/Dude, no way/I don't even know no more/I don't even pour no more/But I be leanin' like a cholo/Tony Hawk, I'm going overboard/Need to take it slow mo'/Your girl treat me like a Polaroid/Shake it for a photo"

  • "Homewrecker"

    Vic Mensa Featuring Weezer

    "And then police come in the crib, looking all out the window/And shorty come out the bathroom, mad as a schitzo/I wanna speak to her, but as a minority/I had to hide the weed first, that's a priority/It feels like Love & Hip-Hop should be recording me/10 minutes later and we acting so cordially/I got shorty a car, you came back to the door/I knew we hit rock bottom as we laid on the floor"— Vic Mensa

  • "Gorgeous"

    Vic Mensa Featuring Syd

    "Call concierge, forgot to put a condom on/But shit it's the Mondrian Hotel/Get you an Asian provocateur/She got expensive taste in lingerie/She say it's too hard to keep it/Oops, we just dropped Victoria Secret/It's like that/Might add, quite an ass, I might add/But she can detect a bitch from an eyelash"—Vic Mensa

  • "Heaven on Earth"

    Vic Mensa Featuring The-Dream

    "The other day I saw your sister bro/Sad it had to be at another funeral/That was a wild summer, same one that took Rod from us/When I heard they stabbed him in his side/Swear to God I could feel that shit in my stomach/Yo I heard it was some niggas from the wild hunnids"—Vic Mensa

  • "Down for Some Ignorance (Ghetto Lullaby)"

    Vic Mensa Featuring Joey Purp and Chief Keef

    "Up for revenge and I'm down for some ignorance/Run up in his crib, lay down all the witnesses/Finna take a ride and we packing it's a business trip/Me with the cannon in my hand can you picture this?/Hide my pain in the past, behind my face in this mask/Foot to the gas, buck on the dash/I might Spaz on your goof ass"—Vic Mensa

  • "Down for Some Ignorance (Ghetto Lullaby)"

    Vic Mensa featuring Joey Purp and Chief Keef

    "Mentally ill, fuck Dr. Phil/All these pills ain't Benadryl (Chiraq)/No oil but it's been a drill/Let me show you how the jungle feel/Lions, Tigers, Bears/Tryna dodge the feds/If the National Guard was actually hard they wouldn't be scared"—Vic Mensa

  • "Coffee & Cigarettes"

    Vic Mensa

    "I recently realized I'm a hopeless romantic/I ask a lot of questions, but I'm not open to answers/And all of my girlfriends just fall into the same old patterns/Like sudoku puzzles we cross words, spoken in anger/I must be the best at turning the good girl crazy, that's like my strong suit/'Cause every time we should be breakin' up I'm right there on cue"

  • "Wings"

    Vic Mensa Featuring Saul Williams and Pharrell Williams

    "Take me away from all the drama man, I miss the old days/With all of these backstabbers I feel like The O'Jays/I wanna open up my parachute but it's cold playing this role when you never been the type to role play/There's something about this game and it fucks with you mentally/Like football players leaving the league with traumatic brain injury/And eventually, you'll never be the same as you were/Then you look back at your life and everything is a blur"—Vic Mensa

  • "Wings"

    Vic Mensa Featuring Saul Williams and Pharrell Williams

    "Introduction to Victor, not Vic Mensa/The one you never meet in a XXL issue/I got so many issues, I should be my own publisher/The beat is my therapist, Skateboard, paint the picture/A portrait of the artist formerly known as Vic/I read the signs I was close to overdose like Prince"—Vic Mensa

  • "The Fire Next Time"

    Vic Mensa

    "Lived life and learned my lessons/Spent dough and earned my blessings/Southside my tatted necklace/
    Ball like I'm ambidextrous/Every time they tried to block me/Switched hands and changed directions/Fist in the air like Rocky/Bitch I think my name Sylvester"

  • "We Could Be Free"

    Vic Mensa Featuring Ty Dolla $ign

    "As far as he came I can't complain, but pain is so subjective/Spend so much time counting issues, I forget to count my blessings/Watch my cousins back at home, getting water out a well/While I watch my brother stacking stone, whippin' water by the scale/Tryna' get a mill' on the other side/They ain't got a meal, we don't recognize we in heaven"—Vic Mensa

  • "We Could Be Free"

    Vic Mensa Featuring Ty Dolla $ign

    "The fuck is you to patronize/Somebody's son whose daddy died?/Why they flood Baton Rouge?/Why the city singing Alton's blues?/Why, why, why, why?/I feel like Jadakiss every time I watch the news/What the fuck I got to lose?/So I'm down to bleed if it means things improve/You fools, saying 'all lives matter'/But it's Black lives you refuse include"—Vic Mensa

  • "Rage"

    Vic Mensa

    "Gas in the tank, hardly enough to make it home/They say home is where the hate is, I'm from where they kill their own/Probably film it on their phone, a generation addicted/To technology, the problems we face, it's so conflicted/To take the burning road and just roll with the punches/Niggas thought I was gone, I Derrick Rose from the trenches"

  • "Rage"

    Vic Mensa

    "I pull the Halloween pistol out of the trunk/Inside my mouth, if it was real, but I would dumped/That's fucking dumb/How many thousand of kids would like to have mine?/Without a clue about the times I gave my life to have time/I'm tired of waiting/Tired of chasing pills that I'm tired of taking/Tired of court cases"

  • "OMG"

    Vic Mensa Featuring Pusha T and Pharrell Williams

    "Fuck you think? I'ma be some type of role model?/I go full throttle desperado, that's the motto/Vic in Chicago is Hugh Heff at the grotto/Brazilian model, she mean mugging like Frida Kahlo/Drinking a horchata with an Alicia Machado/Bitch, I'm the ticket, you just hit the lotto"—Vic Mensa

  • "OMG"

    Vic Mensa Featuring Pusha T and Pharrell Williams

    "Free Vic Mensa Amistad chain swanging/This that crack music, nigga, you can blame Reagan/I'm Balmaing without paying, y'all playing/We higher than a bitch, my bitch Himalayan/Suicide Gallardo, that's the sacrificial lamb/I'm killa season Cam/No lives matter, blam"—Vic Mensa

  • "OMG

    Vic Mensa Featuring Pusha T and Pharrell Williams

    The way kiss told us should never be misquoted/Them guns that you wave on the camera? We been toting/Selling love potion my whole rap career/So your streams and downloads could never match the kid's/We could go foreign for foreign until it’s boring/My sheep will keep jumping the fence until you’re snoring/Street poetry, I'm on Wale Folarin/'Til the world is mine like Illmatic and Lauryn"—Pusha T

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