Vic Mensa is ready to reveal some big news — he’s a dad!
The “U Mad” rapper and actor, 31, and his girlfriend, Melanie, privately welcomed their first child, son Mansa Musa Mensa, last year. In an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, Mensa shared why he decided to protect his son’s privacy, how fatherhood has changed him and more.
“With the world being the way it is and the internet, I just wanted to take my time,” Mensa explained while discussing his new music video for his new song “I Wanna Be Ready,” adding, “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.”
The music video for “I Wanna Be Ready,” which Mensa directed himself, stars both him and his now 8-month-old son. The artist shared that the creative work played a part in him feeling ready to embrace this new chapter of his life.
“I really wanted to make this art piece to present his birth to the world through this art piece,” he said. “So, once I really put that together, then that’s when I felt like I wanted to share with the world.”
Mensa also told Us that he and Melanie chose their son’s name to honor his African ancestry, noting that the little one also goes by the name “Triple M.”
“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.”
He went on to stress that because “the history of Africa is diminished and devalued as a tool of oppression of African people as a justification for the enslavement and continued exploitation of African people in the African continent,” it was important to know his own son held a name with deep significance to his culture.
The first-time dad, for his part, didn’t connect with his roots in Ghana — where his family is from — until he was in his early 20s. However, he recently tookTriple M on a trip to the country to ensure his son feels connected to his history from an early age.
“He’s been to Mexico twice, actually [he’s] been to Portugal and he’s been to Ghana, so he’s traveling all over with me. We were in Miami for Art Basel, well not too long ago. And taking him to Ghana, though, that’s something I wanted to start young,” Mansa said. “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.”
He continued: “So, he can be building a strong foundation because the African continent is in need of us, of the next generation, to reclaim it … [I’m] starting him on a revolutionary path.”
The “$WISH” singer is also introducing his little one to music, which has become a bonding activity for the two.
“It was important to me to present him to the world in this artistic way because that’s just how my mind works in terms of film and song and spoken word. And to be able to bring that vision together and have it materialized in the way I envisioned it is just dope,” he said. “I feel like he’s such a musical child. He’s got his keyboard, and he just reacts and responds to music more than anything else really. And I think it is my way of getting his creative voice started. It is speaking through him.”
He added that Triple M is “creative” and he would support his son in wherever his talents take him. “I don’t even know what music is going to sound like by the time he is ready to, what would music even sound like at that time,” he said. “But he’s definitely creative, and so I look forward to feeding that creativity and just giving him inspiration and receiving inspiration from him.”
Fatherhood, Mensa shared, has opened his eyes in a multitude of ways. “I think my perspective is forever altered and significantly shifted,” he told Us, sharing that after a difficult struggle with alcohol and substance abuse issues, he has remained sober for the past several years — which has caused his life to improve overall.
“I don’t have many of the same things that I often turn to escape through drugs and alcohol, and so being more centered in that way definitely helps me to be a better father,” he said, adding that he now prioritizes working out, meditation and reading. “I believe in my power and my potential, so I do everything in my power to unlock it to the best of my ability.”
Mensa is also putting his music at the forefront of his priorities for 2025. “I’m finishing an album right now that I’ve been working on for about a year and a half that I’m really excited about,” he told Us. “It’s one of the first projects that I’m primarily producing.”
