Vic Mensa, fresh off his appearance in Friday's "Wolves" music video/advertisement for Balmain, spoke with GQ about making the video and how Kanye West influenced his style.
Mensa revealed that many of the details of the ad/video came together spontaneously. "[Photographer] Steven Klein is a legend," Mensa told GQ. "So is [art director] Pascal [Dangin]. Together those dudes are really dope. They were putting things together on the fly; we were figuring it out basically from a black canvas. I feel like the most inspiring creatives to me are the people who are able to take the simplest idea and make it the most captivating. It wasn’t dressed up with a lot of props or a lot of people. It was very simple, and the execution was masterful."
He also explained how West has influenced his, and so many others, style. "Kanye’s got amazing style," he said. "It’s influenced me; it’s influenced so many people. Being around him and seeing the attention to detail that exists within his sense of fashion as well as his music—it all fits together. When you try to look at them as separate things you’re not getting the whole picture."
However, he said that they don't always see eye-to-eye on clothing. "But Kanye doesn’t always like my colors," he said. "Kanye likes his colors. I like white black and red together. Kanye wants it to just be white and black, or like sepia toned and black. I’m like bruhhh I just like white black and red!"
You can read the whole story, where Mensa talks about making political statements with his clothing, here.
