Photo Credit: Vic Mensa/Instagram
Chicago rapper Vic Mensa just launched the cannibas brand 93 Boyz, the first black owned marijuana company in the state that he says will be focused on giving back to communities that were disproportionately affected by the failed war on drugs. And he launched the brand giving out $10,000 of free gas to 200 people in his Southside neighborhood Labor Day weekend. “At a time when many people are struggling to fill their tank, it felt good to be able to help the community in a real way,” he said about the gas giveaway.
The brand is also partnering with the non-profit Books Before Bars, which gives away books to underserves Illinois prison libraries. He told Forbes, “At the core of the ethos of 93 Boyz is a socially minded spirit; portions of all of our proceeds go to giving back to the community. The first program we’re starting with is called Books Before Bars; sending a large number of books into Cook County Jail. As an industry, I believe the tax revenue generated from cannabis should be used as reparations to the communities most impacted by the war on drugs – like literal cash payment reparations, subsidized housing, education, everything.”
Mensa says he’s in daily contact with people who are in prison for non-violent cannibas offenses saying, “If you expunge all the weed records and you release people that are currently incarcerated for cannabis you can’t actually trace whose first arrest was for smoking weed.” As for why he chose to work with Books Before Bars, he says “I’m passionate about it because I’ve been sending books to prisons for 10 years and I’ve seen the magnanimous potential for the transformation when you give somebody the right book at the right time.”
And in regards to how he started the brand, he said “I was just thinking about how do I push freedom, how do I scream freedom. I don’t think it would be responsible of me to come into this game and in this industry that has been responsible for stealing the freedom of so many if I was not finding a way to give freedom.”
He spoke about what getting into the cannibas industry was like stating, there is “so much smoke and mirrors, and the politics surrounding it have been just rife with corruption.” He says the community is still being left out of the equation, stating “The barriers and limitations leave out most of the people who could be considered real social equity applicants. Not to mention all of the larger companies propping up black figureheads and writing into the deals diminishing clauses to bring their ownership down to zero and to take them out of the game.”
He touched on creating access to better education, housing and employment stating “Those are the ways that we impact Chicago and I think that if you’re operating in Chicago and you’re not thinking about that then you’re a complete leech.”
The amazing part of what Vic Mensa is doing is the fact he’s able to do this at 29 especially in a market that is known for charging beyond exorbitant fees as a means of just getting into the door.
