Three rappers, one spoken-word poet’s hook and a lullaby tag in the title: “Down for Some Ignorance (Ghetto Lullaby)” is the Vic Mensa song with Chief Keef and Joey Purp that hip hop fans are passing around again this week, more than nine years after it first appeared.
The track is not new. It is song eight on Mensa’s debut studio album, The Autobiography, released on July 28, 2017, through Roc Nation and Capitol Records. The streaming listing still credits it to Mensa featuring Keef and Purp, and the official audio is the version doing the rounds on forums now.
Where the hook comes from
The title is borrowed. The song contains elements of “Down for Some Ignorance,” a piece written and performed by the poet and musician Saul Williams, which is why Williams appears in the writing credits. Search any streaming service for the phrase and his original turns up right beside Mensa’s track, along with several remixes of it.
Williams was all over this album. He also features on “Wings,” the lead single, alongside Pharrell Williams. That makes the poet one of the album’s quiet threads, and it explains the jump in tone from a street-rap posse cut to something closer to a chant.
Who made it
- Running time: 4 minutes 25 seconds.
- Producers: No I.D., Mike Dean and Mensa himself.
- Writers: Mensa, Dean, Ernest Wilson (No I.D.), Malik Jones, Saul Williams, Keith Cozart (Chief Keef) and Tyree Pittman.
- Extra vocals: Ellie “Kyiki” Fletcher.
The song sits right after “Card Cracker,” a short skit that uses elements of Chief Keef’s 2012 hit “Love Sosa.” Put together, the two tracks work as a Chicago drill interlude in the middle of a mostly confessional album.
Why it still matters for Mensa
Badiyaa’s context: the song is the clearest snapshot of what The Autobiography tried to do, pairing Mensa’s Hyde Park storytelling with the drill sound that made Chief Keef famous and a verse from Joey Purp. Mensa has said the album was meant to explore “my humanity,” and this is the track where that story moves outside his own head and onto the block.
The album debuted at No. 27 on the US albums chart, selling 15,977 copies in its first week, and was rated “generally favorable” on review aggregator Metacritic, with a score of 71. It was a solid start rather than a breakout, which is partly why deep cuts like this one keep getting rediscovered.
The fair critique: guest-heavy posse cuts can bury the host, and Mensa shares this one with two very distinct voices. Still, he produced part of it, and that hands-on role is easy to miss.
Mensa first toured nationally in 2013 on the What Dreams May Come Tour with J. Cole and Wale; Cole is still on the road this year, as our report on J. Cole’s Fall-Off Tour reaching Dublin shows. For more from Chicago and beyond, see our Entertainment section. Mensa’s second album, Victor, followed in 2023.
Further reading
Image: swimfinfan from Chicago, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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