Listen: Vic Mensa - "Down On My Luck"

​Filtering his quicksilver flow into a tuneful, bright tenor, Mensa spends most of “Down On My Luck” matching the neon-pop soundscapes of the song’s beat with his own adept melodies. That Mensa recently toured with Disclosure, whose similarly cerebral dance music bears some resemblance to the track, is intriguing, though Mensa’s song is as fascinating for the ways in which the Midwestern emcee warps EDM to his purposes as it is for the track’s outside analogs.

A leading light of a young class of hip-hop progressives (friend, affiliate, and fellow Chicagoan Chance the Rapper is similarly attuned to avant-garde genre blends), Mensa takes rap’s increasing interaction with and repurposing of dance and electronic music and bends his own flexible voice to match, finding a middle-ground in folding short rapped verses amongst longer crooned stretches. Following the artistic breakthrough of INNANETAPE, it’s a thrill to see the restlessly expansive Mensa still searching out new possibilities.

“Down On My Luck” is out on 6 July via Virgin EMI Records.