Vic Mensa took to the skies in the new music video for “Strawberry Louis Vuitton.” The 29-year-old dedicated the visual to the late Virgil Abloh.
The “Strawberry Louis Vuitton” video was initially released as a Facebook exclusive on Friday (Jan. 27), though the audio featuring Thundercat and Maeta was shared on all streaming platforms on the same day. The visual was made available on YouTube as of Monday morning (Jan. 30), showing the Chicago artist riding in an airplane before skydiving in a baby blue suit while playing the guitar.
When the I Tape artist lands, he walks along a dirt-laden runway and meets up with a woman sitting on a picnic blanket. She is holding a camcorder used to record his entire skydiving experience. The song’s title obviously references the luxury brand, which one could perceive as a branded content effort. However, Louis Vuitton makes an inconspicuous appearance via the bottom of Vic Mensa’s sneakers and the frames of his sunglasses.
The “Wraith” rapper expressed his excitement at what he and his team put together. “i was thinking of orange soda a lot when making the LV video,” Mensa wrote in an Instagram caption. “me and @daniedegrasse did that together too, & i was hella involved in every part of it as i was with this video; working on production, shotlist, styling… r we a killer team or what?”
The excitement came from overcoming multiple challenges with this specific video, which he addressed in a subsequent post. “okay i wanna talk about limitations being the mother of invention. i get so tired of being in the industry and people always telling you ‘you need 50k to even think about shooting a video’ like yo, what happened to our creativity? we started making sh*t that impacted the world with NO money, just ideas inspiration and grind!”
He continued, “it can be so easy to come into success and budgets and now just toss the responsibility of developing the creative to the label, or have directors submit treatments etc. but it just don’t hit the same! there’s something different about caring so much that you are carrying the camera, leading the styling, editing the videos, doings the stunts, working on the production.”
He ended the caption by saying that he will continue these creative efforts alongside his longtime director, Danielle Degrasse.
Vic Mensa confirmed his sophomore album was finished back in October 2022, so one can rightfully expect more of these daring videos upon its release.
He and Chance The Rapper hosted the inaugural Black Star Line Festival in Accra, Ghana in early January, and the former took his efforts a step further by providing clean drinking water to Ghana residents.