Vic Mensa joins protest against Chicago police following shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald

Protesters took to Chicago's streets following conviction of police officer Jason Van Dyke

Rapper Vic Mensa joined protesters on the streets of Chicago last night to campaign against Chicago police following the shooting of 17-year-old black teenager Laquan McDonald.

McDonald was shot in October 2014 by police officer Jason Van Dyke. Yesterday, Van Dyke was charged with first degree murder at Chicago’s main criminal courthouse for shooting McDonald 16 times.

As reported by CNN, prior to the final sentencing, police released a graphic dash-cam video showing the shooting.

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Following the video and sentencing, protesters took to the streets and began marching, chanting “16 shots” and “we got to fight back.”

Among the protesters was Chicago based rapper Vic Mensa. As well as posting a photo of his attendance to Snapchat, Mensa was briefly filmed by a follower on Twitter, where he exclaimed, “We want justice for Laquan and we want justice for our people.’

See the video and photo below.

https://twitter.com/Paul_Biasco/status/669330458006654976

As reported by Consequence of Sound, Chicago based rapper Chance The Rapper also took to Twitter to show his support. Tweeting “Be strong Chicago” before adding “I’ll be back in 2 days.”

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See his tweets below:

Vic Mensa signed to Roc Nation earlier this year, announcing the deal by releasing his debut single on the label, ‘U Mad’, which features a guest appearance from Kanye West.

The Chicago native also condemned former Oasis pair Noel and Liam Gallagher, saying their past criticism of Jay Z and West “feels very racist”. In 2008, Noel dubbed the decision to book Jay to headline Glastonbury “wrong”, while Liam labelled Kanye as “utter shit” on Twitter following the rapper’s Brit Awards performance last February.

“Those guys are legends, but also dickheads. Ultimate dickheads,” Mensa told The Guardian. “I saw they were mad Kanye played Glastonbury. They were mad when Jay Z played too. Feels very racist to me.

“They’re gonna say: ‘No it’s not about race, it’s about guitar music, it’s about rock’n’roll’, but I mean like, how many people do you feel are carrying the spirit of rock’n’roll in 2015? Would you not say that ‘Yeezus’, and a song like ‘Black Skinhead’, is carrying the spirit of rock’n’roll? I can’t understand how that’s not fucking rock’n’roll.”

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