AIDSfree: Rapper Vic Mensa compares HIV rates for gay black men to 'epidemic' of gun violence: 'This wouldn't fly in Manhattan'

In his home city of Chicago, rapper Vic Mensa has launched projects to train medics responding to gun violence in some the nation’s deadliest neighbourhoods, and a summer education camp to help indigenous and black youth. He is also trying to recruit mental health professionals in some of the city’s most vulnerable schools.

When the 25-year-old came to Atlanta in support of the Elton John AIDS Foundation’s campaign to confront HIV, he immediately saw a parallel between the epidemics facing poor black communities in the two cities.

“When they spoke to me on the way here about the problems in Atlanta, it made me think about the violence we experience in Chicago and the way that violence is spread,” said Mensa, who last year released his first solo album The Autobiography. “And I think there are parallels to the situation here, and people who are at risk not getting the right healthcare and not having the opportunity to heal.”

He added: “Generally in the US, when they talk about race, they say we are so far from the past. But we’re only 150 years from slavery. Now they’re trying to put the things in our way – like voter suppression. They are always trying to keep people down. But we’re up, and we’ve got each others’ backs, and I think that really matters.”

Mensa travelled to the frontline of America’s battle against HIV. While millions of people may have allowed themselves to forget about the threat of HIV, after the development of antiretroviral drugs in the 1990s meant the virus did not have to be a death sentence, for some communities it remains a threat of extraordinary proportions.

In the US today, a gay black man has a 50 per cent chance of being diagnosed HIV positive at some point during their lifetime. In Atlanta, a city that is home to leading companies such as CNN and FedEx and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the rate is almost as high as 60 per cent.

The reasons behind this are multilayered, and include the fact that Atlanta is a draw for gay men from across the southeast of the US, but racism, poverty and lack of education are also key factors. Several themes – discrimination, racism and a sense of disenfranchisement – are similar in the gun violence and lack of educational opportunities Mensa’s project, Save Money Save Life, is seeking to address in Chicago’s South Side.

“It would not be happening in Manhattan,” he declared, saying some communities in the US often get ignored. “It would not fly.”

In an interview earlier this year with Billboard, Mensa explained why he had launched his own organisation.

“I’ve been doing social justice work for some time, just out of my own resources and out of my own pocket, just because it’s important to me,” he said.

“So whether that’s taking a bunch of people from Chicago down to Standing Rock or being in Flint, Michigan, or being in Palestine or Baton Rouge after Alton Sterling’s killing, I’ve been trying to, just as a man, be present and stand with the struggling and oppressed people around the world.”

In Atlanta, Mensa visited several of the groups working with the foundation, which The Independent and the Evening Standard are partnering with for this year’s charity appeal. He also met Sir Elton and Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of the Evening Standard and The Independent.

At SisterLove, Inc, located in one of the city’s traditional African American neighbourhoods, Mensa spoke to founder Dázon Dixon Diallo and heard about the centre’s work providing testing and counselling, and arranging treatment for those who need it.

At the Grady Ponce De Leon Centre, a clinic that also tests people and provides treatment for people who have developed Aids, he spoke to doctors, supporters and survivors. At the centre, Sir Elton and Mr Lebedev both had an HIV test to show how simple the process was.

In a joint message, Sir Elton and Mr Lebedev said: “As we write, 37 million people globally are living with HIV. Last year alone, 1.8 million people contracted the virus and 940,000 died of an Aids-related illness. This need not happen.

“Today’s medicines not only enable those living with HIV to have full and fulfilling lives, but also ensure they cannot pass the virus on to others. The challenge is that too many people still do not realise they are at risk, are too afraid of the stigma or are denied the chance of taking an HIV test.”

Doctors at the hospital said the involvement of people such as Mensa in supporting the campaign was vital as part of outreach efforts to those young people most vulnerable to HIV.

As he waited for Sir Elton and Mr Lebedev to get tested, the rapper said he believed it was important people such as him threw their support behind such efforts. Those with platforms had to use them, he said.

“If you’re in that position, you have to make sure you’re loud and make sure that people are paying attention to it,” he said.

“We need to be thinking of ourselves as global citizens and taking care of each other. America is built on the backs and blood of black people.”

He said in America today, gay black men were facing a “double marginalisation”, and then being left at risk of HIV.

“What is so pertinent about this issue to me; what brought me here today is that statistics about HIV in this part of the nation, this part of the south, this part of Georgia,” he said.

“It’s important that we’re able to raise awareness so that people can understand that also, the ability for treatment can really change the entire landscape.”