Vic Mensa Expands His Orange Tree Conversations Into a New Podcast, The Vic Mensa Show

Vic Mensa is taking the conversational lane he carved out online and widening it out for a full podcast run. After the Webby Award-winning Orange Tree Series found an audience on Instagram, the Chicago rapper is launching The Vic Mensa Show, a 24-episode series that arrives Aug. 26 through Mass Appeal, Blank Square Productions and Pickup Media.

The new show opens with another Chicago name: Chance The Rapper appears in the debut episode. From there, the guest list stretches across disciplines and scenes, with Rapsody, Durand Bernarr, Lena Waithe, Aja Monet, Van Lathan Jr. and more set to appear. New episodes will drop every Wednesday across YouTube, Spotify Video, Apple Video and wherever podcasts are available.

“The Orange Tree illustrated for me the transcendent possibilities of conversation: a space for the discussion of radical ideas, humor, honesty and vulnerability,” Vic said. “What began as a conversation with my community online is now expanding, through The Vic Mensa Show, to include great minds that I respect across many disciplines.”

The podcast launch also lines up with something bigger on the business side. It marks the debut of ORANJ, Mensa’s new production company, which will house The Vic Mensa Show alongside his short film Halfrican, Substack, the original Orange Tree Series and other projects still in development.

Mensa first started Orange Tree informally in late 2024, and the videos, in which he’d hold forth on current events, went viral last year. What began as a loose online format is now being turned into a more formal platform, with the podcast giving that same instinct for conversation a longer runway.