Vic Mensa believes the hip-hop world's love for drugs played a role in the death of Juice Wrld, who died after allegedly ingesting Percocet pills in order to hide them while authorities searched a private jet he was flying in on Dec. 8.

Speaking to TMZ for an interview that was published on Friday (Dec. 27), Mensa offered his take on hip-hop and drugs when he answered the site's question about Lil Pump's decision to cut "Drug Addicts" from his set. He reflects on his own past rapping about drug use before pointing toward a similar attitude leading to Juice's death.

"In younger times, I definitely did not feel no responsibility to the youth or to anybody but myself," Mensa said. "And, I'm like, I'ma just talk about the Xans on the plane goin' to France, but it's like, you gotta be careful about what you say because kids take what you say for real. They take it as the gospel. So, give 'em something they can use, not shit that's killing them. And when we see these things happening to the young brothas, rest in peace Juice, too early, 21...and rap is much to blame for it."

At an earlier point of the interview, Mensa spoke on the rap world's perceived collective need to be more responsible when rapping about drug use.

"I think that as members of the hip hop community, we need to take responsibility for the things that we say," Vic stated. "We need to recognize that the shit that we talk about influences children. So, when we steady pushing a message of lean and Percocets and Xans we are polluting the minds of the youth. We have a responsibility to give it to 'em in a real way, not to say you can't talk about your real life and the things that are happening but I think that we need to start holding each other and ourselves accountable for our glorification of the drug culture. One hundred percent. That's just what it is. Anything else, that's parasitic to our people to just act like this is the shit to be on lean all the time."

Mensa also reveals just how hard Juice's death hit him. The Autobiography rapper said that Juice could've easily been him after Mensa suffered from his own battle with drug addiction.

Watch what Vic Mensa had to say below.

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