Underground rappers Vic Mensa and Ab-Soul explore the idea of leaving a legacy and living a life that truly matters on their heartbreakingly honest collaboration “Holy Holy.” Their thought-provoking lyrics explore the natural human desire for purpose and order, airing out their own personal existential crises for everyone to hear and connect to. Both Vic and Ab boomerang back and forth from hopelessness to contentment several times over the course of the song, mirroring the universal and emotionally complex human experience. The two MCs recall in vivid detail memories of important people they’ve lost and their methods of making sure their loved ones didn’t die in vain. Vic reminisces over a childhood friend lost to senseless gun violence while Ab muses about his girlfriend who tragically fell to her death off of a water tower. The song is centered around the duo’s view on the concept of death and the finality that comes along with it.
Vic’s view on death varies line-to-line and verse-to-verse; it seems as though he fears it at certain times and welcomes it at others. Another interesting paradox is created through his simultaneous sentiments of purposelessness and undying determination to make a lasting impact on the world. He wants to feel as if his existence is worth something, but at the same time, he understands that his time on Earth is fleeting and that his name will eventually fade out of circulation after he passes away. The song opens with Vic solemnly paying his respects to the late Killa Cam, whose name comes up several times over the course of the song. Vic tries to make sense of the loss of Cam’s life in the first verse, ending the verse with an exasperated and confused uttering of “holy Jesus, holy holy.” After pondering the longevity of Killa Cam’s legacy, Vic proceeds to question the longevity of his own achievements.
“What would people think about if I died?” he questions. He immediately jumps to worst case scenario and frantically asks “what if my tape never dropped or my album had flopped / Or I stopped at a red light and a semi-truck ran into my ride / What would my obituary column be?”
Vic, not unlike most people, clearly fears slipping into oblivion after his passing. He turns to reckless behavior to escape his strong feelings of loneliness and purposelessness, smoking marijuana and drinking as if the “world ends tomorrow.”
Ab-Soul’s outlook on death differs from Vic’s, as he chooses to confront the reality of mortality head-on instead of trying to cheat it. His preoccupation with death is not rooted in his desire to be remembered after his passing, but rather with his desire to be reunited with Alori, his late girlfriend. He spends his verse detailing the depressive state he fell into after he lost Alori and how living without her feels “inhumane.” Without his girlfriend, Ab feels as if his life has lost the meaning and light it once had. His sense of self-worth and purposefulness was left in the hands of Alori, and it died right along with her. He is struggling to create a sense of purpose for himself.
“Holy Holy” details the existential concept of purposefulness and the finality of death. Everyone can relate to the maddening struggle of self-importance that Vic and Ab face in this track; we all like to tell ourselves that our lives matter, but in the backs of our minds, we understand that we’re all just tiny blips in the course of human history.
