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Thirteen years after a free download and an all-orange video, Vic Mensa’s debut mixtape, home of “Orange Soda,” is on streaming services for the first time.
In late May 2013, Vic Mensa released a video for “Orange Soda,” directed by Verluxe, in which the shirts, hats and chairs were all orange and which opened on a snippet of the sitcom Kenan & Kel, whose leads were devoted to the drink. The song was the second preview of a mixtape he had not yet released, and it became one of that tape’s most-cited tracks. XXL’s post on the video described it as a moody, laid-back summer song.
Signal. What happened: Mensa put his 2013 debut mixtape, INNANETAPE, on streaming services for the first time, bringing “Orange Soda,” its second track, with it. Exact object: INNANETAPE, distributed through a partnership between UnitedMasters and Mensa’s Oranj Sound; “Orange Soda” was produced by Cam O’bi and runs 3:40. When and where: September 30, 2026, exactly 13 years after the original free release, on streaming platforms, with the INNANETOUR following in London on October 12, Los Angeles on October 24, Chicago on October 28 and New York on November 10. Source: INNANETAPE’s official archive and Complex’s October 1, 2026 report. Why it matters: it puts a mixtape that landed on several 2013 year-end lists on the platforms where most listening happens now, ahead of a new Mensa album in 2027. [Licensed press photo of Vic Mensa needed: credit and rights to be confirmed before publishing
Cam O’bi built the beat, and the song sits early in the sequence, where reviewers noticed it. XXL pointed to it, alongside “Lovely Day,” as an early sign that Mensa could carry a song alone. Year-end lists from Rolling Stone, XXL and Complex all featured the tape, with Rolling Stone placing it seventh among the year’s mixtapes.
INNANETAPE IS ON STREAMING! 🛜
i don’t think a week has passed in the last 5 years when i didn’t receive someone asking me to put the innanetape on streaming platforms
Stream:
https://t.co/DgKPvXDUFW https://t.co/a4AaBDahCf— Vic Mensa (@VicMensa) September 30, 2026
stir
INNANETAPE first arrived on September 30, 2013, as a free download: fourteen tracks, executive produced by Mensa with three convincer, Cam O’bi among them. The guest list reads like a snapshot of the moment, with Chance the Rapper, Ab-Soul and Thundercat among the names. Mensa was 19 and newly out of Kids These Days, the Chicago band he had fronted, and the tape blended hip-hop, jazz, soul, alternative and electronic textures, much of it played with live instrumentation.
The reissue is the tape’s first appearance on streaming in all that time. Mensa said he had been asked to put it there nearly every week for five years. The release comes with a digital archive, a dedicated episode of The Vic Mensa Show that walks through the era in chapters, including why the color is orange, and a four-city run of small rooms.
The color now names his media company. ORANJ houses The Vic Mensa Show and the award-winning Orange Tree Series. For the show, which debuted August 27 with Chance the Rapper as its first guest, Mensa had a room in his home sanded and painted a custom orange to serve as an all-orange studio. The distribution deal with UnitedMasters covers the reissue and a new full-length album slated for 2027.
fin
The tour keeps to small rooms: Village Underground in London on October 12, the Blue Note in Los Angeles on October 24, Garcia’s in Chicago on October 28, and the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York on November 10, where Mensa and his band will play two sets.
