It's hard not to dwell on the past and it's hard not to sweat about the future.
Personal accounts of emotional life
Rappers on mental health, in their own words
These 19 non-lyrical statements from 16 artists describe their own emotional lives: acknowledging depression, talking in therapy, feeling overwhelmed and making music. They reflect particular conversations, first-person writing and moments, rather than current health updates. The collection does not infer diagnoses or offer treatment advice.
Talking, creating and acknowledging distress
Megan Thee Stallion describes recognizing depression; Rico Nasty discusses what talking with a therapist changed for her. Danny Brown questions the emotional cost of his music. Earl Sweatshirt explicitly distinguishes his sadness from a claim about mental illness. Tech N9ne discusses difficulty expressing emotion in a recording session, and Kae Tempest describes creativity during panic. These experiences are different, even when the speakers share a vocabulary.
Keep the speaker’s context
Source links lead to the surrounding question or first-person account, including Logic’s memoir This Bright Future. A personal account of what helped someone is not a claim that it will help everyone. For a distinct focus on bereavement, read quotes about grief; the broader pain theme includes other kinds of loss and difficulty.
Ab-Soul
I’m happy we’re having more conversations about therapy and mental health and self-care and I’m hearing it more.
Rico Nasty
Megan Thee Stallion
More artists
I'm still traumatized, bro. I'm seeing flashbacks like crazy right now
Dealing with depression man, I don’t know how I deal with it. I just wake up every morning.
If I could cry regularly I probably would’ve cried on “Stop The Sailor”, but it’s hard for me to do.
I’m not healed, but I’m constantly working on that word: happy
When I meditate, I just go back to free my mind, to a childlike space and quieten down.
I know I’m tired of trauma-dumping. A lot of people are in the hurt business.
I can't say I'll beat it out and never be depressed again. Not the case.
It’s good for my mental to record, to get away from everything with my headphones on and create some shit.
And with certain people, no matter how much money you have, you can’t buy anything to fill that void.
Tyler, The CreatorInterview · Tyler, The Creator · Reflecting on wealth and depression in 2014PainMoneyVerified · powmag.net
I don't know about mental illness, but I'm a sad bitch sometimes.
So I decided to fight my depression and the episodes of panic with the biggest force for good in my life, which is creativity.
I was singing about suicide every night and talking about suicide every day, all day, every interview, every radio show, every television show.
Every time I make music, it helps me cope.