Depression and Rap -- An Unexpected Match

Depression is abstract and overwhelming. It’s a ubiquitous and sometimes inexplicable feeling of an emotion at its purest form. Depression is the color blue, it’s going to see your favorite artist live and not being able to hear the music, it’s a gooey caramel core of sadness and an emptiness at the same time. It’s hard to talk about, and it’s definitely hard to write about. Music deals with the intangible, but depression is still nearly impossible to capture.

Pair that inexplicable factor with the way we view rappers. They’re supposed to be unbreakable people coming out of tough situations. They are supposed to talk about women, money, and power. How would a rapper ever be depressed, and if they were, how would they ever be able to articulate the feeling?

At a surface level, there is no room for depression in rap music.

Embracing the sadness is a form of expression much more common in the indie-rock categories. And there's definitely something to be said about dimming the lights and listening to Bon Iver while lying on the carpet crying. Emotional self-indulgence is a lot more conspicuous in Death a Cab for Cutie lyrics than it might be on a Yo Gotti track.

But that’s not to say it hasn’t been done. When Drake released So Far So Gone, his first notable but chronologically third mixtape, in 2009, his emotional openness was shocking and confusing. At the first sight of his vulnerability, his teen soap opera days were brought into the picture, and his R&B vibes were seen as the explanation to his tenderness. And Drake has never even spoke about true depression. He simply showed emotions, and it sent a lot of rap listeners into frenzy, as this is not within the norms. And he even excuses his soft tendencies with lyrics addressing the fact that he's a singer.

And Drake isn't even the first to do it. In the 90's the Geto Boys hit success with Mind Playing Tricks on Me, which addressed the PTSD-esque symptoms that come with a life of living in the streets. But this is one of the only notable rap songs in my lifetime that has addressed the serious side effects of a hard life, or even just a mental illness in general.

But Kanye broke through this year. Much like Drake, Kanye has mentioned being sad in the past. On 808 and Heartbreaks he talks about hopelessness and solitude, most notably on songs like Coldest Winter, a song for his mother who unexpectedly passed a year before the release.

However its not until he mentions the antidepressant Lexapro on the newly released Life of Pablo that he openly and explicitly speaks on his own battle with depression. As he says on the song FML, “you ain’t never seen nothing crazier than this n*** when he off his Lexapro.” He even goes on to mention “an episode.” And this inclusion is important.

Kanye, seemingly, has it all--a loving wife, a beautiful child, and unrelenting ambition. But he also has a mother who died unexpectedly, and apparently some debt. He is addressing an issue that is so often pushed down in his spheres as a black rapper. Depression is regularly misdiagnosed in the African American community, despite being “over-represented in populations that are at risk for mental illness,” according to the Mental Health America’s report on Depression and African Americans. Kanye's level of honestly is necessary to break a larger stigma. Rap is supposed to be honest and cutting. There is no reason to avoid speaking on a feeling that is potentially so pervasive in their life.

There’s also Earl Sweatshirt, member of (maybe defunct) rap collective Odd Future, who has consistently and openly spoken about his depression. Not only does he speak about symptoms that go with the mental illness, but he also indirectly addresses the dichotomy of it all when he describes himself as “too white for the blacks and to black for the whites” on the song Chum. That same song addresses his identity issues since growing up fatherless, as well as his troubles returning to the states after attending a secluded school in Samoa. On another song on the same album, one of the tracks intros with a friend's voice saying, "why you so depressed and sad all the time like a little bitch?" Earl consistently addresses the paradox of being a depressed rapper.

But as a member of a group of outspoken teenage rappers and producers, who pride themselves on being honest, maybe Earl’s honesty isn’t shocking. And Kanye is seen as an innovator and a pioneer, so maybe in some ways the admittance wasn’t totally out of place (if we forget his ego.)

But they aren’t the only ones talking about feelings. Future, the trap artist from Atlanta who has been on the forefront of lazy sounding sing-rap, has an unexpected melancholic feel to a lot of what he writes about. He talks about general feelings of unhappiness, only suppressed by a strong dependence on codeine. His own vices work in tandem with his sadness. A similar notion to that of the Weeknd, who opened up about his tendency for similar pairings in 2011, when he released his first album House of Balloons. Future's feelings have a tendency to drown behind his beats, but a close listen tells a very honest story about his own depression.

Rap is synonymous with an attitude and a look. In elementary school, I remember my classmates dressing as rappers for Halloween, which meant baggy clothing and “acting tough” all day. And these types of stigmas follow mental illness as well. Depression is either for middle-aged white men and women, who wear sweatpants and eat ice cream for breakfast, or young misunderstood and struggling artists free to succumb to their woes through the fate of the fast life of rock and roll. So it’s confusing to hear some of the most poignant voices of rap talk about being depressed. But the more we hear, the less weird it will become.

Imagining Kanye waking up every morning and remembering to take his anti-depressant pill after he brushes his teeth is probably a little de-glamorizing to his overall image. And we probably don't want to think about how alone Future might feel when Commas comes on at a party. But music is as much about lyrics as it is sound. Personal anecdotes in their verses help break down stigmas on all sides of the issue. Depression in rap is an unexpected neccesary inclusion.