Why I quit rapping.
I started rapping when I was 15 and living in a group home… the boys were always freestyling and I listened enviously every time. I wanted so badly to be able to do that… I remember sitting on the bus to my retail job when I was 16 and trying to write songs over top of whatever rap CD i had in my discman. On my 17th birthday all I wanted was a microphone.. and I got it.
Fast forward through a bunch of terrible songs, a million last minute bus tickets across the country and … I signed the record deal that most artists would give anything for.
I thought my dreams had come true.. but it turns out - not so much. More on that here.
When I got dropped I felt crushed. I didn’t get a phone call from anyone at the label, I didn’t receive so much as a text… No - I got a phone call from my landlord saying that the record label wasn’t going to pay my rent any more.
The hundreds of songs I spent the last three and a half years writing faded into oblivion. The people who at one point had been tied to me with contracts faded with them until the only things I had left were my feelings… and my feelings fucking sucked.
So? I started drinking. I sunk into a deep and lonely depression.
My brain became a dangerous place and eventually I learned it wasn’t safe to go fucking around in there trying to write songs. Instead I spent months on overdrive - spray painting my walls and drinking with my demons.
My mental illness ran wild and I pulled my entire life down around me. I went from wildly social - always planning a party or inviting 30 people to laser tag on a weekly basis, to a total loner who’s roommates would poke fun at for literally never leaving the house. I couldn’t bring myself to do much. I would hold my guitar for a total of 5 minutes before I felt the urge to smash it on the fucking ground.
But I desperately wanted to write songs, so after stumbling around in the dark for a while I called Tom, my favorite person of 10 years, practically begging him to come over and write songs. I just wanted inside his brain. He didn’t care that my lyrics were sad, his were sad too. We’d pair sickeningly sweet melodies with lyrics about suicidal thoughts. It was beautiful. Everything he wrote spoke to my heart.
A month later we’d started a band, named it GFBF, written an entire album and fell in love.
He moved in to my crappy house in South Central, we started shooting music videos, and I felt like magic was real - ignore the fact that we could barely make rent and did all of our grocery shopping at the dollar store. I could see my FUTURE again.
Then one night he wrote ‘Dear Rappers’ and withing a few months literally everything had changed. My boyfriend was suddenly famous. Like - getting recognized outside, record labels wanting meetings, the whole world trying to get a piece of it, famous.
He had dreamed about this for his entire life so he couldn’t not chase it… GFBF got put on hold, indefinitely…. and there I was again - Alone, Sad, and Embarrassed with more songs fading off into the distance. I was heartbroken and I didn’t feel like I had any songs left.
This time around, alone with instrumentals, I found it even harder. Writing sad songs made me feel worse and writing happy songs made me feel like a liar - and both fueled my self hatred.
So instead of writing I poured myself into Tom’s career… I shot and directed all of his music videos, I created his website and helped with his store, I’d cowrite on his hooks and I helped him navigate the music industry because I didn’t want to see him get fucked over the same way I did… The work paid off - We toured the entire country 4 times, charted on billboard and we have hundreds of millions of views.
But the depression stuck. I spent years telling myself I should be happier instead of coming to terms with why I wasn’t - because I gave up on myself.
And i guess i’ve had enough of it….
"HEY YOU"
DROPS JANUARY 8th
……… And my new album “SCARED OF HEIGHTS” drops January 15th.
So - If you’re still reading this and you give a shit, subscribe to my YouTube here and to my mailing list here:
So you can be one of the first people to hear it. ❤️
I can’t believe we’re doing this! I love you!
Nova