Ghanaian rapper, Okyeame Kwame, has disclosed reasons why musicians and creatives turn to substance abuse.
Speaking in a Joy Prime interview with Kwame Dadzie, Okyeame Kwame noted that most creatives go after drugs due to their inability to self-reflect deeply on their thoughts, frustrations and deeds.
According to him, to dumb down such intrusive thoughts, many creatives engage in alcohol, sex, and drugs.
“If you close your eyes and sit down for 10 seconds, immediately, all the problems you have in life will come into your brain because it is so smart that it’s always trying to solve your problem. So immediately you keep quiet, all your problems come up,” Okyeame Kwame said.
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“That is why people are always trying to watch a movie, always trying to read a book, trying to talk to somebody, trying to have sex, trying to drink alcohol, and trying to smoke something to divert their brains from dealing with their problems,” he explained. “And that is the time when artistes are not willing to sit down quietly for their thoughts to punish them. But immediately they feel the problems come up, they take it, and then all the problems will go away because they have numbed their pain receptors,” he added.
Okyeame Kwame narrated his own struggles with depression and how he dealt with it by going into a meditative state for a year.
According to him, this allowed him to reflect on his thoughts and eventually come up with his “Made in Ghana” album.
“Somebody else could have resorted to becoming a sex addict to fulfill the emptiness or becoming a drug addict to fulfill the emptiness. But I let it beat me up. I sat down quietly for one year. I didn’t make any music, I didn’t go anywhere, I didn’t pick up my phone calls. I took my phone away for one year.
“I stopped everything and I sat down quietly, and went into meditation. So it was immediately after that, I made the ‘Made in Ghana’ album,” he said.
Okyeame Kwame encouraged fellow creatives not to dismiss such thoughts but instead to embrace available solutions.
