In a new interview, rapper Waka Flocka Flame opened up about how his brother’s death by suicide impacted him.
In a new interview, rapper Waka Flocka Flame opened up about dealing with the grief of losing his brother – Kayo Redd, also a rapper – to suicide in 2013.
Speaking to HipHopDX about the aftermath of Redd’s death, Flame admitted that the grief of losing Redd – along with the deaths of his father and another younger brother – was understandably hard to deal with, and led to some ‘selfish’ behaviour on the rapper’s part.
“I was drinking more, I was turning up. A lot of what I was doing in my relationship, I was drunk. A lot of stuff she would tell me, I never remembered. I’m not even going to exaggerate.” he admitted.
“My brother died, and I just couldn’t deal. I was just thinking, I’m like, ‘Bro, you’re not ill. You’re tripping.’” he added.
Flame remarked that he had to do some major thought restructuring to be able to come to terms with losing so much of his family.
“I had to look at it from a different perspective. I was looking at it with an evil lens. I had to look at it from a perspective of God. Backwards of ‘evil’ is ‘live.’ I had to live.” he said.
Love Hip Hop?
Get the latest Hip Hop news, features, updates and giveaways straight to your inbox Learn more
Instead of turning his anger towards God, he said, he learned how to ‘let it go’ and not be ‘selfish’.
“So, what happened was, in that very moment, I had to say, ‘Waka, that’s selfish.’ My brother is gone. My dad died. Seeing my father skinny as shit … he had cancer. I know the feeling, do you see what I’m saying? I lost both of my little brothers.” he said.
“One of my brother’s birthday is a day after mine. I lost a lot of people, but I’m not God, yo. I’m not. I can’t blame God for their death, no matter how spontaneous or what health issues they had.” he added.
This realisation came with a massive lifestyle change, where the rapper detoxed, went vegan, turned to literature, and sought support in understanding himself.
He said: “I’ve got this book — I forgot the name of it — but it taught me the art of release. You have to learn how to release. You have to. It’s hard. I had to let it go, man.”
For more on this topic, follow the Hip Hop Observer.
