Depression is a period nobody would ever love to encounter at any point in life.

It easily breaks the fainthearted, but the strong one’s heal, pick up their pieces, and bounce back stronger and better while dealing with daily happenings.

Many are usually caught up in the cage of depression, but few are able to fight through it successfully.

Ghana’s 'Rap Doctor' Okyeame Kwame is one of the few who conquered his battle with depression when he was about to hit forty (40) years.

He became depressed at the thought of getting more hit songs and living up to the competition in the music industry. 

However, his love for nature helped him escape the condition. He developed an interest in climate change issues, which is why he has been championing a lot of climate change initiatives in recent times. 

For a year, the rapper stayed away from social media and other possible addictions to meditate to reignite his life and live freely. This led to the immediate release of his Made In Ghana album in 2019, following his recovery.

In an interview on Joy Prime’s Prime Morning with Roselyn Felli, Okyeame recounted his recovery process.

“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, and I put my phone away for one year because the phone addiction was also a part of it. To be addicted to the external dopamine of how people are receiving your ads. So, I threw it away, stopped everything, and then I sat down quietly and went into meditation.”

“It was after I had come into a meditative state that I’m able to now, in retrospect, look at all the things that happened to me to be able to speak like this. So, it was immediately after that I made the ‘Made In Ghana’ album,” the rapper narrated.

A JoyNews hotline documentary on the use and abuse of drugs among showbiz personalities, produced by Joy Entertainment journalist Kwame Dadzie, premiered on Tuesday, April 2, 2024.

The piece engaged some of the industry players, including musician Rex Omar and veteran comedian Kwaku Sintim-Misa, also called KSM, amongst others.

Okyeame, who also added his opinion on the issue, detailed that most creative entertainers indulge in drugs due to their failure to ponder their thoughts and actions to be able to learn lessons.

“…immediately you allow the thoughts to punish you for what you have not been able to do, it will immediately give you a solution, and that is the time that artistes are not willing to sit down quietly for the thoughts to punish them. But immediately they feel the problems come up, they take a ‘hit’ and then all the problems will go away because they have numbed their pain receptors, and the problem is waiting to swim back up immediately you gain consciousness.”

He emphasised that being a musician is enough blessing for an individual because the job requires creative thinking, and not everyone is privileged with such talent.