Rapper Gucci Mane is best known as a trap-music mogul, but he’s also a successful fashion designer, published author, actor, husband, and father. He’s faced his share of struggles, too, from substance use and social media meltdowns to music-industry feuds and stints behind bars.
Now, the Atlanta-based artist, born Radric Delantic Davis, is taking on a new role: using his platform to raise awareness of the importance of mental health.
On tour promoting his new memoir, “Episodes: The Diary of a Recovering Mad Man,” Mane, 45, is talking openly about living with mental illness, substance abuse disorder, and his long path to wellness. Together with his wife, Keyshia Ka’Oir, the rapper is using his star power — and the simultaneous release of his 17th studio album — to spotlight an issue many Black men face every day but few openly discuss.
In the book co-written with writer Kathy Iandoli, Mane digs deep, pushing past stigma about mental illness to reveal his diagnoses: bipolar disorder, paranoid schizophrenia, and substance use disorder. The memoir has been praised for its transparency, which is significant given how Black Americans — especially men in the public eye — usually keep quiet about such issues.
“I had an episode in like 2020 around COVID, and after that, I was like, ‘Man, I gotta really just hold myself accountable and take care of my health,’” he said in an interview with Ka’Oir on The Breakfast Club. “I don’t ever want to have an episode again,”.
Meanwhile, “my wife was pregnant,” Mane told the podcast hosts. “I don’t want to raise a family, and then my mental health is gone.”
Gucci Mane Isn’t Alone in His Struggle
According to 2021 data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 4.7% of Black adults experienced a serious mental illness, or SMI, in the past year. The category includes bipolar disorder as well as schizophrenia and disorders related to it.
Other sources indicate that Black Americans may be 20% more likely to experience SMI compared to the general population. Meanwhile, rates of major depressive episodes are reportedly increasing in Black youth and young adults.
Schizophrenia patients interpret reality abnormally and often deal with hallucinations, delusions, and, at times, psychosis, according to the Mayo Clinic. Bipolar disorder is a manic-depressive mental illness that causes extreme changes in mood and energy levels, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
Black America and Barriers to Mental Health Care
While a 2018 analysis found Black Americans are diagnosed with schizophrenia at significantly higher rates than white people, researchers have also found inequities in treatment. Evidence suggests that changing the diagnostic tools and adding culturally responsive assessments could reduce this disparity.
But the barriers to accessing care are steep: according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, only 1 in 3 Black adults with mental illness receives treatment. High costs of mental healthcare, lack of healthcare coverage, and an inability to find or get to mental health professionals are the barriers that Black people and low-income individuals say prevent them from getting mental health help.
Racism Is a Mental Health Issue
Meanwhile, advocates say there’s a strong connection between racism and mental illness.
“Racism is a mental health issue because racism causes trauma. And trauma paints a direct line to mental illnesses,” according to Mental Health America.
The title of Mane’s new book, his third, is more than ironic. Despite his success, the rapper’s behavior has been erratic at times — including beefs with other rappers, and confessionals about abusing street drugs. Fans have cheered his willingness to acknowledge his desire to look after his own mental health.
‘I’m Not Going to Allow You to Be Crazy Alone’
In joint interviews, Mane and Ka’Oir talk about how caregiving, family support and redefining masculinity are critical in helping individuals confront mental illness and seek help.
“I have a system,” Ka’oir said. “I take his apps off his phone. First thing I do, I delete Instagram. I delete everything. Even if I gotta change his password, I’m changing it because I don’t need the public to know he’s having an episode.”
“Now, before the episodes come, I catch it,” she said. “That’s why he hasn’t had another one. How you catch it is he doesn’t speak to you, he wants to be left alone, he don’t eat, he does not sleep. Text messages, there’s a period after each word.”
Mane has credited his resilience to his wife and a cadre of people who help him manage his illness. Ka’Oir acknowledged it hasn’t been easy.
At one point, “I had to just go on my knees and pray,” because her husband had become verbally abusive, she recalled. “The things he would say are really, really bad.”
But Ka’Oir told The Breakfast Club that abandoning him was not an option: “You want to sit here and be crazy alone, [but] I’m not going to allow you to be crazy alone.”
She kept her word and helped Mane, despite his resistance.
“I called some bodyguards, and I just planned a whole kidnap,” she said. “We kidnapped him and took him to the hospital” because he refused to get help on his own.
Mayne still tried to fight, “but it was six of them,” Ka’Oir said. “He couldn’t handle it, and we threw him in the car. He would try to jump out the car,” so they sandwiched him in the middle seat, with bodyguards sitting at each door.
“And that was, like, his last episode,” she says.
