Credit: Jorund Foreland Pedersen

People often talk about the money that comes with fame, but not always the strong work ethic that results in having no time to rest and recuperate. This particularly applies to Joey Bada$$, who surged to fame when he was just a teenager and was required to prove himself at such a young age. Eight years after the release of his debut mixtape, 1999, he finally found some peace through therapy.

After breaking out with his first mixtape, Joey went on to release his Summer Knights mixtape in 2013, followed by 2015’s B4.DA.$$, 2017’s All-Amerikkkan Bada$$ and 2022’s 2000, coupled with constant worldwide tours. He hadn’t known stillness since early childhood, until he began speaking to someone one-to-one.

“I started going to therapy back in 2020,” he told The Breakfast Club. “For me, I needed that shit. I didn’t know stillness in my adult life. I hit the ground running at 17 years old. I was still a kid, still in high school and was forced on an accelerated growth. I didn’t realise for about five, six years, I didn’t stop. I hadn’t got any type of still time. I hadn’t had real time to connect with my family. Even more importantly, myself.

“So when I finally got that space and that time, I just went real deep inside and I realised things that I needed. I need to be held accountable for my shortcomings. I need those to be pointed out to me, because I’m what you call a self-improvement junkie. I’m committed and devoted to being a better version of myself every time I show up. Therapy was definitely an outlet that I saw to bring me closer to a higher self-awareness and state of being.”

Joey learned emotional intelligence through therapy, which was often prohibited among those around him, and ultimately changed his life. “I’ve always being open-minded and I started to resonate with the idea of therapy being so taboo to [Black people],” he explained. “I was introduced to the concept of emotional intelligence and that kinda blew my mind.

“That opened up so many doors for me ’cause I’m like, ‘Wow, we really wasn’t taught how important it is to identify your own emotions in relation to the people around you.’ Shit, we might just wake up in a bad mood and now your household is feeling that mood and you don’t even realise you just passed that mood onto your son. Energy is so contagious and once I realised that, it started to open up little pathways in my brain.”

Joey believes much of his aggression as a child stemmed from his parents’ breaking up, and he didn’t have the tools available to understand the situation. “[Growing up], I had anger issues and stuff like that,” he said. “It was hard for me to identify a lot of things I was feeling. I think a lot of it came from when my parents split, and me not knowing how to process that, and it manifesting into something else.”