How Artists are Instigating Conversation About Mental Health Through Their Advocacy and Music

The reason music is popular amongst the coming of age goers, is because artists create a realm that can connect to every part of anyone’s identity. From topics such as racial struggles to mental battles, a listener indulges in music that connects to their lives, memories, relationships and more. Artists such as Kanye West and Willow Smith have large fan bases for this very reason; their fans soulfully connect with the passion and pain in every guitar strum or lyric of their songs. 

Kanye West, father of 4 and spouse to Kim Kardashian, is an inspiration to many people because he represents his bipolar disorder to his fanbase as a “superpower” instead of a disability. Although he is raw about the true nature of the battles he faces with his disorder, his fight for talking about his challenges also  decrease stigma surrounding his behaviours. 

“I also want to change the stigma of crazy and I want to change the stigma of mental health, and I have not done no extra study on it, at the beginning of it, at the beginning of a conversation,” West said in an interview with radio show host Lenard McKelvey (Charlamagne). “But best believe I'm gonna take the stigma off the word crazy. Let's just say for now, people would take something that's enlightened, put it in different contexts and then call it crazy to try to diminish the impact and the value of what I'm actually saying.” 

For a long time, Willow Smith has been expressing her mental health struggles and empowerment through different artistic approaches. Tyler Cole —Smith’s boyfriend —and Smith co-own a band called “The Anxiety.” Reminiscent of their name, they once created a temporary art exhibit that represented the 8 stages of anxiety inspired by their upcoming album together.

Since her come to fame “Whip My Hair” single, Willow faced severe depression, self harm and identity loss at a young age. 

"I honestly felt like I was experiencing so much emotional pain but my physical circumstances weren't reflecting that." Smith said in an interview with TeenVogue. 

Songs from Cole and Smith’s album “The Anxiety” use distorted vocals with contrasting lofi-beats to represent the different feelings anxiety puts one through. Some of Smith’s personal songs such as “Female Energy pt.2” and “Overthinking IT” don’t explicitly talk about mental health, but more of a mental development and navigation.