In his first major interview since 2012, Harlem, New York musician Charles Hamilton, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder years ago, spoke on the mental illness struggle he’s dealt with over the past few years.
While speaking with Billboard in an interview first published in the magazine’s March 14 issue, Hamilton says he reached a point where he “didn’t care anymore,” and in addition to committing physical suicide, wanted to commit career and spiritual suicide as well.
“I wanted to commit career suicide, physical suicide, spiritual suicide — I didn’t care anymore…I just didn’t trust anybody. I didn’t leave my house, I just made music all the time. I was fighting depression — I shut myself in,” Charles Hamilton said.
The rapper/producer’s relationship with his former label, Interscope Records, was also discussed. He recalled reading about the label dropping him online and says he may have been perceived as “an uncooperative artist.”
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“They never said the music was bad — it was never about the music,” he said. “It was about everything else. They might have seen me as an uncooperative artist…I was at a girlfriend’s house. She was online on her computer, and said, ‘Charles, you got dropped.’ I was like, ‘Oh my God’…I locked myself in my house with the lights out and a turntable turning with no record on it. I was depressed, paranoid and confused.”
Hamilton is currently signed to Republic Records, a company he says is much more concerned with his well-being.
“They’re like family. They care about the music, but they care a lot more about me,” the rapper said while speaking on Republic Records.
