In the run up to releasing his second album ‘Odd 1 Out,’ Guvna B remembers thinking “this might be the one that just takes me above that glass ceiling...this is going to hit.
“And then it didn’t happen man.”
The two-time MOBO Award winner has fought to find his place in the industry and has seen its good, bad and ugly side.
Despite being able to occupy the spotlight with ease, there is an unseen struggle to the 27-year-old’s success that has often been swept under the red carpet.
Speaking exclusively to The Huffington Post UK for our Building Modern Men series on male mental health, the Christian rapper explains how he overcame the fear of failure in a culture where success is idolised.
“I’ve never really been good at like expressing myself or communicating so when I get myself down in the dumps I just tend to go in my room,” he tells HuffPost UK.
A landmark report, researched by Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) and HuffPost UK, revealed how barely half of men who admitted to feeling “very depressed” had told anyone about it, compared with 67% of women who did.
The data highlighted the gender disparity in how men and women respond to the struggles of life with experts suggesting that it showed why men lack the “language” to talk about their mental health.
Guvna B’s childhood friend and fellow rapper, Nick Brewer, joins him in telling us how their friendship has been key to helping them walk through the low points in life.
“No one has got it all sorted,” Brewer says.
“We’re not perfect and we have to have people, we have to have friends.”