Nigerian rapper and singer Oludemilade Martin Alejo, popularly known as Ycee, has spoken publicly about his prolonged battle with bipolar disorder, revealing how the condition disrupted both his personal life and career over the past several years.
The award-winning artiste made the disclosure during an appearance on the Afropolitan Podcast, where he recounted being diagnosed during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 while residing in London.
According to the 33-year-old musician, the diagnosis marked the beginning of a difficult chapter that forced him to confront mental health challenges for the first time.
“In 2020, I got diagnosed with a mental health condition, and that was during lockdown. I was in London, deep down into lockdown. I was in and out of the hospital for maybe 3 months,” he said.
Ycee explained that after spending months receiving treatment in the United Kingdom, visa-related issues eventually compelled him to return to Nigeria, where he continued managing the condition.
Reflecting on the period, he admitted that mental health was a subject he had barely considered before the diagnosis.
“Before 2020, mental health was a statement that I hadn’t uttered before. Coming back to Lagos and getting into mental health in Nigeria, it was a very long six years,” he said.
The rapper revealed that his recovery journey involved a combination of medication, therapy and multiple hospital admissions, with progress often coming in waves.
“I was on medication, and I was hospitalised several times. I was dealing with therapy. So many things. Sometimes, it looked good. Sometimes, it just gets like really dark,” he added.
Ycee said the condition had a profound effect on his creative process, making it increasingly difficult to write and record music, an ability he once considered effortless.
He disclosed that the challenges contributed significantly to his reduced presence in the music industry and affected the promotion of some of his projects.
“My last project was in 2021, ‘Love Drunk’, but I didn’t apply myself enough to push that because of the state of mind I was in. The last single I released in 2022 as well, there was so much going on,” he said.
The artiste further explained that much of the last few years had been spent trying to come to terms with a new reality after the diagnosis changed the trajectory of his life.
“The last four years have just been me trying to know who I used to be, but at a point, I just realised that that boy was not coming back, so I had to look forward. I think by the end of 2024, things started looking up again, and I started feeling more like myself,” he said.
Describing the emotional toll of the experience, Ycee said the most painful consequence of the illness was the impact it had on his artistic expression.
“The darkest part of everything I went to was how it affected my creativity. You know, because my making music is something I find quite naturally. I would be in sessions, and my brain is just foggy,” he said.
When asked directly about the diagnosis, the rapper identified the condition as “Bipolar disorder.”
Ycee rose to national prominence after the release of his breakout hit song Condo, which featured Patoranking and earned him two nominations at the 2015 Nigeria Entertainment Awards. He later consolidated his status in the industry with popular tracks such as Jagaban and Omo Alhaji, receiving recognition at major music award platforms, including All Africa Music Awards and The Headies.
His revelation has added to growing conversations around mental health awareness in Nigeria’s entertainment industry, where more public figures have begun speaking openly about their personal struggles and recovery journeys.
(Ripples)