Slowthai has admitted that Skepta helped through a difficult period during 2020.

The Northampton rapper said he was in a “dark place” earlier this year following a series of events which culminated in his self-described “shameful” behaviour at the NME Awards 2020.

Speaking on The Matt Wilkson Show on Apple Music, he said: “Because everything was so crazy. I’d just been in a dark place and just doing too much stuff I shouldn’t be doing and like I was spiralling, but I was just in a rut of doing the same shit. I wasn’t thinking, right. It was just trying [to] see through the next day and carry on.

“I think I already had my mental health, like rickety and I was thinking, no. And then I think coming out of all that stuff, it gave me time to step away and like really focus and say, ‘Yo, you don’t need these things that is synthetic happiness at the end of the day’, like try and do the things that make you feel good. So it was being in them spaces and them dark places in your mind where you feel like you’re the only one, even though you’re not’.”

He then went on to discuss how Skepta helped him through his mental health struggles.

“I was just going even more into the rabbit hole. I was like fuck everyone the other side. Not in a good place and Skep was like, he could see me going through it. And he was just like, ‘Yo man, come on this isn’t you, this isn’t your defining moment. This is a blip. Don’t let it bring you into this.’

“You know what I mean? And just pulled me up. It’s he just grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and said ‘come on, man.’ And then from that boom. Bubbling. I don’t know is that people you meet, you meet people from music and stuff and it’s just the relationship. You become friends, but it’s like your relationship is just music.

“But outside of that, when you’ve got people who actually check you and tell you about things you’re doing and try and guide you, that’s the biggest respect and biggest blessings’.”

Last week Slowthai announced his new album ‘TYRON’ and shared the video for his latest single ‘NHS’.

The rapper will release the follow-up to 2019’s ‘Nothing Great About Britain’ on February 5, 2021 via Method Records.

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