Kid Bookie is a true talent and he is starting a conversation with his hard hitting new single ‘Drowning’. The track focuses on women, abuse, mental health and suicide.
Here we chat exclusively to Kid Bookie to find out more about why he chose these emotional and challenging subjects to focus on with his new release;
Your new single Drowning focuses on issues surrounding mental health, how did the inspection for the track come about?
The song was more of an introspection into my own mental, as an MP3, it’s just a man telling you he sometimes feels close to death, struggles with addiction to his vices and feels pretty much music is the only safe place he has, I think that’s a rhetoric many of us carry together as a conglomerate rather than individually and if I can have just one person understand that I know pain too, I’m good, lets talk..
The video focuses on women, mental health, abuse and suicide, how did you and your team manage to film such a serious video with sensitivity?
It confuses me when people say we did this ‘sensitively’ or ‘insensitively’, there is nothing nice about this, there is no emotional sensitivity or insensitivity displayed, it’s a raw depiction of suffering, death and pain at the hands of another’s toxic mentality, its disgusting, there is not a nice thing about it, I chose to opt out of emotional attachment to it or the whole theme would have been different, it’s supposed to be uncomfortable, its a video where you take yourself away from listening to the music and just watch the unbalance of what can happen to a woman in her safe place, aka the bathroom, a place where most of us spend a lot of time alone, there is a lot of metaphors used in this video that will only be pointed out upon several watches. Even from the lady I used, she is currently a sex worker, I also wanted her to be able to show the dark side of what can happen in her industry.. “Can a sex worker be raped?” is what I’ve heard whilst showing this video to people, that is a mentality of naivety, it goes past attachment of a job role but to human moral ethic, these are the thoughts I want to spark, people don’t fu**ing think, stop living in the now of your selfish lives and open your mind up a little bit, everybody loves everybody until it’s time to actually love everybody, f*ck them.
Do you feel the music industry is a safe place for mental health sufferers?
No, I think every time people suffer it turns into a spectacle, I understand highlighting issues and speaking on it but nobody really ‘cares’ until you die. Until then it turns into a big d*ck contest of who suffers the most and it distorts the dialogue of whats supposed to be had because now people place severity of suffering on hierarchies of matter and whats ‘really’ important? Everyone’s problems matter, big or small, it’s how it makes YOU feel.. I’m no hero or some advocate but those words are just labels, we are ALL advocates for this because we all matter when we suffer. I think people only care about your mental health in this industry when you’re an asset that’s key, a bigger artist, DJ or if you’re a guess an ‘influencer’ there’s a big divide, there’s no middle there’s the bottom and the top and if you’re at the bottom, its only death that sparks peoples RIP because humans show EMPATHY via nature and then the feeling passes soon after, ask if people care about the last group RIP they threw up not long ago and f*ck their verbal language, look at their eyes and body language, that’s the real answer, its just a show, people love self gratification, makes THEM feel better.. Gotta learn to love yourself before you love anyone but practise giving love to all, before the aesthetics of others blind your judgement of who you give your care to.
What else do you think needs to be done to help those suffering?
There’s so many variables of mental health and suffering to break it down into just one passage of consciousness. I guess, unbiased, honest, harmonious communication is key into gaining insight into how any one feels, when you ask someone if they’re okay and they say ‘Yeah I’m fine’ and then you ask them again, are you really okay? You 90% ALWAYS get a different answer..everyone feels it’s a burden to bestow their pains or suffering on another person because we are so easily dismissed when we try to be honest and communicate, some don’t understand and shun it and depending on the person they’re shunning, that can f*ck with someone man, like their shit don’t matter, we all just need to rewire our brains and stop being so pretentious and fake, be honest and open, hear people, love people, love somebody because your brains produced that chemical, not because you have an agenda or some bull shit.
From a male perspective how do you feel mental health issues are portrayed to the public?
I think from a universal perspective, it’s just how do you identify what is mental health? What are the parameters we put up to decide when someone is now a mental health sufferer, what is the transitional or defining point of when somebody is now bordering or about to become a mental health sufferer? I think the conversation is just conversation, sometimes it’s noise because speaking just sparks ideas but if nobody acts upon ideas of what you now implement as a medium of help away from just communication, where is the progression? Pills, prescriptions, sedatives, herbal, mountain trips to realign your chakra, I don’t know the answer but like I said whether the conversation is just noise or people are speaking articulately with solution and step by step ways of progression.. as long as the narrative is sparked it can change the way the public perceive it as a whole. Generations perceive things by time periods, so there’s a divide in global consciousness in the ether, everybody is scared, stop being scared, f*ck fear.
Do you feel music can help give a voice to those in need?
It has for centuries, sonics are frequencies and vibrations, they instantly change your heart rate, mood and thoughts. Hence why it’s important to use your music to heal, if you’re not healing you’re contributing to the damage of the fragile states of peoples conscience man. Some people are finding themselves, young people especially, they look at the primal alpha as being a leader when sometimes the alpha is just as scared as everyone else, who leads? If you have a voice and a platform, understand this money is just currency for survival and our legacy, don’t lose sight if you’re getting it fast but if you can create change via your voice? Then shift the paradigm a little please because these are some f**king dark times and I just want to help change the world with my voice, whether it be for the worst by saying what people don’t want to hear then good, because that’ll change it for the better in the future.
What made you want to make a track focusing on these issues?
It wasn’t pre meditated, sometimes I enjoy standing at the mic and just making sounds and free-styling, then before you know it, you’ve kind of constructed a whole song, that’s how I like making music, I find it fun to just let my subconscious take over because then I feel I’m actually talking from like inside? You know. So I guess, it’s just how I was feeling, sometimes we all feel a little f**ked up, we don’t always have to communicate in ‘Hey! How are you?’ or that bullshit same message pattern, say some new stuff, spark new thoughts, be fearless, I hate it all, maybe I’m misunderstood or this sounds like ranting but, if I could sit with the whole world and speak to them one by one, I’d do it and they’d get me and understand, I promise.
What is your message to anyone out there suffering from the subjects touched upon in Drowning?
Stay afloat, don’t drown, love yourself.
Make sure you follow Kid Bookie on Twitter @kidbookie to keep up to date with all his latest music and tour news!
If you are affected by any of the issues mentioned in this interview please reach out for support.