Wale Says Record Deals Should Come With Mental Health Insurance

Wale raises a valid point of discussion about dealing with mental health in hip-hop.

In the early hours of Thursday morning (Aug. 8), Wale shared a clip of himself speaking on the mental health issues he's experienced in the past. During his conversation, the Washington, D.C. artist, who believes he's one of the greatest rappers of all time, asserts that record deals should come with some kind of mental health insurance to help deal with the hardships of the music industry.

"You've gotta remind yourself who you are especially with like celebrities," Wale stated. "People —Monday everybody—you going to bed, looking at your comments everybody telling you you're the greatest and by Friday everybody telling you that you fell off and you're the worst. It's difficult. You know what I mean? I think that record deals should come with like, mental health insurance, to be honest. I think it should be part of it."

Wale doesn't necessarily speak for himself. Other rappers in the past have been open about their struggles with mental health issues like YG, who admitted to suffering from anxiety and PTSD last year. There's also Kid Cudi, who opened up about his battle with depression to Jada Pinkett-Smith. Wale doesn't name his own issues, but he does describe the mental anguish he faces every day.

"The road to success is not like—there's no map, you know what I'm saying? You can spiral at any time," Wale continued. "It's hard to keep yourself in check because there's a lot of enablers and the thing that's even worse than enablers now is people who are so determined to not be an enabler that all they do is they think they giving you tough love but they kicking you when you're down."

Watch what Wale has to say about what labels should do to assist artists with mental health issues below.

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