Nigerian rapper and singer Oludemilade Martin Alejo, widely known as Ycee, has bravely pulled back the curtain on his private life, detailing his intense, six-year struggle with bipolar disorder. In a raw and deeply moving revelation, the 33-year-old artist shared how the condition crippled his creativity, disrupted his music career, and forced him into a long journey of self-reconstruction.
Speaking during a candid appearance on the Afropolitan Podcast, the “Jagaban” hitmaker disclosed that his mental health battle began in 2020, amidst the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, Ycee was living in London when he received a diagnosis that would alter the course of his life and career.
A Diagnosis in Isolation
For Ycee, the diagnosis came at a time when he had almost no prior understanding of mental health conditions. Caught in the isolating grip of the UK’s pandemic lockdown, he spent months navigating the onset of his illness far from his familiar support systems.
“In 2020, I got diagnosed with a mental health condition, and that was during lockdown,” Ycee recalled. “I was in London, deep down into lockdown. I was in and out of the hospital for maybe three months.”
Due to visa limitations, the rapper eventually had to return to Nigeria to continue his treatment. This transition brought its own set of challenges, as he had to navigate a landscape where mental health awareness is still developing. “Before 2020, mental health was a statement that I hadn’t uttered before,” he confessed. “Coming back to Lagos and getting into mental health in Nigeria, it was a very long six years.”
The Fight Against the Dark and the Fog
Managing bipolar disorder proved to be an exhausting cycle of therapy sessions, heavy medications, and multiple hospital admissions. Ycee described the erratic nature of his recovery, noting that while there were periods of hope, there were also times when things got “really dark.”
Perhaps the most devastating impact of the illness was how it stifled his natural artistic ability. For a songwriter accustomed to the effortless flow of creativity, the cognitive toll of the condition was paralyzing.
“The darkest part of everything I went through was how it affected my creativity,” Ycee explained. “Because making music is something I find quite naturally. I would be in sessions, and my brain is just foggy.”
This mental fog explains Ycee’s prolonged absence from the spotlight in recent years. He admitted that his 2021 project, Love Drunk, and his 2022 singles did not receive the promotional push they deserved because he simply did not have the emotional bandwidth to advocate for his work.
Mourning the Past, Embracing the Future
A significant portion of Ycee’s recovery involved coming to terms with how the illness had changed him. He spent years trying to claw his way back to the person he was before 2020, before realizing that healing required letting go of the past.
“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,” he said. Fortunately, the rapper shared a glimmer of hope, noting that by the end of 2024, he finally started feeling a sense of clarity and a return to his true self.
Ycee first shot to music industry stardom in 2015 with his breakout single “Condo” featuring Patoranking, followed by massive anthems like “Jagaban” and “Omo Alhaji.” After high-profile stints with Sony Music and Tinny Entertainment, his sudden quiet period left fans wondering about his whereabouts. By sharing his diagnosis of bipolar disorder, Ycee not only answers those questions but also contributes to dismantling the stigma surrounding mental health in the African music industry.