When it comes to mental health, whether you’re self-medicating or taking prescribed medication, there’s a tendency to become numb—not just to pain, but to who you are underneath the pain. “I didn’t know how to come to terms with that or how to fix that,” says Jade Whitlock of Spirit Prison. “I had never been in that situation, and no one in my family had been in that situation.” Once he got clean, Whitlock’s old band, Prozac, seemed to him like a childish portrayal of drugs and alcohol. His life wasn’t like that anymore, and so the band dissolved, he took a break, and, eventually, he found the means to start making music as Spirit Prison. On his self-titled debut album, Whitlock raps over trap beats about learning how to cope, making amends to the people in his life and celebrating his newfound stability.

Thanks for listening to SLUG Mag Soundwaves.

This podcast was created by SLUG Magazine and produced by Angela H. Brown, Parker Scott Mortensen

Associate Producers: Alexander Ortega, Joshua Joye, John Ford, Bianca Velasquez, Connor Lockie

Executive Producer: Angela H. Brown

Music by Spirit Prison

Soundwaves logo and art design by Nicholas Dowd

Photo courtesy of Jade Whitlock