Riddim Life Podcasts

Shocka has already seen a huge success in music. A few years ago he was playing with famous artists like Skepta, and touring the country with his rap trio Marvell. Then he had it all taken away and that led him to a breakdown and mental health hospital. After a long recovery, Shocka came back to music and released a very honest and positive song called “Self Love”. The song has been viewed by millions and shared on social media by many artists, including Snoop Dogg. Now he’s with us to share his story of "the rise, the fall and the come back".

SHOCKA: When I was in hospital, I could have ended it all. I shouldn’t be here today. I know what I went through, going through hospital three times. I saw so many traumatic things that I should not be here. But, I thought, if I’m going to stay here, it’s so important that people see that. Because they may want to end it and they could see me and say: oh look what he’s achieved by staying here and sticking it out, maybe I should continue?

FEATURED SONGS: 'Self Love' - Shocka ft. Brook Baili; 'Vent' - Shocka; 'Single Mothers' - Shocka ft. Dun D; 'Warn Me' - Shocka ft. Dun D.

Amelia is a spoken word artist and singer from East London. A few years ago she reached the lowest point in her life, but thanks to her creativity she found a way to deal with problems.

AMELIA: Up until that moment of my life, situations didn't just happen to me but they owned me. Every negative thing that happened to me was like a piece of baggage that I had to carry around, that I had to be ashamed of or couldn't speak about. Now I'm taking ownership on it and I'm going to turn it into something productive and positive. And I'm also going to air it out and let people know that's it's ok to speak about this things, it's ok to be vulnerable sometimes, it's ok to be upset. If we spoke about this more, we would have a healthier culture dealing with mental health issues.

FEATURED SONGS: 'Just Beautiful' - Amelia Poamz; 'The Realest Shit I Ever Wrote" - Amelia Poamz.

This is the first pilot episode of Music Is My Medicine podcast. Ella is interviewing Tray Avlon - an incredibly talented hip hop artist from East London, whose personal and deep lyrics challenge male stereotypes and inspire open conversation about human emotions. As a child, Tray never heard the words 'I love you' from his own mum, although he saw her parental love expressed in other ways. Later on, Tray decided to explore how his childhood has effected his ability to love as an adult man.

TRAY: I didn't realise that anything was missing until I had my own relationships. Because I had no teacher to teach me how to love, I didn't have a good model how to love anyone else. I thought I understood what I was doing, but I didn't. (...) When I really dug deeper I understood I couldn't have know how to nourish relationships outside myself because of my bad, I guess, relationship with my mum.

FEATURED SONGS: 'From Me To You' - Tray Avlon; 'Opposites Attract' - Tray Avlon; 'You Already Know' - Tray Avlon ft. El'tee.

The Dirty Urban Show - COVID 19 by Riddim Life