YCee disappeared for four years. The story behind why is heavier than anyone knew.

In 2020, at the peak of his run — Jagaban everywhere, Juice on every aux, sold-out shows, a sound that helped define Afrobeats — he got diagnosed with bipolar disorder. What followed was six years of meds that fogged his creativity, hospitalizations, a Nigerian mental health system not built for it, and the strange reality of being one of the biggest songs in the country playing while he tried to put himself back together.

He sits down with Eche and Chika to talk about all of it — and goes further than he's gone publicly. The hundreds of millions of streams he never got paid for. The Tiny Entertainment fallout he couldn't shake. Why he repeated SS2 and accidentally fell into music. What it actually takes to disappear for four years and not start tweeting a GoFundMe link. And his unflinching read on where Afrobeats and Nigerian rap are right now — the missed naming opportunity, the foreign players running the industry from outside the continent, the "Olodo Uprising," and why "beef is necessary for the culture" is a lie that gets people killed.

Plus: the new album Out of Sight, Out of Mind, why Odumodublvck gets rap right, and a take on J. Cole pulling out of the battle that you've not heard anywhere else.

This one moves.

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WHERE TO FIND YCEE
Instagram: http://instagram.com/iam_ycee
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@yceeanbt
Twitter: https://x.com/iam_ycee
Ycee's Latest Album Out of Sight Out of Mind: onerpm.link/oosoomycee

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TIMESTAMPS

00:00 — Cold open
01:42 — Where have you been? Four years off the map
02:11 — The 2020 bipolar diagnosis and London lockdown
05:35 — How the meds attacked his creativity
06:17 — Why Kanye's apology made him open up
08:31 — Mental health in Nigeria: Yaba Left, exorcisms, and a broken system
11:26 — Performing through an episode in Benue
13:58 — The golden era of Afrobeats and what's been lost
19:00 — Streaming, virality vs. artistry, and the death of the album listen
24:07 — Hundreds of millions of streams. Zero dollars.
28:22 — Lessons from the Tiny Entertainment fallout
29:52 — Repeating SS2 and accidentally finding music
36:46 — From cybercafé to mixtape to first record deal
38:12 — Old YCee vs. new YCee
40:31 — Why he had to learn to sing — and the Nigerian identity in his sound
44:28 — Making music for impact, not numbers
46:53 — When you're hot vs. when you're not
49:22 — Out of Sight, Out of Mind: the album breakdown
54:32 — What Nigerian rap should actually sound like (Odumodublvck, Black Bones)
56:50 — The Olodo Uprising and the collapse of the Nigerian school system
58:14 — Foreign players, label-by-proxy, and the missed Afrobeats opportunity
1:05:07 — Why Afrobeats artists don't perform in Nigeria anymore
1:09:33 — Meet and greets, building a real fanbase, and shared fans
1:11:33 — Rapid Fire
1:14:12 — J. Cole, the Kendrick/Drake battle, and why rap beef isn't a game