Big Sean had to look back in order to move forward.
Big Sean has been missing for a minute. Though 2017 found Sean delivering I Decided and the Metro Boomin-produced Double Or Nothin’, 2018 brought a noted hiatus from the Detroit artist. Today, on his thirty-first birthday, Sean took to Instagram to open up about the reason his absence.”
“I’m definitely seeing things different than I used to see them,” begins Sean. “I just wanted to speak on it, and share because a lot ya’ll need insight like I do, and probably feel similar too. Around this time last year, around my birthday, it was good for me but it was wild for me too, because I felt like something wasn’t all the way connecting with my energy. I’m big on energy. And I wasn’t feeling like myself, I couldn’t figure out why.”
“So what I did was I stepped back from everything I was doing,” he continues. “Everything I had going on, because somewhere in the middle it, dawg I just felt lost. I didn’t know how I got there. I been meditating since I was seventeen years old, that helps with anxiety, depression, all them things. It wasn’t doing it all the way for this, so I knew this required some special attention.”
Big Sean continues his message with a second video, titled “Clarity.” “The deal was, I started therapy,” he says. “I got a good therapist. I was blessed enough to talk to some super spiritual people. They made me realize one thing I was missing in my life, and the one thing I was missing was clarity. Clarity about who was around me, what I was doing.”
“Even the music, which was my happiness, my joy, always an escape for me, that was starting to feel like a burden,” he admits. “Starting to feel like a job. The relationships around me, the people I was growing up with, I had a lot toxic relationships around me. Even the relationship with my mom. I was getting to a point where we wasn’t talking like that. It was weird, because that had never been like that with me and her. I realized it had all started with me, and I had to analyze myself, I couldn’t point the finger at anybody else. I had to point it at myself, and nurture the relationships that were important to me. But most importantly, nurture the relationship with myself.”
In the final segment the message, Sean looks to the future, expressing an interest to return to music with a renewed sense focus. “I started realizing, you can’t depend on somebody for love and a good time and all that if you can’t give it to yourself,” he says. “I started doing things by myself, doing things I never thought I’d do, like going skydiving or whatever I thought was fun. In the midst I definitely re-discovered myself. Found a whole new energy, and me being a source it and not somebody else.
“Then I started getting back to making the music, and having fun, started nurturing those relationships that were important to me,” he continues. “Putting time into that unconditional love. Conditional love is cool, the money and instant gratification, but the foundation on which you stand on is the unconditional love. Hey man, put the energy back into yourself, be clear about what you want to do, how you want to do it. Just know that it all translates to happiness. It feels good to be back at a higher level.”
The series videos put Big Sean’s prior absence into perspective, and it’s nice to have the lyricist back in the fold. Look for him to bounce back with some new music, which he has confidently dubbed his career-best. Happy birthday Big Sean!