Local Rapper Archie Green Uses His Music as a Way to Combat Depression
Local rapper/producer Archie Green has asked himself why he felt suicidal more than a few times over the past couple of years. On a recent evening at the Tavern Company on Lee Road, Green appears to ride a different kind of wave. Earlier in the week, Green appeared with a handful of other rappers in a roundtable discussion on the Vice website about depression and its place in hip-hop, and the song he created tackling the subject, “Layers,” piled up streams on SoundCloud.
“I kind of hit a breakthrough point in terms of getting back to normal, so to speak or getting to a point where I was basically over my depression,” Green says. “I had gotten to a point where I was feeling a lot better and at the same time I was compelled to write about it. That in itself was a therapeutic experience for me. So, as far as putting it out, as an artist it’s our job to be transparent and tell our story in hopes of there being someone else wholesale can also relate.”
Over a hearty platter of food and refreshing drinks, Green looks back on a darker period in his life. Green, who in his earlier days went by the moniker SoulKlap, had come back to Ohio after earning his Master’s in music business at NYU. He got a DUI and lost his license for a year in the process of it all.
“The DUI was a traumatic experience,” Green says. “That’s what my therapist told me. But what I hadn’t realized was that I had been depressed for a period of time leading up to that. It was truly manifested after this traumatic event but I had been depressed primarily from times where I might not gave gotten the support that I felt like I wanted. Not just from fans and peers, but also my parents — not to say that they didn’t support me, but they were afraid.”
Green says he was also worried that if he “put all my eggs into this one basket of music,” there’s no guarantee that I’ll be able to make a decent living off of it.”
“They wanted me to do something a little more safe, reliable and whatever the case may be,” he says. “At the same time, there were periods when I felt like I was alone. After my DUI and my license being suspended, I was basically isolated. It was self-imposed isolation because at the time I lived with my parents in Aurora, which is out in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere. It took at least 20 to 30 minutes to get anywhere near civilization in my book. So I felt like I would’ve been a burden calling on friends [to hang out or for rides].”
That period of time was rough for Green, but at the behest of one of his fraternity brothers, he began to seriously consider seeking professional help.
