R&B singer 6LACK (pronounced “black”)’s music is synonymous with heartbreak and messed up relationships. Fickle partners, repeated calls from your exes—he’s lived and sung about it all.
The 30-year-old performer has had a pretty good career. He has been nominated for three Grammys, and his previous two albums… Free 6LACK and A love letter from East Atlanta — both on the Billboard 200. But 6LACK’s latest album, Since I have a lover, released on March 24, is a sharp departure from that material. He is happier and healthier. He sings about going to therapy, learning to communicate and controlling his ego.
“Creatively, I was leaning on the crutch of shock, heartbreak and disappointment. And sometimes it becomes almost a fetish to create from that place,” 6LACK tells Morning Edition’s Leila Fadel. “But I’ve finally reached a point in my life where I’m just not there and I don’t want to be.”
In this interview, 6LACK shares new details about his personal growth, his relationship with social media, and his desire to share the lessons he’s learned with his fans.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. To hear the broadcast version of this conversation, use the audio player at the top of this page.
Interview questions and answers
How did you get to this happier place? What brought you here?
I got to this place by pretty much sabotaging everything I’ve worked for in my personal life. I can communicate emotionally well with music. But in my personal life, I struggled with things that seemed too easy to be so difficult. I just wasn’t listening to myself when I told myself there was an easier way to deal with what was going on in my relationship. There is an easier way to deal with, for example, the emotions that I haven’t processed since my first tour. So I had a therapist and that was the beginning of this process of getting to the source of the problems.
Before starting therapy, did you hesitate at all?
I wouldn’t say I’m against therapy. I’d say I slowed down a bit. It was like I knew the resource was there and was open to it. But I was also still operating from a space of arrogance and ego where it’s like I know I can do this on my own. I can handle it myself. And then I would mess things up again.
What do you mean by confusion?
It’s something as simple as that, I’m having a rough week because I’m away from my daughter and I’m feeling the pressure of everything online and it’s starting to affect my mood. I would just deal with it internally and then someone would say something as simple as “I didn’t get the mail you asked for” and it would just turn into a whole moment and not necessarily because they didn’t do what I asked. But I just feel like now that you’re saying something I don’t agree with, it’s just more dramatic than it needs to be.
So you suppress your feelings about these other things and then react?
Yes, I react and lash out at times when I just shouldn’t.
You also wanted your lessons learned to be something you also convey through your music to the people who listen.
yes I make music for the sole purpose of helping myself in the situation I’m in so I don’t have to repeat any lessons and help the people who listen to my music get to a better space of being.
What in the world is it to have that?
This is the biggest weight off my shoulders. I feel a million times lighter than I did last year. It feels good to have another child that I can put out into the world and watch it grow and take it on tour and see how it affects people. The last two tours I couldn’t leave the shows feeling like I’d done a lot for myself. I felt like I was doing a lot for other people. And these moods, these songs and these feelings did not bring me to a place of peace.
And that doesn’t mean things will always be amazing from here on out. But I am aware of the work it takes to make it as amazing as I want it to be.
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