Mental health advocacy takes center stage in this compelling episode, where host Marc Lehman welcomes rapper Kenneth Erhahon, better known by his stage name, Shocka, a force within the grime scene and a passionate voice for this crucial cause. When rhythm meets reality, powerful voices emerge, and Shocka’s is one of them. Beyond the beats and rhymes of his music, Shocka shares his deeply personal journey, revealing how his own experiences ignited a mission to advocate for others. This conversation uncovers the raw honesty of Shocka’s artistry, his impactful efforts to raise mental health awareness, and the transformative power of using your voice for change.
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Using Music For Change: A Mental Health Advocacy Journey With Shocka
I’m super excited to welcome in our guest Kenneth Erhahon, better known by his stage name is Shocka. Shocka is a rapper and mental health advocate from London. He gained recognition by being one third of Grime collective Marvell, alongside Double S and Vertex. Yes. After dealing with mental health issues himself, Shocka became a mental health advocate to help those with their own problems with his music. If you haven’t heard his music, look them up. It’s awesome. He has since aimed to raise awareness of mental health issues. Shocka, welcome. How are you?
I’m good. Thank you so much for having me. It’s our honor.
Thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. It’s so tricky. When I do an intro, I feel like I’m telling just a bit about a person, but I know there’s so much more. Tell us a little bit about your background.
There is so much to it. First of all, the name Shocka because everyone always says, “That’s an interesting name. Where did they get that name from?” The name has two meanings. First of all, two positive meanings. The first meaning was because I wanted to shock my friends, my family, and the world in a positive way. I wanted them to look back on my life’s story at the end of it and be like, “He really did something amazing.”
The second meaning is actually an acronym for what Shocka means. Shocka stands for spiritual healer others can know is around them. What does that mean? That means the more I’m open about my story, the more I’m vulnerable. Other people around me can see that and decide to emulate that if it works for them and brings them to their place of healing.
That’s why I do what I do. Healing is actually a big theme of what I do. I was just talking to my manager about this saying like, “Healing has played a major part.” You know about the Marvel characters, right?
Sure.
The X-Men. Wolverine was my favorite character. It’s so crazy that I subconsciously picked him because his power was like he could heal himself whenever he gets injured. It started from there because people used to call me Wolverine because I used to have like long sideburns, which I still have now. I used to have fixed sideburns and people used to name me Wolverine. He has always played like a little theme.
A Transformational Book: You Can Heal Your Life
There’s been a thread throughout my whole life. The name and then when I went through my mental health difficulties, which I’ll get into, the book that actually changed my life was a book from a woman called Louise Hay, which you might have heard of. She’s American. She’s passed on now. I don’t if you know who she is.
I haven’t heard of her, no.
She’s incredible. She’s got a book called You Can Heal Your Life. I discovered that actually changed my whole life around, but a bit into going into my journey. I was in a group with Marvell, as you mentioned in my bio. There was three of us, me, Double S and Vertex. I was the Nigerian one. Another one was Ghanaian and another one was Ugandan.
We formed this group and we just had big dreams to take over the world and just do something positive from where we came from because where we came from is really negative. I’m from a place called Tottenham. I don’t know if you know about football. I don’t know if you watch football, if you’re into it. There’s a team called Tottenham, which is the area I live in. One in the football teams are called Tottenham, but there’s a little place in Tottenham called Broadwater Farm. That’s where I’m from.
That place had two riots. One was in 1986 where police officer’s head got chopped off. That’s how severe the riots was. There’s always been problems between the community and the police. There was another riot in 2012 where someone from my area got shot down by the police. There’s a hostile relationship with the police and my area was so terrible that Princess Diana, I’m sure you know who Princess Diana is. Princess Diana came to my area to make peace, to tell us to relax. That’s how bad my area was.
Now my area’s extremely positive. There’s a guy from my area, I don’t think you know who he is, but he went to number one in the charts and he brought a lot of positive attention to my area. You’ve got people like myself doing really positive things here. Things are changing. Anyway, the group called Marvell, the other two guys in the group, they’re round the corner from me. They’re from Northumberland Park, which is like ten minutes away. We all got together, formed this group called Marvell and we did amazing things.
In 2010, we met Drake really early. We were one of the first artists from the UK to bump into Drake. We literally bumped to him. We met Drake before he became a megastar. I still have the footage of it. When I see Drake, I’m going to show him this footage and hopefully he remembers me because he’s done so much since then. He’ll never forget the first time he came to London. That’s when we saw him.
He came with Rihanna, which was the distracting part because he came with Rihanna. Rihanna’s already a big star. He wasn’t. We forgot about him and focused on Rihanna. We met both of them and it was amazing. We did some incredible things. We toured us some huge acts over here. That was in 2010. This is where it gets interesting.
We brought out our first single on the 10th of the 10th of 2010. We picked that date because we believed that our lives was going to change forever on that day. We’ll look back in twenty years and be like, “That was the day that we became millionaires and changed our family’s lives.” The complete opposite happened. That day came and our song didn’t even do well. It wasn’t even the top 200s of the charts. That’s when I went into depression for the first time. I experienced isolation.
I always say to people, “There’s a difference between isolation and solitude.” Solitude is when you willingly depart from the world and take some time for yourself willingly. Isolation is when you’re forced into hiding where you force yourself into hiding because you can’t face the world or face people. That’s what I went into.
There's a difference between isolation and solitude. Solitude is when you willingly depart from the world and take some time for yourself. Isolation is when you're forced into hiding. Share on XI went into isolation. I started like hiding from my friends due to the fact that we lost our record deal and our song didn’t do well. I was talking to a lot of artists now and I realized a lot of artists has been through that similar situation of having problems with their record. It’s a common thing. Even Liam Payne from One Direction that passed away. The news broke out that he was having problems with his record label just before. It is a common thing. I went into deep depression. We got signed in 2010. The song came out 10/10/10 then we lost our record in 2011. I went into a mental health hospital for the first time in 2012.
That’s when everything really changed because now, I’ve been introduced to a world that I knew nothing about. I used to just hear about this world. I don’t know what they call it in America, but in the area that I’m from, they call it like, “He’s gone crazy. He’s lost his mind. He’s a cycle.” You know the words that they throw around. I had to deal with that thing, that big mistake when I came out of hospital the first time. I feel like just sweep it under the rug and pretend like nothing had happened, which is wrong. I was meant to speak and verbalize it and get help. As you can imagine, the stigma was so fake. I came from a family that wasn’t educated on mental health. Even they was advising me not to tell no one.
That’s what we’ve been used to. That’s the programming throughout all of these centuries and centuries, don’t speak about it. That’s what I did. What happened was when I came out hospital in 2012, the group that I was in, Marvell, we got some investment from someone and they moved us out of our area. This is where the problem came.
Every Christmas, we will come back to the area to see our family, to spend Christmas with our family. Christmas time, I had to come back to this house where I had the breakdown and other mental health issues. That trauma will resurface. I end up getting sectioned again and putting a mental health hospital again for the second time. It used to be every two years. Every two years I would relapse and end up in hospital.
From 2012 to 2014, two years later, in 2016, I went to the hospital again. This time is where everything changed for me. The doctor said to me before he discharged me, “You’ve been sectioned,” because that’s what it’s called, sectioning. I don’t know what they call it in America when you get put in mental health hospital. In the UK you’re, it’s called being sectioned. They’re allowed to keep you there for 21 days.
The third time I got sectioned, the doctor said something just before he discharged me. He said, You’ve been sectioned three times. You’re 27 years old. You need to figure something out because you don’t want to keep coming in and out hospital for the rest of your life.” When he said that to me, it’s like a light bulb just went off in my head like, “You’re right.”
It reminds me being 50 or 60 and I’m still being sectioned. That’s when I discovered the book. That’s when I found the book. Whatsapp stories was just being introduced. I didn’t want to use whatsapp stories because I felt like there was copying. Instagram, I avoided it for so long. When I came out hospital, I started checking people’s stories and a girl had this book on her story from Louise Hay and I mentioned it to her. I said, “Ashley, is that a good book?” She said yes. I bought the book and it completely changed my life. I’m not really an avid reader, I’m more a visual person. Stuff like this is perfect. What I did after I read the book, I tagged her name into youtube to see if she’s got any videos that I could watch.
She had tons of videos. I studied all of them. What changed my life was she spoke about self-love in a way that I never heard of before. She said self-love is not about bubble bath and massages and getting your toes and your nails done. She said self-love is about how you speak to yourself, your internal dialogue. She said, ‘If you could get that conversation right, everything will change. You’ll know it will change because your reality will begin to reflect back to you, the conversation you’re having in your mind.” She was completely right.
“Self-love is not about bubble baths, massages, and getting your toes and nails done. Self-love is about how you speak to yourself.” Share on XAs soon as I got in that conversation right, everything started to change. I did my first sold out show in 2017. In 2018, I made a song called Self Love based on everything she taught me. That song ended up getting signed. Snoop Dogg posted that song on his Instagram. Snoop Dogg has 26 million followers. It was worldwide. In 2019, I got offered to do a TED Talk.
I’ve seen it.
I did the TED Talk 2019 and then I did two shows in New York. I actually came back to America, did two shows. At the end of the year, in 2020, we all know what happened. COVID. We had to go into lockdown. I was pissed off because I started getting trauma about what happened with my group. We were just at the door and then we started record deal. Now I’m at the door again and COVID has come. I’m getting trauma and then my life’s about to change even more.
Losing His Mother & Coping With Grief
My mom comes home one day and tells me she’s just come from the hospital and they said she’s got cancer. She’s got a year to live. It devastated me. I’m my only child. I grew up with my mom my whole life. As you can see, there are pictures of my mom on the wall. I don’t know if you can see that there. I’m in the same house that she told me the news. She had a year to live so we had to fly away to Nigeria to see our family because she has to say her goodbyes to the family, which was devastating.
In 2022, she passed away on the 2nd of February. I had my headline show on the 27th of February. I had my mom’s funeral on the 8th of February, like a week later. Everything was just happening so fast. I ended up being back in hospital again. After all of that pressure, I ended up relapsing going back in hospital again after six years. Remember, I said it was every two years. I broke that two-year curse and it was six years. Don’t forget now, in between that six years, I’m a full on mental health advocate now because I did TED Talks and talks in school. I knew exactly what to do when I’m at hospital.
I had my phone with me this time for the first time. My auntie gave me my phone because all the other times I’ve been sectioned, my mom never gave me my phone because she wouldn’t want me to talk to every anyone because Nigerians are extremely private. This time when I got sectioned, because my mom had passed away, my auntie didn’t really know what my mom does, so she gave me my phone on a visit.
When I got back to my room, I remember looking at my phone thinking, “What am I going to do with this?” Everything just came to me. It was like, “Take videos while you’re here. Show people what it’s like,” because people don’t know what it’s like in there, what it even looks like. I took pictures, I took videos. That’s where I got the idea for my book, A Section of My Life. That’s where I wrote most of it.
When I came out of hospital, I ended up getting a book deal. Everything’s just been amazing since then. I got the book deal. The book came out. I performed at a place called the National Gallery. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but it’s a place called the National Gallery over here. I’m the first artist to ever perform there. That place is older than me and you. I did a documentary with ITV. There’s a big channel called ITV over here. I did a documentary that I was screened on that channel. It’s just been amazing ever since. That’s my story in a nutshell. I hope I didn’t take up too much time.
Generational Divide: Perceptions On Mental Health
Shocka, you could take up all the time you want, number one. Number two, I thank you so much for being open and sharing all of that. I know my readers. Something in that will resonate with them. I’m listening and I’m thinking a few things. Number one, I want to talk a little bit about how mental health is in London and how it compares to say the United States. There are some differences. Certainly, I want to talk to you more about your shift that you made, it sounds like since this last hospitalization and even a little before, to become advocate. I think that there’s clearly something in you that wants to heal and help others.
Let’s talk a little bit about the comparison because I think that out here in the States, I would describe mental health as an epidemic with young adults in particular. The anxiety and depression levels, eating disorders, substances, ADHD, etc., are just skyrocketing. The suicide rate is higher than it’s ever been. Yet at the same time, there’s more and more discussion about mental health I would say compared to years ago.
It’s way more open. I’m constantly amazed when I talk to young people how comfortable some people are talking to each other about it. It’s a journey. It’s a process to help people understand that there is definitely healing that takes place when you open yourself up and recognize that what you are going through, a lot of other people are too. Does that make sense?
Yes, definitely. What I want to say is that mental health has always been there. What has happened was my parents’ generation, so the older generation, they didn’t deal with it. They didn’t deal with it not because they didn’t want to, but they didn’t have the luxury to deal with it. Their life was so fast paced. My mom came to the UK at such a young age and had me at a young age. I haven’t even had my first kid yet. By this age, my mom had had me and I had a full-on life. They didn’t have time. When people would die in her time, they would just get on with it. They would mourn for like a day and then just go back to work and get on with it.
I remember when my mom first got her cancer diagnosis, she worked for like a week or two until we told her like, “No, you need to forget work and deal with this at hand.” That generation was so used to just like sweeping it under the rug. What’s happened with this generation is that now we’ve got the luxury to actually look at things. We’ve got a lot of time to talk to each other and do podcasts. That generation couldn’t do podcast. Sitting down and talking at a podcast?
There’s racism. They’re trying to kill us. That generation was the it is what it is generation. It is what it is. Just continue. This generation is just keep moving forward. That was it is what it is generation and this generation is the let’s finally deal with it and put us up to a generation. If this generation doesn’t deal with it, what we’re going to do is we’re going to lay out enough blueprints and enough information for the next generation to have all the tools they need.
That’s a great segue. I want to ask you about that because I think that my audience, some of them are going through their own journey and those that maybe aren’t have people around them that are, and you just talked about your journey. Let’s talk about where music fits into that, the healing side of your lyrics and your performances and your music. Talk to us about that.
Using Music As Therapy & Finding Purpose In Lyrics
As you can see me nodding my head, music played a major part because I’ve never gone to therapy and people are so surprised. They’re like, “You’ve been sectioned four times and you’ve never seen a therapist?” I’ve done similar things to therapy but not actual full on therapy because my music has served as therapy for me.
My music was so deep at a point that I forgot it was music. My friends started telling me like, “You’ve got to start putting choruses and picking nice beats because it still is music because it isn’t becoming full under depressing.” That’s how much I use it as a tool for healing. Now I’ve got the perfect balance. Now I’ve got a perfect balance of having a beautiful message using it as therapy and still something that you can listen to and vibe to. It took years to get to that balance.
Before, I used to just dump. I don’t know if you’ve listened to my albums, but the first one I have was called Vent. I’m on vent four right now. The event started by me just venting. That’s what vents are about. If you listen to every vent, it’s a reflection of where I am in my life. My last vent is me speaking about my mom’s cancer because that’s what was going on.
This vent, vent four, that’s on this new album, Vulnerability Is The New Cool, I’m talking about the money I’m making and what life is like. I’m talking about Palestine. It’s always a reflection of the time. I look forward to my next vent five whenever I do it. I’m so happy I’ve got something like that. Having something like that is important. Even if you don’t have a recorded vent version like what I’ve got, you should have a diary vent version. Every month, vent out.
You read my mind. I talk to a lot of young people about journaling and some of your lyrics remind me of journal entries.
They are, definitely.
By the way, you’re a fantastic songwriter. I’ve listened to a lot of your music. You’re an excellent songwriter. I think there’s so much passion in your words. I listen to a lot of different music and I feel like as a listener, sometimes you can feel the passion and sometimes you can’t. Do you know what I mean?
Definitely.
It sounds like you’ve gotten a lot of therapeutic value out of songwriting and, as you said, venting.
Yeah, definitely venting is extremely important. There’s one thing about seeing your words in a paper, then there’s another thing about hearing your voice, saying what’s in your mind out loud for the world to hear it. That’s what I love. I love like certain things that’s bothering me in my head and then recording it and then listening to it and then dissecting it and realizing that it wasn’t even that big of an issue. Our biggest fear is that if we say it to someone, how are they going to respond? In most cases, they respond in a way that you generally not thinking they’re going to respond.
That’s right. In our head, it feels bigger, right?
The Power Of Vulnerability & Encouraging Open Conversations
Yeah, it feels bigger. That’s why I made Vulnerability Is The New Cool because like Jay-Z’s got an amazing saying that he says you can’t heal what you don’t reveal. It’s true. If you don’t heal it, you can’t reveal it. It’s like if I can make vulnerability cool, it can give people more of an initiative or incentive to want to reveal and realize that there’s nothing really there when they reveal it. What they’re afraid of is not really that scary when they reveal it.
There’s so many ways to be vulnerable. I always list five ways. You’ve got the spirituality where being vulnerable, where you can talk to your creator in the place of your comfort. You’ve got therapy, which we all know about. We’ve got venting to our friends or our partner. If you’ve got a wife or a husband or best friend, you’ve got that way. You’ve got journaling. You’ve got your art like drawing. I can see paintings behind you. That was obviously therapy for that person. You’ve got the way that I use, which is recording. There’s so many different ways. People think there’s only one way which is talking to a person. That’s actually the hardest way.
That’s the most difficult. That’s the last option I’ll pick out of the six. There are so many other ways, but the whole point of it is getting it out of you. You can burn it. That’s another way. You can put it on a paper and burn it. You just have to get it out your system and just see it. The problem is it lives inside of us. I think the longer it stays inside you, the more chances it can turn into poison and start to poison you, the more you keep it inside you. When you keep it out, when you get out of you, you can look at it and you can play with it.
What’s fascinating, Shocka, is so much of your music, the stuff you write about when you do get it out and you do put it in song resonates. At least I found listening to it, I can understand those things because either I’ve experienced it or know people that have. I definitely think that’s one thing that music does. It really brings us together more because when it’s up here, it’s only in our head we feel like we’re the only one experiencing it.
Some people’s voices have healing components, genuinely.
I’ve been told mine does not.
There are certain voices that need to be spreading across the world. It’s actually good for humanity. There are certain voices that you need. There was a woman over here called Jenny Francis. She used to be on late nights. There’s a radio station called Capital Xtra and Jenny Francis. It’s called Capital Xtra now, but it used to be called Choice FM. Jenny Francis used to be late night at Choice FM. She made a name because we all know her for how soothing her voice was on late night.
Everyone remembers Jenny Francis’ late night show. There are certain people that have gifts like that, their voices are just healing. It’s meant to be spreading across the world. I feel like if you’ve got that voice, you should use it. You should do voiceovers. You should talk to people more. You should become a motivational speaker if your voice is healing. There are certain people that they just talk to you and it just lights up your day.
The Influence Of Social Media & Mental Health In Young People
You’ve been so passionate about the topic of mental health. I think you’ve figured out, and many artists have now, that when you speak, people are listening, you know.. People admire artists. People admire people in the entertainment industry. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen video clips or been at concerts myself and the musician stops for a moment and lets people know that it’s okay. Shocka, let me ask you this. In the States, the scene with young people is in terms of statistics is moving in the wrong direction. Anxiety and depression is up. I’m assuming that’s the case. Where you’re from as well?
That’s the exact case.
Let me ask you, because I think everyone has an opinion on this, why do you think that is?
I think it’s social media. It’s something we’ve never had before throughout history. No one could have given us advice on what to do. This is unique to our time. We’ve never had Instagram like this. Like we’re dealing with a new problem. They’ve got to give us time to figure it out. We’re going to have problems. There’s going to be deaths. Unfortunately, there’s going to be anxiety, depression, suicides and there’s going to be all this stuff. We have to figure this out. Unfortunately, some people are going to be casualties until we figure this out. It’s not always going to be like this. It will come down when we start to really figure out and get a hold of it. Right now, it’s the Wild, Wild West. It’s new to all of us.
We’ve never had like our follow accounts. People with 1 million followers, getting 1 million likes. Going viral., you can trip over in the street and next thing you know, you’re on to news. Everyone’s talking about it. Imagine how that person feels like. Imagine how Will Smith must have felt like seeing a mistake he made with the slapping. It’s everywhere. You’ve been healing in public. It’s a new territory that we’re in, so we’re dealing with it
I really feel like there’s a positive edge to it and a negative edge to it. As you said, we’re still trying to manage the negative edge.
If it’s a lot to deal with for adults, imagine for kids. When I was in school, we didn’t even have phones in classrooms. It’s a whole different world we’re living in.
They’re plugged in all the time. The term influencers is used a lot in the States and there are positive influencers and there are negative influencers. To your point, when I was a kid, we were exposed to certain things on the news or the TV. Now kids are exposed to like, you know Yes.
Information is important, especially positive ones because they’re the ones that’s going to bring the control back because where else are the kids going to get the information from and how to deal with all of this? Kids aren’t really listening to their parents, which is sad, but it’s the truth. These influencers have more power than some of the parents of these kids. We’ve just got to make sure that our kids are listening to the right influencers. It’s so important because what put me on this path is that I had the right reference points. I don’t know if I can show you this, but on my shoulder I have a Bob Marley tattoo. Can you see that?
Yeah, sure.
I see that every morning and it always slaps me into gear of the positive impact he had on the world and like the messages he put in his songs and the life he led. It’s like your reference points and your influencers are so important. They just put you in line. Whenever I do something that’s distasteful, dishonorable, obviously he wouldn’t care, but it’s just a thought of would he do something like this? It’s just a respected act. It snaps me back in line. Pick the right reference points because 95% of the time, you do become your reference points as well. You actually turn into them. If you’re listening to them every day and study it, you’re going to become them. Pick the right ones.
I admire his career and everything he stood for and all of the influence he had certainly down in Jamaica and around the world. Certainly, I say to you, Shocka, you are an influencer. You are a person who is creating a full effect with your lyrics and your message. Keep doing what you’re doing. We appreciate it. I appreciate it. I just want to let you know that. Thank you.
You’re welcome.
Passing The Torch: Who Shocka Recommends For The Next Interview
I want to put you on the spot for just a sec. Part of what I do in the show is I ask that people nominate a friend, a coworker, a relative, because I want the conversation to keep forward. Do you have any in your world who you think would be helpful for me to interview next?
I do. There’s a guy called Ben West. He’s a mental health advocate too. Give him a DM or message me afterwards. I’ll send you his Instagram. The same way you reached out to me. Hopefully he sees it. If he can’t get Ben West, there’s a guy called Hussein Manuel. He’s amazing too. He’s a poet. He’s amazing. He’s got mental health books. He’s amazing. He helped me out a lot. I’ll send, so hopefully we keep the conversation going forward.
Thank you. Let me give you a little bit of space for a minute and tell our readers about your new album.
Shocka’s Upcoming Album
My album is Vulnerability Is The New Cool. If you haven’t heard that album, please listen to it. It’s an album that could heal you. You’re going to hear topics that you’ve never heard rappers talk about before. I’m speaking about them as such a beautiful way. Please listen to it. Reach out to me on Instagram. As you can see, I’m very accessible. I try to get back to all my messages. The day I don’t get back to my messages means that I’m a full-on superstar and that is too late. Before that time comes, I’m trying to hang on to what I’ve got left. I’m trying to respond back to everybody. Yeah, let me know your feedback on the album and we can talk about it.
You’re a grounded, honest and open human being, Shocka, and for that, I appreciate it. I, too, tell everybody to take a listen. I’ve listened to your new album. I think it’s great. Thank you for your time and your energy. I really appreciate you being so open and honest with everybody.
Let’s do it again.
I would love to. Shocka, have a great day. We’ll talk soon.
Pleasure.
Thank you.
Important Links
About Kenneth Erhahon (Shocka)
Kenneth Erhahon better known by his stage name Shocka, is a rapper and mental health advocate from London.
He gained recognition for being one/third of Grime collective Marvell alongside Double S and Vertex.
After dealing with mental health issues himself, Shocka became a Mental health advocate to help those with their own problems with his music.
He has since aimed to raise awareness of mental issues ….