MIKEY HOLDEN| HOW HIP HOP CAN TURN ISOLATION INTO UNIFICATION

“Isol­a­tion is alone­ness that feels forced upon you, like a pun­ish­ment’ ” — Jeane Mar­ie Laskas

Mikey Hold­en epi­tom­ises all that is good about hip hop; it’s potent force for pure expres­sion, its trans­form­at­ive power in touch­ing oth­ers through both bru­tal hon­esty and gentle words, and it’s nat­ur­al beauty when someone tal­lies togeth­er innate skill and out­stand­ing lyr­i­cism with a mes­sage that is deep and pro­found. Ulti­mately, that is what the very incep­tion of hip hop strived for.

“Isol­ated… I’m feel­ing isol­ated”. These are the words that resound in an echo in the chor­us of Mikey Hold­en’s recent and argu­ably most power­ful singles to date. ‘Isol­ated’ is deeply per­son­al. But here, in a hip hop song about men­tal health and sui­cide, the per­son­al also becomes the polit­ic­al. It is more than just indi­vidu­al cath­arsis, it also has a deep­er pur­pose expos­ing just how wide­spread the prob­lem has become. “Im releas­ing this track to encour­age people to speak out and not suf­fer in silence. I hope this will help people that suf­fer with their men­tal health and help them take com­fort in know­ing they are not going through this alone”. And it is here that a young musi­cian and artist from Wales has become a bas­tion for just how potent the trans­form­at­ive power of hip hop can be.

Every so often an unex­pec­ted gem comes along, usu­ally where and when it is expec­ted least. Admit­tedly, the first time i heard Mikey Hold­en, a few years ago, it was prob­ably by acci­dent. Cardiff is not the place you expect to find a hot­bed of hip hop tal­ent. If any­thing, the ste­reo­types we have about Wales paint it as the very anti­thes­is of this. But that first song I heard SOS (Sync or Swim) hit me hard. It had that spe­cial and unusu­al abil­ity to stay with me and is a track that I can listen to over and over without get­ting bored. From that first bar, that first word, he had me. It is rare to find tech­nic­al tal­ent merged with a brave raw­ness and that for me is what con­scious, qual­ity hip hop is all about.

Since that first song, I have fol­lowed Mikey’s career with interest, look­ing at his back cata­logue, and of course, his con­tinu­al growth. His lyr­ic­al open­ness — a man who dares to split him­self apart for his listen­ers, to doc­u­ment his men­tal health struggles, coupled with a desire to edu­cate oth­ers means that, des­pite espous­ing buck­et­loads of hurt, he veers well away from that line that crosses into self-pity, and instead heads towards self-know­ledge and hon­esty. He has a pur­pose, and that pur­pose is not for recog­ni­tion. Instead, “the scene needs des­per­ate change. I need to edu­cate this gen­er­a­tion… I’m try­ing to res­pir­ate it”.

The second song i heard, Read Between the Lines, also had a pro­fund­ity that could not be ignored. Because yes, he has that excep­tion­al tech­nic­al abil­ity already men­tioned. But he also has so much more. There is a stun­ning hook, and words that shat­ter your heart: “That’s me try­ing to hide behind a smile, inside I’m suf­fer­ing. You can see inside my eyes I’m strug­gling… nobody knows the weight I hold on my shoulders”. In that heart­break there is beauty. It is rare to find artists like this, using hip hop for such deep expres­sion, as a free voice, some­times for cath­arsis, some­times for protest, some­times for expres­sion, and yes some­times just for the act of spit­ting bars in themselves.

His pain, inten­tion­ally or not, actu­ally fosters hope, and a sense that if you too are strug­gling, then you are not alone. Equally I feel for Mikey it is has a thera­peut­ic func­tion bey­ond what talk­ing alone can do: “Writ­ing is my med­ic­a­tion”.  Eminem has expressed a sim­il­ar sen­ti­ment:  “Music is so thera­peut­ic to me that if I can­’t get it out, I start… self-loathing”.

“The worst cruelty that can be inflic­ted on a human being is isol­a­tion” — Sukomo

For Mikey, it would seem that Isol­ated was his most reveal­ing song yet. He admits, “I was scared” in releas­ing the track. Because it intim­ately reveals his inner world in a way that takes us to his darkest moments. “I’ve been nervous writ­ing and releas­ing this but I feel I need to be as open as I pos­sibly can be with myself and every­one listen­ing to help try and give an insight into the mind of someone who has struggled and still struggles…”. He takes us to his own sui­cide attempt. To share that with us is fright­en­ing. But also, to share that with us is a priv­ilege. This is one of the most beau­ti­ful videos I have seen. Just Mikey. Just his words. Just the beauty of the black and white starkness.

Before the song we run through tra­gic stat­ist­ics dis­played on the screen. He quotes that sui­cide rates are 1 in 40. By 2020 it is pro­jec­ted that that fig­ure will be 1 in 20. Using his own exper­i­ence to high­light a ter­rible tragedy, one that is still hard to talk about and still stig­mat­ised. The lyr­ics are sub­lime. The chor­us haunting.

He tackles the com­mon mis­nomer of sui­cide; that it is the most selfish of acts, espe­cially towards fam­ily. But “they don’t wear my suit… I’m sick of being sick”. Sui­cide is the ulti­mate and last resort to pain. It is that we need to tackle, that people are left in that unbear­able agony. Mikey points out that “so many oth­ers are suf­fer­ing” and that empathy is amaz­ing when he has been in a place where he has noth­ing left. Mikey Hold­en, and this song in par­tic­u­lar, show the unique abil­ity of music to express and help deal with men­tal health issues. Again, Eminem states that, “Hip hop saved my life”. In SOS, Mikey him­self says, “You only rap fol­low­ing course of fash­ion, I rap because I’m feel­ing low, it’s a way to escape”.

Mikey’s truth is raw, its’ dirty, it’s some­times ugly. And that iron­ic­ally, makes it beau­ti­ful. And though at times it seems hope­less, there are glim­mers that show a strength, and heart big enough to help oth­ers: “They’re people reach­ing out for my help and I see them in myself… so that’s what I’m gonna do. I’m reach­ing out through my music… send­ing a mes­sage that no mat­ter what obstacle you may be facing in life, nev­er let it tar­nish your dreams”.

Here Mikey is not an inact­ive agent, just dic­tat­ing his feel­ings; he is an act­ive agent, decid­ing his dir­ec­tion from here on in. I get the feel­ing that Mikey can­not speak these words alone without music. Some­thing about the syn­ergy of lyr­ics, beats and bars provides the energy to do so. The solitude finds a mag­nitude, a forti­tude, a strength. As Hans Chris­ti­an Ander­son says, “where words fail, music speaks”.

Indeed, in Read Between the Lines, this point is cla­ri­fied: “See I can­’t speak openly about my pain and struggle. Instead I speak through my music. There’s more than just words to a song. There’s a deep­er mean­ing to my words — just need to read between the lines”.

“Keep Your Head Above The Waves” — Mikey Holden

While Mikey may well have used music as a way to artic­u­late his own story, his own dark­ness, and some­times just express his beau­ti­ful music, there has been a ripple effect — he has become a voice for the name­less, face­less, and count­less num­ber who are crippled by men­tal health prob­lems, or those sadly who have lost their lives to it.

Oth­er artists in recent times have done the same. Stormzy came out as suf­fer­ing depres­sion. Pro­fess­or Green wrote, “I don’t wanna do what my Dad did with a rope so I carry on even though it’s hard to”.

As neur­o­lo­gist Oliv­er Sacks points out in his book, Musi­co­phil­ia, music occu­pies more areas of our brain than lan­guage does. It makes sense then that “Music is irres­ist­ible, haunt­ing, and unfor­get­table”. As such it can be a potent force in tack­ling men­tal health problems.

Mikey Hold­en has a gift; His music is spe­cial. The beau­ti­ful, coup­ling of gui­tars and his voice in the more uplift­ing ‘Just Mat­ters’ show his ver­sat­il­ity. Though he is raw and hon­est, he is far from bleak. Using his exper­i­ences to con­nect with oth­ers, well it can be unknow­ingly keep oth­ers alive, espe­cially through the medi­um of music, when it seems all resources are gone, when noth­ing else lies inside. Aldous Hux­ley states, “that which comes nearest to express­ing the inex­press­ible is music”.

“Solitude vil­i­fies, isol­a­tion kills” (Joseph Roux). It is this point Mikey so vividly makes. And in doing so he is break­ing that tower of isol­a­tion, try­ing to break some of that sad­ness car­ried by those isol­ated in soci­ety. Even if that is just a little bit, even if he just touches one per­son. “There are people reach­ing out for help, and I see them in myself… So that’s what I’m gonna do. I’m reach­ing out through my music”.  And that may be the start, but it is a start to which Mikey can stand tall and feel proud. He may not have entered hip hop for the atten­tion it can foster. But he cer­tainly deserves for his words, and his music, to reach a wider audi­ence, because soci­ety also deserves to hear the tal­ent of Mikey Holden.