G Herbo is currently prepping the release of his forthcoming album ‘PTSD,’ set to drop Friday, Feb. 28.
G Herbo was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder after suffering horrific experiences growing up on 79th and Essex.’
Herb opened up on those nightmarish tales, which includes witnessing a murder at only 9 years old, during a phone interview with HipHopDX.
“It’s like, we kind of don’t know that we suffer from these mental health issues. I’m a product of that. I was shot at. I seen my first murder at nine years old. A lot of this stuff that we encounter on a day-to-day basis, we think is normal just because it’s our reality. We think it’s something we’re supposed to be going through. I feel like in the poverty-stricken neighborhoods, a lot of us are suffering from PTSD. I thought it was important for me because I know it’s a lot of people who are like me.”
Herb found kids just like him while visiting a juvenile correctional facility.
“I think probably one of the key points for me was I was going to speak to these kids in a juvenile correctional facility,” he said. “They asked, ‘Raise your hands if you feel like you ever been victimized by anything, or you’re a victim, or you feel like a victim in a way.’ And nobody raised their hand. And then, the next question was, ‘Raise your hand if you ever have experienced police brutality, or you ever experienced someone getting killed in front of you, or if you ever been shot before.’ Pretty much the whole room raised their hand, including me.
“We’re so immune to these endeavors that we got to encounter every single day. A lot of the s— that go on in the inner city, we don’t realize that we really suffer from these mental health issues. That’s why we paranoid. You want to carry a gun, and you don’t want to go travel to this neighborhood, travel in that neighborhood, but it’s all just a product of us suffering from this mental health issue.
Herb’s artwork for ‘PTSD’ features a blood-stained U.S. flag with fallen friends in place of the 50 stars.
“I’ve been losing homies since I was in eighth grade, so I’ve always been sentimental, and emotional about a lot of the s— that I went through in my life,” Herb said. “I shed tears for a ton of my friends that died throughout this journey of mine.”
