Free

The answer, it turns out, was hope. The Cleveland native has never shied away from vulnerability, candidly sharing his struggles with depression over the years. On Free, the newlywed (he married Lola Abecassis Sartore in June 2025) testifies that it does, in fact, get better. Here he swings for the fences with pop-punk chords, massive hooks and the occasional dubstep drop as he fights for happiness in the face of fear. “Turns out I had control of my own Truman Show,” he howls over the driving beat of “Truman Show”. And on the lighters-in-the-sky anthem “Neverland” (which he sang to his wife on their wedding day) he swoons: “My heart’s skipping/The scales tipping/It’s called living/And I could get used to it.” Introduced to the world at the age of 24, the 41-year-old rapper never pictured himself making it this far. “When I was younger, I never imagined myself in my forties—I didn’t see past 30 for me,” he tells Lowe. “And it’s just a beautiful thing to have this album as a direct representation of the joy and peace that I feel.” He recalls being overcome with emotion when recording “Salt Water”, which he closes by addressing his audience directly: “Yes, my life has been one hell of a ride,” he says, ditching his signature melodies for spoken word. “There was a time where happiness was a very far-off and distant thing for me to acquire. But I made it out of that darkness. I saw the light.”