ATLANTA — Atlanta rapper Lil Jon is answering his own timeless question -- turn down... for what? The what, he told CNN recently, is mental health and self-care.
"Mental health is an extreme priority to me because, you know, Black men, we’re taught to just suck it up and hold it in," Lil Jon said in an interview published last weekend. "I’m trying to give people options of how to deal with their mental stress.”
Lil Jon was in the headlines this summer for his raucous performance of "Turn Down For What" at the DNC in Chicago -- and keeping it turned up has, of course, long been central to his lifestyle and image. But he spoke with CNN about how he has taken a more introspective approach in recent years.
He told CNN that his focus on mental health is "a journey that I'm on" and he discussed its influence on his album released this year, "Total Meditation." The album was a bold step for the artist -- literally, as the title suggests, it's a series of 10 guided meditations to "relieve anxiety, boost focus and find peace" as the intro track states.
"I got so many messages of people telling me how they never meditated and how I helped them to meditate, or how specific songs helped them to deal with issues in their lives," Lil Jon told CNN.
In the interview, Lil Jon also talked about his work with the at-home colon cancer screening kit company Colorguard. That partnership led to a remix of "Get Low," his enduring 2002 hit, and he outlined how he hopes his image of someone who's always the life of the party and bringing energy can help break stigmas.
“If Lil John, the guy known for partying is talking about this it might cause people to say let me check this out,” he said. “To help bring awareness and to push people that probably might not have checked out the Cologuard test before to check it out, I think is paramount... “You gotta get low to take a number two to screen for colon cancer."
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