Big Sean Says Holistic Medicine Cured Him of Heart Disease When He Was a Teenager

Big Sean is gearing up for the release of his fifth studio album, Don Life. On the project, the rapper is looking to open up about some of the more personal topics in his life—including being diagnosed with a potentially life-threatening heart disease as a teenager. 

During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Big Sean allowed the publication to hear his upcoming single, “Lucky Me.” On the track, Sean explains that he was diagnosed with a heart illness when he was 19 years old, but his mother took him to a holistic doctor that reversed the symptoms. “I couldn’t even walk from one side of the room to the other without getting super-tired,” Sean told EW. “I passed out once in the shower and got rushed to the emergency room.” 

Despite being a public figure for almost 12 years, this will be the first time the rapper decided to disclose this information to his fans. “I’ve never talked about certain things in my life,” Sean said. “It just kind of made me realize I need to really express some of these things.” Ironically, this emphasis on creating a more personal project came during his social media seclusion. During his time away from the limelight, Sean put together an album that he hopes will inspire others to be more open and genuine with those around them. 

“I just want people to remember to be individuals. Social media is such a great tool. I never want to bash it because it’s definitely helped me be who I am. But I feel like it also can manipulate us,” he explained. “There are memes and GIFs and shit that describe some of our moods better than we can, and I think that’s pretty funny sometimes — I love the SpongeBob memes. But at the same time I feel like we also have to make sure we don’t lose the ability to express ourselves.”

Like his unique approach to social media, Sean is also taking the road less traveled when it comes to the features on Don Life. While recounting how his collaboration with Post Malone came to fruition, Sean shared that ASAP Rocky was supposed to appear on the track as well. Although Rocky elected to put a verse on another song, there were some leftover adlibs that Sean kept on his song with Malone. He used pieces of verses from rappers to further other songs as well.

“Rocky had a verse on [the song originally], but he ended up doing the verse to another song that he and I felt fit a little better with the album,” he said. “But I just kept it dialed-in throughout. There’s a song where Meek Mill just says two lines, and Puff had a couple of lines.”

For the full feature, you can read it here.