Inspectah Deck Opens Up About Therapy: “We hold stuff in as Black men”

Inspectah Deck is one of the Wu-Tang Clan’s most respected members. The Shaolin swordsman has been dropping lyrical heat since 1992, but in a recent interview with The Ebro, Laura, Rosenberg Show, the Rebel INS admitted to Ebro that he’s had to seek help for depression after some personal and professional struggles. And now he wants more Black men to understand the benefits of therapy. 

“I got a lot of music that I had over time,” Deck shared, before revealing why he’s been sitting on that music. “I went through a lot of legal battles. I went through relationship struggles. I went through depression–a whole bunch of stuff.”

Deck says that a bad break-up plus frustration over his career led him down a dark path.  

“I was going to check myself into rehab,” he admitted. “I was having a lot of mental struggles. When you’re doing things that you think you’re doing ‘em right and you’re still getting the wrong results, it really takes somebody else sometimes to tell you.”

Deck opened up about seeking professional help from a therapist. 

“I was initially like ‘who the therapist, yo? Somebody like me — they got their own issues,’” Deck admitted regarding his resistance to therapy. “I felt like a lot of therapists never had the hands-on experience that they talk about. You want to tell me about relationship situations but you’ve never had a break-up — an ugly one at that.”

But once Deck committed to therapy, he realized that running from his feelings and suppressing was doing more harm than good. 

“I had a 70-year-old Italian lady,” Deck revealed. “[She’s] living in Florida now but she’s originally from Brooklyn. Talking to her was like: ’You cannot run.’ You can't bob and weave and all that — she was right there, [like] ‘You can’t lie to me. I’m [going] to hold you accountable for everything you’re telling me. This is not a biased opinion. This is not me knowing you personally — this is what you’re giving me.’”

Now Deck wants more Black men to open up to professional help and prioritize their emotional health. 

“We hold a lot of stuff in as Black men because you’re not allowed to say certain stuff. You can’t appear to be weak. You can’t cry,” Deck says. All of that PTSD and all these things that you don’t deal with that you keep inside, bro, you affect everybody around you with that. Whether you know it or not. So I was like ‘Let me cleanse me.’”

You can watch Deck’s conversation below. 

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