Stormzy believes quitting social media woke him up to the ego involved in sharing life’s high points online.
Stormzy believes quitting social media woke him up to the ego involved in sharing your life on the web
The ‘Shut Up’ rapper, 28, also feels it helped him reduce the “noise” in his life that makes him struggle with navigating fame and separating his private and public selves.
Stormzy stunned fans in 2020 when he deleted his Twitter and Instagram accounts, disappearing from social media hours after he had used it to boast about receiving the first ever Black Card from Greggs.
He has now revealed about feeling liberated after quitting: “I remember when I first came off social media. I had a European tour straight after.
“I came off social media in February. I had a European tour in like March. And I remember I was doing an arena show in Denmark.
“I think it was about 15,000 people. We done the show and I came off stage and I remember one of my first feelings was getting the clip of us to put on social media but I didn’t have social media. I remember it being a weird feeling.
“Because that’s what I would normally do anytime I’ve done something great, I’m gonna show everyone. And I remember thinking in that moment, ‘That’s ego, that’s ego. That’s probably validation’… that was a big lesson for me in terms of what ego is and how you gotta kill ego. “I think that was probably my biggest moment of it. Because what is it that I’m trying to gain? Because that happened in real life.
“You done that. It was a big turning point for me in understanding that there is an ego in man I need to kill because look how blessed we are.”
Stormzy also talks about how he deals with fame by cutting out a huge range of noise from his life on the last episode of ‘Leading Vibe Radio’, which airs at 3pm BST tomorrow (11.06.22) on Apple Music 1.
The grime star, who dated radio host Maya Jama, 27, said: “I’m very focused on reserving my right to be a human. I always say that whoever Stormzy the artist is, the world will drag that to whoever they want that to be or wherever they want that person to be.
“There's a man in there who needs to remain before the artist… another thing that really helps me feel normal is separation from noise. Whether that be noise on the internet, whether that be noise in reality, whether that be noise in events.
“I’ll just make active decisions to not be around noise. Because I feel that noise doesn’t allow me to be normal.
“Because if I consume noise and energy all the time there’s something that’s not normal about that. So I think there's a degree of separation that’s needed.”
The devout Christian added his family makes him feel “normal” and he thanks God for helping him on a “journey” that has included him feeling triggered if people accused him of “selling out” or “going mainstream” with his music.
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