R&B singer Sevyn Streeter gave herself the stage name “Sevyn” in honor of her birthday. (Vibe/Sami Drasin)
Singer-songwriter Sevyn Streeter just dropped her debut album, “Girl Interrupted,” which opens with a track revealing something about the star that her fans didn’t know about until now: her depression.
“The song on my album called ‘Livin’,” I knew that that’s how I felt, but I didn’t have any songs to express what I went through,” she said in a Friday, July 7 Vibe Vixen cover story of why it took her two years to release a follow-up to her EP, “Shoulda Been There, Pt. 1.” “I dealt with depression on a very serious level for like a year-and-a-half, and I never said anything to my fans. Obviously, my mom and my dad and my brother, a few family members, knew about it — but it was really, really hard. I wanted to kill myself, I really did. And through my family, and God and prayer, it turned around.”
The R&B songstress admitted that working in the music industry for 15 years and not obtaining success weighed on her and turning 30 was a “big trigger” for her depression.
“A lot of my depression was triggered by the fact that I’ve given my life to this music, and it’s in a good place, but it’s not exactly where I want it to be,” she said. “I sacrificed a lot of my childhood for music, I sacrificed a lot of my love life for music.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BWRABMCBs4I/?taken-by=sevyn&hl=en
Streeter said her belief in God was strong throughout her life but took a dive when she was depressed. The mental battle caused a turn in her perspective and she decided to take control of the things she could change.
“If something’s making you unhappy, what can you do to change it?” Streeter said. “That went for people in my life, circumstances and situations — whether it was dealing with work, or dealing with men. I had people in my life that were bringing me more sadness than joy. … I was finally like, it’s not my fault if you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today, but guess what, I don’t need you to change. These are grown people, and so am I. Nobody’s making me deal with anybody that I don’t want deal with, so I made the decision to remove myself from certain situations and certain people that made me feel … heavy.”
