In September, New York rapper Consequence revealed at a virtual listening party for his EP “Things Are Different Now” that he was diagnosed with lupus over the summer. The autoimmune disease is known to affect Black, Hispanic and Asian women, but Consequence said that he wants to teach men they can also get the disease.
“I only knew the stereotype … That it was something that affected predominantly Black females,” he told TMZ on Friday, Oct. 2. “I have a 9-year-old son, he might not have said it out loud, but I know at one point he thought that he might have to say goodbye. That’s a lot for a child to have to deal with.”
He added, “So we want to be smarter in our decision making, and the only way we can do that is through information and consumption of knowledge. So I would absolutely love to be a conduit as my journey continues for those who may be where I’m at or a couple of steps behind me or maybe even a couple of steps ahead of me and maybe I’m just the voice that can spread the message.”
The 43 year old was already diagnosed with Type II diabetes before being told he has lupus, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes as “an autoimmune disease that occurs when the body’s immune system attacks itself because it cannot tell the difference between healthy tissue and foreign invaders.”
In an interview with HipHopDX that was published on Monday, Sept. 28, Consequence said that he first learned something was wrong after returning home from traveling. His son Caiden Mills was happy to see him then and jumped on his back, which caused the rapper to have a pain in his neck that he thought would soon go away.
But the pain lingered and he saw his doctor, who prescribed him muscle relaxers.
The medicine, however, only made Consequence’s pain worse and he thought he might have had COVID-19.
“I’m in the urgent care and the lady is like I don’t know if we need to do the q-tip or not, so I’m like, ‘Let’s not do it,’ ” he explained. “I went back to New York and stayed in the crib for like three weeks. Then the quarantine was actually in effect, and I started getting worse and worse and worse … All my cells were on fire and that’s why I couldn’t move.”
This is the first time that Consequence is opening up about his lupus diagnosis, but many said they thought something was wrong when he shared a photo of himself from his son’s birthday party in August.
The rapper now says that people ridiculed him for that photo, but it didn’t bother him much because he was already improving by then. He’s gained between 20 and 25 pounds since that picture was taken.
“I was body shamed when I posted this pic on 08.17.20,” wrote Consequence after reposting the same picture on Wednesday, Sept. 30. “I was approx 113 lbs and some a—–e said I looked like ‘an old junkie.’ Lupus + Diabetes had been kicking my a-s for 7 months straight. But Oddly enough I was getting better as 2 weeks before that I was 105 lbs and my sugar was in the 500’s from being on Steroids.”
In 2016, Consequence mourned the passing of A Tribe Called Quest group member Phife Dawg, who passed away from diabetes complications. Consequence appeared on the group’s fourth album, “Beats, Rhymes, and Life.”
