Lil Jon, an artist who brought Atlanta’s crunk music into the national spotlight, has been on a journey toward peace and happiness.
The hip-hop artist recently pulled up to “The Breakfast Club” and while talking about how turning 50 changed his journey—both musical and physical, and his purpose—he found himself getting emotional enough to shed tears about where he is in life.
While speaking about what led him to creating two guided meditation albums— “Total Meditation” and “Manifest Abundance: Affirmations for Personal Growth,” both released in 2024—he was clear that hitting his landmark 50th birthday was the thing that changed it all. Lil Jon, now 54, had a lot to get off his chest about this part of his life.
“Turning 50, a lot of things started to happen in my life,” he started. “First thing that hit me was, like, I asked myself, ‘what makes you happy?’…And I said, ‘making sure everybody else is good.’ But, like, what makes me happy? I couldn’t really tell myself, and so I was like, ‘You know what? I need to kind of put myself first.’ Like, I’m not happy in this marriage, and, like, I didn’t like where my mental state was at.’”
Lil Jon said he then began to meditate every day. He would also recite affirmations like “negativity can’t live inside of me.”
He explained, “So we went in, we recorded these albums, and, you know, this time of my life is feeling like I’m doing what God intended me to do.”
He continued, “I’ve given people positivity. So it’s always been positivity, but it’s meaning more now when someone tells me, ‘I never meditated. You help me meditate.’ Do you know how many people have called me about getting in the gym? It’s insane. Like, celebrities—all kind of people—are, like, you inspired me to get healthy. So I feel now, like, I’m doing what God intended me to do.”
And that’s when the wave of emotion hit him. He began speaking about inspiring others to live their best lives and take care of themselves and, ultimately, also being able to be there for his family through healthy habits and positivity.
“I got to be there for them, man,” said Lil Jon, grabbing tissue. Charlamagne Tha God, attempting to lighten the move, joking that it was strange to see him cry since so many people didn’t realize he had eyes, a nod to Lil Jon’s signature sunglasses look. That led to perhaps one of the more insightful exchanges of the conversation.
“You know what? Black men, we need to cry more. We need to cry. When you get more in tune to your higher self and you stop vibrating at these low frequencies, you can let yourself, let the energy flow,” he preached from experience.
“Because we don’t have to be tough all the time. I push all brothers; we don’t have to suffer in silence. We suffer in freaking silence. Call your homie sometimes—you’ll be like, ‘You good? How you doing? How are you mentally doing, bro?’ That one little conversation could make him not go do some stupid s—t or take his life or whatever, you know? So I started doing therapy, I push anything, any knowledge that I got, I try to share with everybody, because we got to help each other. We all we got.”
Shouts out to Lil Jon for seeking out and finding happiness and then using his voice and platform to do what he can to make the world a more positive place.
