Kevin Gates has never been in better shape—physically, mentally, spiritually. Still, for his sophomore album, I’m Him, he wants to take a step back to when he was anything but healthy—physically, mentally, spiritually.
“Sometimes it’s painful to relive the past. But sometimes you have to relive the past in order to heal from it,” Gates says to open the music video for “Walls Talking,” which serves as a visualization for Gates’ battle with mental health. (To further encourage conversation around these issues, Gates has partnered with Save.org, a resource for suicide prevention.)
The American rapper saw a meteoric rise after the release of his first album, Islah, in 2016, which took Gates from mixtape rapper to Billboard Hot 100 artist. Gates has also achieved quite the physical transformation, dropping from 310 pounds to 215 over the last couple years. “I’m not gonna say I’m a healthy man, but I try to be healthy,” Gates tells Men’s Health.
"Healthy" for Gates means personal improvement and change (“Isn’t the goal to get better in life?”). In a new Men’s Health series, Gates faces internet lovers and haters of his own changes. Here’s what he had to say about the important questions …
“Y’all see how much weight Kevin Gates lost?”
"Did you see it!? I ain’t gonna lie, sometimes I be walking by the mirror and be like: what the fuck? Double take. Because I was 310 pounds and now I’m like 215-220. Now if I eat too much, I feel fat and want to just go work out. . . . When I first saw myself losing a little weight, my dream was to never wear a shirt anywhere. I didn’t want to keep hiding, because it was going to make me stop working. So I wanted to take my shirt off. I want a woman to just see me and just fall on the ground and just die."
"I wanted to be slim and trim like a bicycle rim. Then, once I lost that weight I saw this guy come into the gym. His stomach had that “V.” I was like: I want that V, I’m gonna get that V. I got that V now."
“Dang bruh how you get skinny so fast. I need some tips”
“One word: commitment. But what really did it for me. I had my shirt off and I was holding my partner’s baby, and his baby tried to suck my breast. The baby kept going like this [*mimes head tilting, mouth open*]. You know how babies open their mouth and do that? And I was just like: I am too fucking fat. I’m a fat slob. I need to lose weight. That was the most embarrassing shit. I’m a big gorilla, but I got feelings too. That shit hurt my fucking feelings.”
“Why don’t you have hair under your arms?”
"Because. Hair. Holds. Dirt. I’m a big landscaper, so I’m always keeping the hedges trimmed. And I believe in aerodynamics. Whenever I’m engaged in charity work, I don’t want it to be sweat resistant. I don’t like astroturf. I’m gonna try and keep it PG-13: I keep it real slick so the charges don’t stick."
