YG revealed he was the victim of sexual abuse when he was a teenager on his poignant “2004” single in March. Now, the Compton rapper is opening up to about being sexually assaulted by a 30-year-old when he was just 14 years old.
“I kept it inside for a long time,” he told ABC News on Wednesday (May 14). “My family’s first time hearing about that was when the record came out.”
The 35-year-old said he played the candid track for some of his male friends and was surprised to hear that many could relate after enduring similar experiences growing up. “90 percent of the people that I played it for — the men, the males — they all got similar stories. That was the conversation everyone was having,” he said. “It was like, ‘Yeah, I was sexually abused.’”
When the encounter took place over 20 years ago, he thought it was “lit” and didn’t realize he had been sexually assaulted. “It wasn’t a thing that I did some with an older woman — it’s lit,” YG explained of his thought process at the time. “You go through life and you see stuff and you learn stuff and it’s like, ‘I got raped.’”
“2004” came together when J.LBS (J Pounds) pushed YG to open up about something he had never talked about before on a record during a studio session. “He like, ‘You gotta talk about something you ain’t never talked about. You gotta dig deep! What’s something that you ain’t never told somebody that nobody know,” he recalled. “Then I was like, ‘Bop twice my age.’ And everybody was like, ‘What?!’”
YG hopes his honesty influences peers and fans to tell their own stories. “Especially coming from an artist — somebody like me — it’s unexpected,” he added. “People put me in a box… They look at us like we gang members, we animals, we not human, but it’s like, bro, I’m human. I go through real-life stuff.”
While “2004” came as a shock to many of YG’s fans and friends, it’s only the tip of the iceberg as far as his personal story goes, and he’s planning to delve deeper into his life with the arrival of his The Gentleman’s Club album this summer.
“People say I live a dangerous life — I talk about that and I give it to you straight like that,” he said. “Now me going through this growing stage of my life, it ain’t hard for me because I’m telling my truth.”
This year marks a chapter of change in YG’s life, who was baptized for the first time with his children in March. “2004” arrived with an accompanying music video, co-directed by the rapper himself, which boasts over 1.5 million views on YouTube.
Watch the full interview with YG below.
If you or someone you know is struggling and in need of help in the wake of sexual assault, please contact RAINN at 800-656-4673 or at online.rainn.org.