Ren Erin Gill: The Artist Who Made Me Swear at the Screen, Cry at the Table, and Want to Burn the System Down (Lovingly)

An unfiltered, furious, heart-led tribute to Ren Erin Gill, the artist, the survivor, and the voice the system tried to silence.

⚠️ Trigger Warning (but real):

Mental health systems get shredded in this post. So do ableist labels, crap therapy, and anyone who’s ever said “just do your breathing exercises.”
There’s swearing. There’s fire. There’s love. If that sounds like too much today, no shame, come back when you’ve got the spoons.

---

I was sat eating dinner with my friend, one of those normal weeknights where YouTube runs in the background like wallpaper. We always watch something together, it’s our little routine. That night they looked at me and said, “Have you ever listened to Ren?”
I blinked. “Ren who?”
Then they played Hi Ren. And I was gone.

Gone as in hooked, gutted, lifted, furious.
They said, “I knew you’d like him, because you like mental health.”
And they were right.
Because Ren doesn’t just sing about it, he rips it wide open and spills everything on the table. His pain, his humor, his voice, not just rapping but singing, beautifully, in between the rage. I remember watching that hospital gown and thinking: God, I wish I’d been there. I wish someone had caught him back then.

What I saw in that video wasn’t just performance, it was a man trying to survive his own mind while being patronized by a clipboard. Breathing exercises? Pills and a pat on the head? The system didn't even notice his meds were hurting him. That moment, where the therapist speaks at him like he’s a diagnosis, not a person, made me feel genuinely pissed off. Not academically angry. Viscerally angry.

And that line:
“I feel like it's not me, it's the world that's sick.”
Maybe he’s right.

I didn’t know it then, but that video was the start of a spiral, not down, but in. Into Ren’s world. Into his lyrics, his interviews, his story. And the more I learned, the more I realized this wasn’t just music. It was testimony. Rebellion. Grief. Beauty. Rage in rhyme.

So who is Ren Erin Gill? And why does his voice matter so much right now?

If you’ve never seen Hi Ren, this is where it all begins.
(Warning: it’s raw. It’s brilliant. You might need a minute afterwards.)

(Credit to @RenMakesMusic on YouTube)

Ren Erin Gill is a Welsh artist, rapper, and producer who’s lived through more pain than most people write about in a lifetime. Misdiagnosed, misunderstood, and chronically ill, he spent years battling a system that failed him, then turned every part of it into fuel for his art. In 2023, he beat Drake to a UK #1 with an album he produced in his own flat. No label. No studio. Just honesty, illness, and fire.

Before Ren was finally diagnosed with Lyme disease, he was misdiagnosed multiple times with mental health conditions, depression, bipolar, chronic fatigue, and placed in psychiatric care. He’s been open about the trauma of being medicated, dismissed, and not believed while his physical illness worsened. His music reflects that fight, between inner voices, systems, and survival.

🎧What Ren Is Really Saying

Ren’s not just making music. He’s documenting what happens when the system fails and no one comes to help. When pills are thrown instead of people being listened to. When therapy becomes a script and diagnosis becomes a cage. Hi Ren isn’t just a performance, it’s what being in a mental health hospital can actually feel like when you’re not believed.

That scene with the therapist? It stuck with me. Clipboard in hand. Throwing pills, generic advice, breathing exercises, no humanity. I’ve met professionals like that. Some of my patients have too. Ren doesn’t dramatize the experience, he documents it. And when he says,
“I feel like it’s not me, it’s the world that’s sick,”
I think of all the times we gaslight people with complex needs into silence.

And then there’s Sick Boi.
Angrier. Bigger. Sharper.
This wasn’t a song, it was a fucking diagnosis of society. Corruption. Misdiagnosis. Chronic pain. Healthcare as control. Illness as identity. I didn’t just hear it, I felt it under my ribs. And millions of people clearly did too, because without a label, without a PR machine, he hit UK number 1.

You don’t get to #1 by accident. You get there because people see themselves in your work. People who’ve been unheard. Mislabeled. Told to “just calm down and take this tablet.”

That’s why Sick Boi went viral. It wasn’t just his truth, it was ours too.

(Credit to @RenMakesMusic on YouTube)

💊 Sick Boi Is a Symptom of the System

“Sick Boi” hit me differently. Not just because of the beat or the bars (although let’s be real, he spits fire) but because everything in it is laced with frustration. Medical frustration. Societal frustration. A kind of wild, poetic rage. It’s the sound of someone who’s been ignored for too long and decided to scream it in harmony.

But this wasn’t just a rant. It was surgical. Ren turns the language of doctors, economics, and pharmaceuticals into a kind of diagnosis of the world. One we all already feel but don’t know how to name.

When I listened to Sick Boi, I wasn’t just thinking about Ren. I was thinking about my patients. The ones who’ve been mislabeled, given “tools” that don’t work, told to breathe through trauma, or who’ve had professionals decide their fate in fifteen minutes. It reminded me how often the system doesn’t ask, “What happened to you?”, it just asks, “How can we shut this down?”

And then he goes and makes it beautiful. I mean, the guy can rap, sing, act, and shred on guitar like it’s nothing. One second he’s spitting about selling water to a fish and time to a clock, the next he’s reminding us that we’re human beings, not symptoms, not failures, humans.

If that’s not rebellion, I don’t know what is.

🧠 “Psychological warfare... there were no winners or losers, just victims and students.”
That monologue at the end of Hi Ren still sits with me. Because if we don’t catch this early, if we don’t see the kids who are quietly breaking under the weight of being misunderstood, then we’re not just failing individuals. We’re creating generations of survivors who had to teach themselves how to cope without ever being shown how.

🎭 The Voice, the Performance, the Power

Ren isn’t just a rapper. Or a singer. Or a storyteller. He’s all of it, all at once, and somehow more. What makes his work so different is that it doesn’t feel like art at all when you’re watching it. It feels like someone breaking open in front of you.

There’s a line between performing and surviving, and Ren dances on it constantly. He acts, but he doesn’t pretend. He sings, but he doesn’t polish. He raps, but it’s not just rhyme, it’s rage therapy. It’s truth with a rhythm.

What blows me away is that emotional switch, how he goes from spitting absolute fury to suddenly singing, with this raw, almost fragile voice that hits you straight in the chest. It’s like your nervous system doesn’t even get a warning. One second you're nodding along, the next you’re crying and don’t know why.

And the guitar. Let’s talk about that.
The way he plays while rapping? That’s not just talent. That’s years of fighting for one thing he could control. It’s what kept him alive when the system nearly erased him. The music isn’t background, it’s lifeline.

Even in Hi Ren, between the twisted voices and the inner war, you can see the trying. You can see him using everything he’s got to stay anchored in this world, while the worst parts of himself, or maybe society, try to drag him back under. And he fights it. With music. With words. With wit.

Because that’s the other thing people miss, Ren’s funny. There’s humor under the horror. He’s not just here to bleed for us, he’s here to connect. He wants us to feel less alone. And he pulls that off in a fucking hospital gown, sat in a wheelchair, in a basement. No label. No million-dollar set. Just raw truth and a camera.

You can read the full Hi Ren lyrics here if you’ve never taken them in line by line, it hits even harder written down.

Kobe Take Down and backstory

Ren didn’t exactly “make it out”, he’s still sick. Still navigating the same broken system. Still writing when he can, surviving when he can’t. But what he has done is hand us a map of what it’s like inside the chaos. Inside the fight. Inside a body and mind that never got the care they deserved.

And if you thought Hi Ren or Sick Boi were intense? Go listen to Kujo Beatdown. That track isn’t subtle, it’s scorched earth. It’s what happens when someone who’s been silenced too long finally names names. It’s a full-blown reckoning: sharp, haunting, and direct.

Here’s the backstory you need: Sick Boi was briefly taken down from YouTube, not because of illness, but because the beat included a stolen sample. Ren legally bought the beat, only to find out it contained an uncleared sample. As Ren explained on Reddit:

“I was sold a beat with a stolen sample… I gave him the benefit of the doubt… but the situation has now gotten ridiculously greedy… they could claim 100% of all royalties on this song over a YouTube Content ID technicality”

Find the full story Here! - This is the clip where he goes deep on the sample issue, the sudden take-down, and the emotional toll it took on him. Chaos, clarity, and survival, all in one raw, honest video.

He says the take-down “broke him.” And guess what? The video only returned after Ren and his fans fought for it, a reminder of who listens to artists, and who doesn’t.

Now Kujo Beatdown? He turns that pain into power:

“I wasn’t a man to you, I was just a brand to use.”

It’s a direct call-out to manipulation, ableism, and betrayal. And it doesn’t stop there.

This wasn’t just a diss track, it was a reclamation.
A moment where Ren, sick and exhausted and pushed to the edge, stood up and took his story back. After years of being unheard, this was him naming it. Calling it out. Reclaiming control, not just of his art, but of the narrative around his illness, his value, and his worth.

Even unwell, Ren is dangerous, and thank God for that.

⚠️ Content Warning for Kujo Beatdown:

This video contains graphic imagery, references to exploitation, medical trauma, and intense emotional distress. It may be triggering for those with lived experience of abuse, psychiatric mistreatment, or systemic betrayal. Please take care when watching, or skip it entirely if you need to.

(Credit to @RenMakesMusic on YouTube)

The least we can do is pay attention. Especially those of us working in care, therapy, support. We don’t get to look away when someone turns their survival into truth.

Because behind every “sick boi” is someone who was trying to survive the only way they knew how. And we keep turning their survival into pathology.

🧠 A Message to the System

If you work in mental health, if you're a therapist, a psychologist, an NHS exec, or a support worker, I need you to hear this clearly:

Ren Erin Gill should be required listening.

Not because he’s an artist. Not because he’s a case study.
Because he’s a human being you overlooked, and he turned your failure into music that saves lives.

In Hi Ren, you see a man in crisis being handed a script instead of support. You see the damage of surface-level “care” that doesn’t listen, doesn’t pause, doesn’t see the human behind the label. And the worst part? It’s not exaggerated. That scene, the breathing exercises, the meds, the complete lack of relationship, it happens. Every. Day.

I've seen it. I've supported people failed like this. Misdiagnosed. Mislabeled. Dismissed.
We’re too quick to name behavior and too slow to ask why.
Too focused on “risk” and not enough on relating.
And god help anyone whose needs don’t fit neatly into a diagnostic box, because the muddy waters of autism, ADHD, trauma, chronic illness? That’s where most people drown.

You want to talk about early intervention?
Then start by actually listening. Not to a form. Not to symptoms.
To them.

Ren’s music is more honest than half the CPD sessions I’ve ever sat through.
He doesn't use clinical language, and that’s exactly why it works.
He tells the truth in a way people feel. And if you can’t work with that, what are you doing in this job?

And if you need proof of just how sharp he gets when he turns his rage toward capitalism?
Go watch Money Game Pt. 2. It's brutal, clever, and painfully accurate, a full-on economics lesson disguised as a nursery rhyme.

(Credit to @RenMakesMusic on YouTube)

He doesn’t just make you feel, he makes you think, then makes you want to set fire to the system that trained you not to.

❤️ To Ren, and to Anyone Who’s Ever Been Dismissed

Ren, if you ever read this, I just want to say: it’ll all be OK.
Keep going.
You are amazing. And even if you don’t always believe that, the truth is:

You are making a difference.

You made a difference to me.
To my friends.
To my work.
You took your pain and turned it into something that cuts through apathy like a blade. You made millions of people feel seen without asking them to explain themselves. That’s more than most professionals ever manage with years of training. You did it with a guitar, a mic, and the truth.

You made me want to work harder, to be better, for the people like you who walk into services and get misunderstood, medicated, and moved along.
I don’t want to be the therapist with the clipboard.
I want to be the one who fucking listens.
Who sees the person before the diagnosis.
Who hears the story behind the symptoms.
Who knows that healing isn’t always about fixing, sometimes it’s just about being there.

And to anyone reading this who’s ever felt unheard, unseen, or undone by the system, just know, you’re not alone. You’re not broken. And you’re not “too much.”

Ren proved that art can be activism, therapy, rebellion, and medicine all at once.
We need more of that.
More honesty. More humanity. More people being real about pain.
Imagine a world where that wasn’t the exception, but the norm.
Where we didn’t have to scream to be believed.

Until then, we keep writing, we keep listening, and we keep saying what needs to be said.
Because like Ren said:

“It’s not me, it’s the world that’s sick.”
And maybe, just maybe, naming that out loud is how we start to heal.

🎧 One last song, and maybe a quiet anthem.

Ren’s cover of Bitter Sweet Symphony hits different when you’ve watched everything he’s been through. It’s not just a nod to the 90s, it’s an ode to surviving in a country that punishes the sick, shrinks the arts, and still pretends it’s doing just fine.

This isn’t a victory song. It’s a still here song.
And sometimes, that’s the loudest thing we can say.

(Credit to @RenMakesMusic on YouTube)

If this post made you feel something, rage, hope, grief, anything with a pulse, you can:

If this landed, hit the heart or subscribe. Not for algorithms. Just so more people find something human in the noise.

This is what happens when art refuses to shut up.

We need more Ren. More truth. More love that doesn’t flinch.