By Emilia Benton • October 10, 2023
This article is brought to you as part of the ASCAP Wellness Program.
There’s no denying that discussions surrounding mental health, and taking care of it, are becoming more common and less stigmatized than ever before. But at the same time, many people with minority backgrounds are still hesitant to seek the help they need due to attitudes that have historically existed within their communities, and still persist today. Shanti Das, a former music executive, is no exception.
After graduating from college, Das was seemingly living her dream. She’d broken into the music industry, interning at giants like Sony Music and Capitol Records before being hired as a promotions director at La Face Records in the mid-1990s, marketing big-time artists like Outkast, TLC, Toni Braxton and Usher. As she moved up in her career and on to larger labels, she began to give in to the grind culture of living to work rather than working to live, which eventually started to impact her mental health.
“Back then, people weren’t talking about mental health and wellness or self-care,” she says. “It was #TeamNoSleep, meaning the harder and more hours you worked, the more you were celebrated, and I bought into that. Even though I was passionate about it and I loved my job, I put Shanti last on every occasion and sacrificed a lot of time that was missed with my family.”
Eventually, the mental health challenges started coming. Das lost her father to suicide when she was seven months old. And while she was aware of the mental health history in her family, it was still something that wasn’t discussed.
“Growing up in Black culture, we didn’t talk about it and didn’t deal with it,” she says. “We just buried a lot of those feelings, so there was a lot of unresolved trauma there from that, that was just never addressed.”
After dealing with challenges related to her physical health due to the toll her stress levels were taking on her wellbeing, Das ultimately decided to walk away at the height of her career as an executive vice president at Universal Motown – despite still having aspirations of achieving an even higher-level position. She went on to do some consulting work but continued to struggle with her mental health, particularly after losing her best friend to suicide and then nearly taking her own life. That’s when she began to speak openly and share what she was feeling on social media, realizing that open conversation and resources related to mental health were both lacking in her community.
“People think therapy is only when something is wrong, but a lot of people see therapists for proactive reasons and of course, I never did that,” she says. “It wasn’t really a part of our culture and I just didn’t think it was for me. I was never told that these resources were for me as a young Black woman working in music.”
These experiences, as well as hearing related stories from her music industry peers, led Das to create Silence the Shame, which started as a hashtag to start conversations concerning mental health. In 2017, it became a full-fledged nonprofit where she works to help communities of color – with a strong focus on members of the entertainment industry – navigate mental health challenges, speak openly about them and access resources that can help.
“I was blown away by how many people in the Black community, both R&B artists, hip-hop artists and executives posted out of support and that’s when I knew, okay, this is bigger than me, and it’s something that we must address in the culture,” she says. “I started finding that a lot of my peers and artists and executives in the Black community felt like Silence the Shame was a safe place and space rather than a fad or something we addressed just a couple of times a year.”
While Silence the Shame doesn’t directly provide mental health services, Das emphasizes the importance of utilizing available resources to get help. The stigma and shame regarding mental health care is still one of the biggest obstacles for music creators when it comes to addressing their overall wellness. This can result in leaning on unhealthy coping mechanisms instead, such as overusing alcohol.
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“It can be really scary when you’re going through something or you’re experiencing your first-time feelings of anxiety or depression, and [you shouldn’t] be afraid to not go to the doctor or to seek counseling and therapy,” she says.
In addition to seeking help when needed, Das also emphasizes the importance of prioritizing self-care, whether that’s through exercise, meditation, listening to music or even allowing yourself to watch some comforting TV.
“I want a day where no one thinks suicide is an option, or a day where we’ve all really placed mental and physical health at the top of our list,” Das says. “I’ve literally dedicated my life to helping to erase stigma and shame, especially amongst my peers because I’m a child of music, and I’m a child of the culture.”
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Visit Silence the Shame online
Watch A Conversation on Mental Health, Wellness and the Music Community from the 2020 ASCAP Experience: Home Edition