Royce da 5’9 is dealing with lingual dystonia, a neurological condition.
Rolling Stone’s Andre Gee recently interviewed Mike “Heron” Herard and Royce Da 5’9″ to talk about the making process of posthumous Big L album ‘Harlem’s Finest’, and during the conversation, Royce reveals that he’s been dealing with lingual dystonia, a neurological condition, for the past few years.
“There’s some sort of disruption in the nerve signals in my tongue,” he explained, revealing that the spasms made it difficult for him to speak and record music.
“My cranial nerves and my vagus nerve were all inflamed. I got a genetic condition called the COMT gene that processes dopamine slower than normal,” he said. “And when I did a neurochemistry test, [I found out] the left hemisphere of my brain produces less dopamine than the right. So not only is it less dopamine, but it’s an imbalance as well. When your dopamine is low, that’s like Parkinson’s, ADHD… I had involuntary movements in my face and in my tongue. So they went on this long thing where they would put me on all these different kinds of medicines.”
Royce then stated that he went through a series of misdiagnoses but is “almost past it” now and has begun recording music again. “I just wish I’d been recording while we were working on this album,” he added, talking about the ‘Harlem’s Finest’ which he executively co-produced.
Check out the album below.
