Monaleo was feeling discouraged. “I was struggling with getting started on certain songs, I didn’t know what to say,” she says. She was in the studio but stuck in her head, chewing over the comment section: “You just read some shit about yourself and you’re like, ‘damn, nobody even really fucking with me for real.’” Casual fans best acquainted with themonaleo’s all-synapses-firing freestyles or take-no-shit anthems like “We Not Humping” might find this admission surprising. But the 23-year-old rapper born Leondra Gay has always been candid about her mental health in songs and interviews alike, from shaking with fear during church choir performances as a child to surviving multiple suicide attempts in her teens. And 2023 was a busy year for Leo: her debut album Where the Flowers Don’t Die arrived just days after the birth of her son. Another artist might cut themselves some slack, but Monaleo holds herself to an exactingly high standard: It pisses her off to go in the studio and feel l...