Like Tech N9ne showed late 2009, darkness can be prevalent even in the best of us with his album K.O.D. It not only killed the fear of revealing the “K.O.D.” to his fans, but to his fans it allowed them to reveal the K.O.D.” in themselves. One of these individuals is Chris F.

Chris was born in California but moved to Kansas City, MO when he was just a baby. There he stayed until he was about sixteen when he and his mother moved to Raleigh, North Carolina. Since then he joined the navy in 2001 and was stationed San Diego where he still lives today.

For Chris, growing up was the atypical life of the kid who got picked on,

“My depression actually came from others teasing, poking fun…kids picking on kids and no one doing anything about it” he admitted, later also stating, “I’d have to say school was worse than home, at home I felt my mother loved me and would do anything for me as well as my family but school…let’s just say kids can be cruel, very cruel.”

Chris was never formally diagnosed with any specific kind of depression but he always felt he never belonged anywhere, like an outcast, “like I was treated like I had a red nose” he put it, citing the Tech N9ne classic “Red Nose” from Sickology 101.

As he got older he felt the depression only sank him deeper into the hole, and found himself wondering: what if he died, or what things would be like without him here. Luckily he found his current girlfriend, who coincidentally enough works in a mental health organization so she was able to help him. Even so he felt he didn’t have the light he sought, that is until one day his friend played the song, “Welcome to the Midwest”.

“I loved his style, his flow, so I started listening to him…and I started to relate to his songs especially ‘Suicide Letters’,” says Chris.

After hearing that song, like many Technicians proclaim, he felt someone out there might have an idea of what he was going through which drove him to more songs, which drove him to feel even more understood. From there one he began his dedication to Tech N9ne downloading anything even mentioning his name:

“When All 6’s and 7’s dropped…man…I was up at 6 a.m. downloading it…anytime I’m on the bus heading to work or anywhere, I put on my strange music playlist and drift off.”

He did have his first experience with a Tech N9ne show recently in San Diego, where he said he also fell into a dedication with Strange. While he was unable to meet any of the crew he loved the entire show, his favorite being “Come Gangsta” because “he just sat in his chair rapped the entire thing, that was mad dope” says Chris.

He also says that now that he has tackled his depression he plans on bettering his life, he’s expecting a child and says “I don’t want him to see me in that state, so I don’t plan on going back to that state. As long as Strange Music and Tech N9ne continue to make great music, I never will.”

– Written by Emanuel Borja