Michał Matczak (Mat) is a 23-year-old rapper who caused a stir on the music scene with his songs. The artist’s songs are breaking popularity records. The most popular numbers he has released so far include: “I AM POJ384NY” (listen), ““Patointelligence” (listen) Whether “Parrot” (listen). There is often a lot of controversy surrounding Mata. An exemplary example is his declaration to run in the presidential elections in 2040. He then posted a special speech on YouTube in which he revealed his demands.
2022 was full of ups and downs for Mata. The rapper had problems with the law, and his fans did not fully appreciate his alter ego, i.e Chained Bobo, with which he was supposed to encourage the fight for the decriminalization of marijuana in Poland. However, the rapper could not complain about the lack of popularity. His concert tour turned out to be a success, Mata also appeared on the cover of Polish “Vogue” as the first man. In 2023, he published a new album “<33".
Mata appeared in the third episode of the “Autentyczni” program. At first he admitted that it was not easy for him to be questioned. “I haven’t given an interview for a very long time. I don’t like interviews because I get stressed, but that’s why I decided to do it, because I like getting out of my comfort zone,” he explained.
He also admitted that he is also a person on the autism spectrum. “For many years, people have been telling me things like this, that I am autistic – there were such comments. One day I decided to check it and went for this diagnosis – I wanted to check if I have ADHD. I found out that a psychiatrist cannot diagnose ADHD for me , because I was smoking marijuana at that time. To check it properly, you would have to stop completely, because the symptoms of marijuana withdrawal are similar to ADHD. But the man told me that he was able to tell me something else right away and said that I’m on the autism spectrum, which was – I wouldn’t say surprising – but positive for me, because a lot of things started to make sense,” he said.
On this topic, he also answered the question of what he would tell a younger version of himself. “I would say – diagnose yourself on the spectrum earlier, then you will know earlier that it is okay to be the way you are and you will not have such stressful situations that you do not know why you feel this way and not differently,” he said.
Journalists also raised the issue of faith in God. “I am less religious than I used to be. In primary school I was a strongly religious person. I went to church practically every day. I felt that my faith was the strongest and every day I felt the presence of God, I was 1000 percent sure that God was and is with me. But Over time, I started to lose this faith,” he confessed. “It seems to me that I started to notice more evil in the world, I also started to see this evil in the church institutions with which I was associated. It weakened my faith,” he said, answering the question why he moved away from God.
However, he admitted that he lacked faith in his life. “About half a year ago I felt that I was after a long, dark period of my life, where I felt that I had become far away from God. I decided that I wanted to get back close to Him. Therefore, I wrote the album ‘<33', where the cover has a photo of my mother and me, which symbolizes the Pieta. And the whole album is made in the form of the Stations of the Cross," he explained.
“Many people took it as my complete withdrawal from religion, almost like some satanic act, but on my part it was an attempt to redefine all these values, this essence of love, which is Christianity and Jesus. It was an attempt to name it anew and find it. in myself. This album allowed me to somehow convert and find these values and ideas close to me,” he added.
The program participants also referred to Mata’s conversation with an addiction therapist published in April 2023. In that conversation, the rapper admitted that he smoked too much.
“I think there is a stereotype about marijuana, that it is not addictive and that it is a soft drug. It seems to have no negative effects. I wanted to reverse this stereotype and show what therapy looks like in general, because I think that many people are afraid of it,” he now explained, adding that he had not given up the drug completely, but had significantly reduced it.