Joey Badass got out of the polyamory game after settling down with his now-fiancée, actress Serayah.
The "Still" rapper discussed his decision to return to monogamy on the October 24 episode of Cam Newton's Funky Friday podcast, just months after he proposed to Serayah. The couple welcomed their first child together, a baby boy, in June, while Joey also has a daughter from a previous relationship.
Around the nine-minute mark of the video below, Joey explained that his choice in becoming monogamous again "wasn't forced" and "came with maturation."
"Prior to this relationship, I was in a previous relationship on and off with my
high school sweetheart and everything," Joey said about his daughter's mother. "So that gave me a certain type of experience. And by the time that ended, I was like, Okay, cool. I spent a lot of time of my life trying to make this thing work. Now I'm at a point in my life where it's like, Maybe I need to try this other thing."
For Joey, polyamory seemed like a safer bet. "That's when the the polyamory idea came into place like, You know what? I fuck with you and you and
y'all should know that," he recalled, adding that he didn't want to "lie" to his partners.
"I want to be 100. I want to be truthful," Joey admitted. "But then what I realized
from that in hindsight, there [was] a certain part of me that was not satisfied. I was unfulfilled. And I think I was using that of what I wasn't feeling for myself. And I was trying to use that to find in other people."
Two years ago, Joey spoke to Complex and said he had been interested in polyamory for "quite some time."
"I feel like more people are into poly than they realize," he said. "It's just that people tend to keep things private, which is cool, but it could lead to not being transparent with your partners."
Another artist who lives a poly lifestyle is R&B singer-songwriter Ne-Yo, who's stressed not wanting to lie to his partners after past ended relationships, including a divorce.
"So after my divorce, my very public, very ugly divorce, I realized that just through being dishonest, I hurt a lot of people," he said on podcast Joe and Jada earlier this month. "So from that moment, I was like, 'I'mma just keep it a buck with everybody about everything, be it good, bad, ugly, whatever. I'mma keep it a buck.'"