Bensol’s Health Crisis Fueled Creative Renaissance

Former Sol Generation artist, Bensol, has opened up about a harrowing personal experience that nearly derailed his career but ultimately led to a creative breakthrough. In a candid interview with Philip Karanja on YouTube, the singer-songwriter revealed how a severe health crisis forced him to confront his mortality and reevaluate his priorities.

“There was a time when I was sick, and I genuinely felt like I was going to die,” Bensol confessed. The illness not only took a toll on his physical health but also strained his relationships. His then-girlfriend ended their relationship due to his deteriorating condition, with her family even speculating that he might have AIDS.

However, Bensol clarified that he was battling tuberculosis, a disease that had left him physically weakened. As his health worsened, he was forced to return to his family home, a move that unexpectedly proved to be a turning point.

Isolated from the distractions of city life, Bensol found solace in songwriting. “I went back home, I had lost my voice, I couldn’t sing, so I was just writing songs,” he recalled. Despite his physical limitations, he channeled his emotions and imagination into crafting music.

“I penned a lot of songs from my imagination, trying to envision how they’d sound,” Bensol explained. This reflective approach to songwriting unlocked a new creative process for him, one that has become central to his music-making today.

“I learned to write from my subconscious,” he said. “These days, even when I go to the studio, I don’t like writing with loud music. I like going somewhere far and quiet, envisioning the song, seeing how life is happening around me, and I get the purest words from that.”

While this unconventional process has produced some of Bensol’s best work, he acknowledges that it’s not always easy to explain to others in the industry. “I try explaining that to people and other artists, and sometimes they don’t get it. I just see the music,” he said.