Rapper Scribe six months clean and eyeing comeback

Scribe entertains during the Friday Jams Live concert at Western Springs. Photo / by Dean Purcell, NZ Herald

Scribe says he's six months sober, feeling good about life and working on new music.

In a new interview with Newshub, the Not Many rapper reflected that it was important for him to spend time in prison, so he could kick drugs.

"It gave me a lot of time to assess my situation, it gave me a lot of time to get my mind right."

Scribe was sentenced to jail time at the end of 2018 after a series of bail breaches. He told Newshub he was on 23-hour lockdown in solitary and received more than 100 letters from prisoners around the country asking if he could be transferred to their wings.

Rehab at Moana House in Dunedin proved to be exactly what he needed, he said.

"You go to rehab but there's no magic wand. What I really learned is the issues and the pain that I carry, I am always going to have. It's actually about managing it. It's about identifying it and managing it on a daily basis."

Scribe leaves the Christchurch District Court in Septembe 2017, two days after an arrest warrant was issued for his no-show at an earlier appearance. Photo / NZ Herald

Scribe — real name Malo Ioane Luafutu — did four months in rehab, Newshub said, and is back in the community. He performed at last weekend's Friday James Live show at Auckland's Western Springs, which drew a crowd of more than 30,000.

The Christchurch-raised father of four burst onto the New Zealand hip hop scene about 15 years ago. He'd taken drugs before finding fame but that use intensified.

"Even when I was at the peak of my success, I never felt like I deserved it," he told Newshub. "I was using drugs to escape this reality that I felt so uncomfortable with. I hated being looked up to, it gave me anxiety."

With a routine built around his children and good health, he's eyeing a second act to his career.

"I've always been the underdog but I feel like I am back in that place where I have an opportunity to turn this all around."