Loyle Carner (b.1994) is an English hip-hop/rap musician. His debut album Yesterday’s Gone was nominated for the 2017 Mercury Prize. He has received three Brit award nominations. He also runs a cooking school for children with ADHD which is called Chilli Con Carner.
Carner received an ADHD diagnosis in childhood.
The Guardian (2018)
“Mum was up at the crack of dawn to work as a special needs teacher. I grew up with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Mum asked when it was that I felt most at peace. I replied “doing physical things like football” and so she encouraged my cooking. It’s all encompassing, cooking. You’re distracted by lots of colours of spices and everything but the kinetic energy all feeds back into the same thing – what you’re cooking. [The Buddhist monk] Jeong Kwan says that cookery is the closest to meditation.
For a while I was made to take Concerta, a drug like Ritalin, to help bridge the gaps between my synapses, to make me focus on one thing, but I was a zombie on it, just numb. I wasn’t making jokes, I wasn’t creative, I wasn’t eating, I lost weight. I realised that ADHD was the worst and the best thing I had and I needed it.”