Hip-hop artist DillanPonders (one word) puts everything he’s got into everything he does. Whether that’s his past addictions, releasing music, or running, he’s all-in. This year alone, he dropped 82 songs on DSPs, and completed 100 marathons in 100 days.
Three years ago, he was a heavy alcoholic and recovering drug addict when he had a personal call to action, while vacationing in the Dominican Republic with his fiancé, for his 30th birthday: enough is enough; he wanted to get healthy. He quit drinking, cold turkey, on Nov. 13, 2021, and the next day took an “uncomfortable” barefoot run on the beach that turned into a commitment, back home in Toronto, that changed his life.
Select the image to access the YouTube video of the DillanPonders song “DILLANCONQUERS 4”
Inspired by Nova Scotia’s Ryan Keeping, who ran across Canada in 99 days earlier in 2024, in support of the Heart and Stroke Foundation, Ponders – whose real surname is King – decided to train for a remarkable goal of his own: to raise money and awarenessness for men’s mental health, by completing 100 marathons in 100 days. He started June 17 and finished Sept. 24, 2024. That’s 42.2 kilometres every single day, losing toenails in the process, but, miraculously, sustaining no injuries.
“Since there are so many men suffering in silence due to mental health issues, I just went ahead and suffered as loudly as I could, and tried to find a way to do it that was positive,” says Ponders. “These daily marathons were my way of raising awareness for a cause that’s incredibly close to my heart.
“Seventy-five percent of all suicides, if not more right now, are men, and we live in a society that conflates vulnerability and openness with weakness with regards to men,” he continues. “So, lots of men don’t open up, and don’t go to therapy, and don’t get diagnosed, and they end up picking up drugs, or not talking to anyone and not feeling heard. I wanted to do something that would make people have conversations that aren’t normally had.”
Ponders, who turned 33 on Nov. 11, 2024, also discovered, as many artists have, that he was more productive when sober. He’s been releasing one song a week, on all DSPs — and occasionally releasing additional songs on YouTube and SoundCloud — since August of 2022, some weeks dropping two or three, which he mixes and masters himself.
“I didn’t used to have this kind of output,” he says. “It would take me a lot longer to finish things in my first five, six years of creating. But I’m nearing 15 years of creation, and I’m definitely not afraid to share music that I’m proud of. I’m in a very nice flow state, and I have been for the last three years, and I’m looking forward to continuing it.”
“I just went ahead and suffered as loudly as I could”
A a lyricist, whether wasted or sober, homeless or housed, running or sendentary, Ponders uses his music as “a bit of a purge,” he says. “So when I put down drugs, I made music about it,” he says. When he later also quit drinking, he couldn’t help but worry a bit that his music might suffer. “I knew that no longer drinking was going to affect my creative process, but it turns out that I’ve been making the best music of my life, and the most honest music of my life.”
Ponders played basketball and rugby in high school, but hadn’t been running since the age of 18. A year later, he started creating music – and started taking drugs, which got progressively worse each year, for nearly a decade. “I was doing cocaine, oxys, Xanax, ecstasy, MDMA,” he says. Although he overcame drugs on his own at age 28, he says, “I spent over a decade having my name and music be synonymous with partying and drinking.” The titles of his releases testify to his addiction. His first album, in 2012, was called Dopamine, followed by the Comatose EP, LUST, the award-winning Overdose, and NUMB, all in about two years, before 2014’s sophomore album, The Boy Who Lived. Other titles include 2015’s Retox and 2018’s The Boy Who Died.
Ponders had also been homeless for three years, he says, sometimes crashing at the homes of his drug dealers. He’d been contemplating turning his life around for quite a while when he made the no-alcohol decision in the Dominican. When he starting running, he just did it. He didn’t research what sneakers to buy; he didn’t listen to music, or a motivational podcast. “I was submerged in the discomfort, because I always felt so good when I was done,” says Ponders. “I felt proud of myself. Whenever I drank, or did anything substance-related, I never felt proud of myself.”
Select the image to access the YouTube video of the DillanPonders song “Not For Radio”
He never went to an Alcoholcs Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meeting, just quit on his own. “If you feel like doing something negative, do something positive, and slowly those actions will turn into habits,” he says. “I put that mantra on the top of my mental shelf, and that’s where I went to every time I wanted to drink. I knew that if I ran every time I wanted to drink, I would probably create an entirely new version of myself. When we got back to Toronto, I couldn’t run for more than a kilometre, for the first week. I remember, after 10 days of running… I ran two kilometres, and I was so pumped. I was like, ‘Whoa, progress.’”
After about a month of running, his feet hurt so much, he invested in some shoes. The next step was learning about nutrition, along with stretching, and proper gear. A few months later, he signed up for the Toronto Marathon, then another marathon, then an ultra-marathon. “This all happened within one year of beginning to run,” he says. “My [other] mantra was, ‘I embrace the pain, and I accept the discomfort.’” After the summer of 2023, he ran more than 100 miles a week, for 20 weeks. “I always gave myself challenges, which really helped me evolve physically and mentally,” he says.
Ponders is also working on a book for release in 2025, with nuggets of inspiration and advice that helped him. “Coming from addiction, homelessness, and alcoholism, I wanted to share some of this energy with people who don’t have any hope,” he says. “The book-writing process is very different than my music-writing process, because it’s something that I’m being very meticulous about. Some chapters are about [how] it’s okay not to be okay. Other chapters are about alchemizing your trauma. Other chapters are about self-belief.
“The book is crafted to uplift, encourage, and inspire people to hopefully look within, and potentially unlock the best version of themselves to bring forward into the world.”