Australian hip hop artist 360 has detailed his near-fatal experience with a painkiller addiction in a video.

In the video, the artist raps about the real reason he was forced to cancel his Australian tour last year in a song titled I’m Sorry.

In early 2015, 360’s management announced the rapper’s tour would be cancelled due to a “sudden illness”, including a number of regional tour dates.

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But in the new track, set to the XX’s song, Intro, 360 reveals the real reason for the cancellations was a growing addiction to painkillers and opiates.

The artist said he is now making the best music of his life. Photo: AAP

“No one knew I didn’t tell one person / Couldn’t bring myself to do it cos I felt like a burden,” he raps in the video.

“Gimme any drug, I was chewing em up / If I have nine lives then I’m using them up / No one knew my addiction it was stupid as f*** / Ninety pills daily of Nurofen Plus.”

The honest confession earned a lot of support from Facebook users, with 180,000 people liking the post.

In the comments, the rapper explained the evolution of his addiction, which included “mainly 80mg Oxycontin, Xanax, Valium and Hypnodorm”, plus “dabbling in heroin” when he ran out of oxycontin.

While on tour, the musician – real name Matt Colwell – turned to over the counter codeine tablets to fuel his addiction, as he was too scared to take heroin through airports.

“That’s the thing with a codeine addiction / It’s over the counter so you don’t need prescriptions.

“That’s three packets in a day / I didn’t get high but I would have them anyway / Because if I didn’t take em then I’d be hitting withdrawals / And guess what? All of this was mid-tour.”

Colwell explains the climax of his addiction came when he “smashed four packets” of Nurofen Plus hoping to feel something, only to be found by his tour manager convulsing on the floor.

After that, 360 said he checked himself into a detox centre and has been clean since – except for his new addiction: the gym.