Looking At The Why Behind Hiphop's Love Story With Drugs
Hiphop has a long history of drug use, or abuse depending on how you look at it. Rap music is leavened with lyrics about drug trafficking and drug consumption. Is it peer pressure among hiphop artists or is it a way to deal with the pressure that comes with being a rapper?
Image by Prince Williams, Wireimage
By Benson Kirobi
It goes both ways. Since the inception of Hiphop in 1980s, in New York, song writers have been influenced by their environments. And the environment surrounding rappers is that of selling drugs, or 'moving weight' if you may. The fore fathers in this genre were at first heavily involved in the drug business. Jay-Z , for example, rapped about his success in selling crack cocaine in his debut studio
album- Reasonable doubt. While not all rappers were actively involved in selling bricks, a large portion of them had ties with mainstream drug dealers like Larry Hoover and Big Meech. You can see where the influence originated from.
album- Reasonable doubt. While not all rappers were actively involved in selling bricks, a large portion of them had ties with mainstream drug dealers like Larry Hoover and Big Meech. You can see where the influence originated from.
Rapper Young Jeezy and convicted drug trafficker Big Meech Source: John Ricard / Getty
It goes without saying that they ended up being heavy users of the substances they rapped about. But before they got into drug abuse, they sold drugs to make a living and pay for studio time. It was a way to transition from illegal trade to legitimate careers in the record industry. And it worked for them. Now, lyrics about popping pills such as Xanax, Adderall, Percocet, lighting up Js (marijuana) and snorting lines of cocaine are in at least 80% of rap music.
Adderall, a precription sadative
From the early 2010s to the present day, Future has led in taking codeine, molly and Percocets user movement into the mainstream. The chorus of his hit song 'Mask Off' practically goes like 'Percocets, Molly, Percocets..'. Prior to that, his Purple Reign Mixtape comprised a song titled 'Perkys calling' where he raps 'I can hear the Perkys calling…'. 'Tony Montana, one of his earliest hit singles was inspired by the movie character by the same name, whose role is that of a successful drug dealer. But rapping about drugs does not always imply that they are using them. Future Hendrix once revealed that he wrote the entire Purple Reign mixtape while sober. Exactly what a not-so-sober person would say.
Cover to Future's mixtape series Dirty Sprite 2
Percocets, Adderall and Xanax are prescription drugs that serve as sedatives. They are relaxants. Some Hiphop acts will tell you that they need to be relaxed when writing music. So that’s the first excuse they provide for abusing prescription drugs. But whats their reason for snorting coke? There isn't. If anything, the only cause for cocaine abuse is pure influence and addiction.
Hiphop has come up with other not-so-obvious names for coke. Pure cocaine is white in color. That has led rappers to use pseudonyms to refer to name after white people. It is sometimes called Bieber, which alludes to Justin Bieber, who is white. Marijuana is codenamed Mary Jane while the psychoactive Ecstacy is referred to as Molly.
"Some Hiphop acts will tell you that they need to be relaxed when writing music. So that’s the first excuse they provide for abusing prescription drugs. But whats their reason for snorting coke? There isn't. If anything, the only cause for cocaine abuse is pure influence and addiction. "
Tyga and Wiz Khalifa made a hit song called Molly in 2015. Juicy J has never not rapped about smoking high grade weed. We all Snoop Dogg is the dog-father, excuse me, god father of smoking weed. These are just a few examples from rap but if you want to venture outside of Hiphop, think about 'I took a pill in Ibiza, to show Avicii I was cool..'. House/Dance music has it's own drug stories to tell.
Codeine, Lean are originally cough syrups obtained from legitimate clinics or hospitals. Rappers like to mix it with Sprite on the rocks and sip it. Going back to Future, he has a mixtape series called Dirty Sprite Volume 1 and 2. Every time you hear dirty sprite just know they are alluding to a concoction of lean/codeine with Sprite, or Fanta which add flavor to the 'Dirty' substance. These days, they call it Wock. It seems the names keep evolving.
Line of Wock popular among rappers
Kanye West isn't known for doing coke or popping pills. What he has openly sang about is acid, or pyschedelics. 'I done died and lived again on DMT..' is a lyric from his 2018 Ye album. Psychoactive substances: mushrooms, molly, MDMA, psilocybin are said to open up doors to other higher levels of consciousness. Well, that’s a compelling reason because we all have an urge to transcend our current levels of awareness.
It seems that the 'Hip' in Hiphop stands for Hippies. Hippies who are seen as rebels and social defiants. One could say that Hiphop could not be where it is today if it wasn’t for it's love towards drug use/abuse. Because people are products of their environments, rappers cannot avoid making music about what they observed on the come up. Hiphop originated during the crack cocaine period when drugs were in every neighborhood in America. Since every other rapper in the world was at one time looking upto their own version of Jay Z, they have ended up adopting the same hiphop culture that nurtured the fore-fathers.
"Because people are products of their environments, rappers cannot avoid making music about what they observed on the come up"
And who can deny that drugs are in most cities and neighborhoods of the world? In the end, artists use music to paint a picture of they see and what they go through. If we are going to enjoy the music, then we might as well accept the dark side of hiphop which is laden with allusion to substance abuse and drug peddling. Isn't that fair play?
