By the mid-1990s, the percentage of rap songs with drug references increased from just four tracks in the early 1980s to 45 percent of all hip-hop tracks. The man who built his career on rapping about drugs or the things he did while on drugs is sober today. Em has vacillated between addiction and sobriety for years, and you can usually tell which songs were recorded sober and which he recorded stoned out of his mind. Em once told “VIBE” that he had to relearn how to record music sober. It’s easy to assume that Lecrae leads a straight-edge lifestyle because he’s a Christian rapper. “I tried pretty much every drug there was to try,” he explained to “Complex.” Lecrae left that lifestyle behind and now refrains from drugs and alcohol.
A clever track in which MC Shan depicts crack cocaine as a girl he fell in love with, a girl he warns others to stay far away from. Even when Melle Mel was talking about “White Lines” back in the day, the game continues to have a prominent love affair with the lush and illicit pharmaceuticals life. Fortunately for Hip-Hop, there are lyricists who are proud not to drink, smoke or do drugs.
Marijuana and Rap Artists
Ice T’s classic cautionary tale deals with a number of different ways in which people can ‘play themselves’. The last verse is an especially poignant example of where the use of and dependency on drugs might take a person, and who’s responsibility it ultimately is. Future has a song called Codeine Crazy, Lil Yachty has one called Lean and Lil Uzi Vert raps that he’s “so relaxed on a Xanax” in Canadian Goose.
In an interview with GQ magazine, he spoke more extensively about his addiction to the antianxiety medication. This synthetic drug contains mood-altering properties that produce feelings of pleasure, warmth and energy. The third single released from It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. The lyrics deal with the effects of crack cocaine and the classic video that goes with the song only enhances the strength of the message. Sacremento rapper Mozzy, who was open about his drug usage in the past, took to social media to reveal that he is cutting lean out of his life. He demonstrated how serious he is about quitting by pouring out an entire bottle of lean on the ground.
Tyler, the Creator
Eminem actually helped another famous rapper, T.I., beat his own addiction. The King of the South got hooked on oxycontin and hydrocodone after a series of major dental surgeries. He abused the pills, combining them with alcohol to kill his emotional and physical pains, and before T.I. He was sober rappers caught with drugs by police and admitted his addiction problems in an interview with Vibe. Eminem helped him learn to accept his addiction, the first step to recovery. Since his passing, fellow rappers — many of whom were close to Peep in real life — seem to have a different outlook on drugs.
Throughout the song, Chano uses the story of Peter Pan—and its 1991 film adaptation Hook—as an allegory to better illustrate how they grew apart from each other. “Same Drugs” describes the relationship between Chance and a girl from his childhood. Realising that they no longer share the same interests and experiences that they did as children, Chance reflects nostalgically on their shared youth and explores his own feelings of loss around growing up. American Addiction Centers (AAC) is committed to delivering original, truthful, accurate, unbiased, and medically current information. We strive to create content that is clear, concise, and easy to understand. Speaking to Newsbeat, Poet called the “prescription stuff” a “joke”.
Lil Uzi Vert
It’s odd, because he’s often rapped about drug consumption, like on his Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ song “High All The Time”. When asked about the song’s authenticity, 50 replied, “I don’t drink and I don’t use drugs, and I didn’t back then, either. References to drugs like molly, codeine, cocaine, meth and ecstasy are pretty prevalent in most of the hip hop songs that are on the radio and floating around social media these days. Macklemore has struggled with remaining sober his whole life. In a recent interview with MTV, the platinum-selling rapper revealed he developed a drinking problem at the age of thirteen. While many musicians struggle with drugs and alcohol, others choose to remain sober or get clean after experiences with addiction.
Lil Peep’s death was something I expected from a more famous rapper — someone already entrenched in rap culture — not someone so new to the industry. After all, don’t the problems with drugs usually come after the fame? My shock arose more from who died, rather than the fact that there was a drug-related death at all in the rap scene — indicative of the deep-rooted problems with the culture. For those who don’t follow the hip-hop scene, Lil Peep was an emerging rapper who brought an emo twist to today’s spectrum of rap — until last week, when he unexpectedly died due to a drug overdose.
Minus one relapse he’s had with codeine, Macklemore has been clean since August of 2008. Whether they’re mentioned on the radio, seen in music videos, or smuggled into concerts, drugs are pretty much unavoidable in the genre. Weed, lean, pills, coke, booze, shrooms, you name it, dope’s not to hard to find. Many rappers, like Juicy J or Lil Wayne, have made it clear in their music that they love getting fucked up. Despite the popularity of drugs in hip-hop culture, not every rapper partakes in popping mollys or getting fried. Some of these artists have never done drugs in their life, while others choose to abstain from smoking or drinking because of near-death experiences they’ve had.
Tyler, The Creator’s story with alcohol and drugs is a little different to some others on this list. While many of the rappers on this have either dabbled or gone deep into addiction, Tyler, The Creator has basically never been tempted. Eminem has often discussed his struggles with addiction in his music. After nearly dying from an overdose in 2007, the influential rapper has now been sober for nearly fifteen years at the time of writing.