John Fassold - HON394: What Are Drugs For? Opioids in Hip-Hop: Help or Hurt? 1 There is no denying that a focal point of rap and hip-hop, whether it comes to the culture, the lyrics, or branding, is the presence of drugs. The roots of the genre can be traced to 1970s New York City, where areas like Queens were rife with gangs and drug networks, but also the formation of one of the most influential music genres of all time. Here, a schism existed between hip-hop and drugs, yet while “Hip-hop and hustling were worlds apart...their denizens shared the same neighborhoods and even the same blocks” (Brown, 16). In neighborhoods where social mobility and securing a comfortable lifestyle are hobbled by the impact of marginalization and violence, escaping from these inhospitable conditions potentially takes the form of two possible avenues: hip-hop or drug dealing. However, because of the unavoidable presence of drugs in the realm of the creation of hip-hop, much of the lyricism in early hip-hop includes talking about drugs. Kool Moe Dee, a New Jersey rapper who was the the first rapper to perform at the Grammys, talks about crack on his song “Crack Monster”: “He [crack] talks to you like he’s alive And when he talks like bees to a hive The people come running, the older and the young’in The place he lives in is the house they hung in” While many rappers discuss drugs because of their ubiquity in their lives or family, be it the retelling of events from their past or a dialogue about the current state of its presence, it has become clear that this topic is attractive to listeners. In an indirect way, drugs are being sold to listeners not on the streets from dealers, but on the radio from musicians. Obviously, rap is not the only music genre that talks about drugs, nor is it the first genre to have musical style influenced by the effects of drugs. On the song “Strawberry Fields 2 Forever” by the Beatles, the woozy keyboards and absurd lyrics contributed to the popular sound of psychedelia in rock music that other popular bands like Jefferson Airplane and The Doors implemented into their sound. When legendary guitarist Eric Clapton has a popular song bluntly titled “Cocaine”, it becomes evident that the relationship between popular music and drugs is one that cannot be shaken, and this applies to rap music as well. In the 21st century, rap has undoubtedly become the new rock ‘n’ roll, where the charts and radio stations are rich with hip-hop from all parts of the world. What was once a genre confined within the regions of New York City has exploded, reaching neighborhoods from Compton to Atlanta. One of the core principles of hip-hop is storytelling, and often this storytelling is rooted in events and happenings that occur within the rapper’s life. Because of this, the lyrics of songs from these various neighborhoods and cities include their people, historical events, buildings and businesses, and drugs. While marijuana is present in many geographical regions of hip-hop, it is hard to not associate the drug with West Coast hip-hop, where albums such as Dr. Dre’s The Chronic or ​ ​ Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle defined genres of g-funk and gangsta rap with the help of copious ​ ​ lyrics about smoking. On the East coast, “Hustlers from the crack era--particularly those who reigned in southeast Queens...became part of a permanent hip-hop era,” and rappers such as Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, and Nas created the gritty style of East coast hip-hop that discusses the lifestyle of selling cocaine and crack on the streets of New York City. The popularity of these regions and their music has fluctuated over the past 30 years, with the East paving the way in the 80s, followed by the West in the 90s, but throughout the 2000s and 2010s, the sounds of southern hip-hop, particularly in the past five years, have dominated popular music. This can be attributed to many things, from the output of work from 3 critically-acclaimed artists such as OutKast or UGK, to the viral nature of songs like “Get Low” by Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz becoming club favorites and radio hits. However, a notable reason for its popularity is likely the creation of “chopped and screwed” music, a style made famous by popular Houston producer DJ Screw. While other rap styles highlight the technical abilities or the hard-hitting production of rappers and producers, DJ Screw made the style of “chopped and screwed” famous by slowing down samples and records to create a woozy, atmospheric sound. Similar to the psychedelic era of rock in the 1960s, chopped and screwed music, whether by intention or not, seeks to mimic the effects of using drugs such as marijuana, LSD, but most notably, codeine. As the popularity of chopped and screwed skyrocketed in Houston, so did the use of codeine, specifically in purple drank, which is described as “a combination of the following: prescription-strength cough medicine, soft drinks, [and] hard, fruit-flavored candy.” (Cornell) This dangerous concoction ultimately claimed DJ Screw’s life in 2000, yet in the same year, Three 6 Mafia released “Sippin on Some Syrup”, which “effectively introduced the drug to the world.” (Blau) Since 2000, references to codeine in rap songs have tripled, as well as pharmaceutical drugs such as Percocet and Adderall seeing dramatic increase in mentions. It is hard to determine whether or not the popularization of southern hip-hop generated the popularization of opioid consumption or vice-versa, but one cannot deny that the two have been linked from their emergence. Since the arrival of chopped and screwed music onto the mainstream population of music listeners, codeine-influenced rap songs and lyrics about pharmaceuticals have exploded onto the mainstream, yet recently, there has been resistance to the culture. Upon the death of artists like Lil Peep and Fredo Santana due to overdose, popular hip-hop artists such as Lil Pump and Lil Uzi Vert reported that they were no longer taking Xanax 4 or other opiods. Artists such as Isaiah Rashad and Joey Bada$$ have stated that drugs have inhibited their creativity, the latter saying on his Instagram, following his announcement that he was completely sober, that “I feel 1000x better and functional.” Still, the prevalence of opioids in hip-hop is solid, with artists like Future and Travis Scott seemingly carrying the torch of artists like Three 6 Mafia and UGK, even though fellow musicians continue to die, experience health issues, or voice their disapproval of consuming these drugs. In 2017, Future’s song “Mask Off”, which includes a chorus consisting of “Percocet, Molly Percocet” repeated many times over a woozy instrumental, peaked at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was the 14th most popular song of the year. Travis Scott’s 2016 album Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight debuted at #1 on the US ​ ​ Billboard 200 and featured lyrics about drugs 57 times and twelve out of the fourteen songs on the album contained a reference. While this surge in popularity is similar to the growth seen in the 1960s with psychedelic rock, because of the space rap provides for lengthier lyrics and details compared to the succinct four to eight lined verses of typical rock and pop songs, the impact of drug references in lyrics is heightened in hip-hop. Drug culture is not inherently and morally “bad” when included in rap, for one of the pillars of the genre is accuracy and honesty through lyrics, and if references to drugs are necessary to form a narrative or retell events of the artist’s life, one should not feel the need to omit these lyrics based on how they may impact the listener. However, what was once an element of storytelling has now become the selling point, and opioids have become increasingly glorified by artists and sought after by listeners. Because of the internet age, these musicians have become easier to discover, but this also applies to the drugs they indirectly advertise through their music. While the widespread use of opioids has helped contribute to the genre of hip-hop, its effects ultimately hurt the genre due to the dilution 5 of musical diversity and creativity either by the formation of a culture expecting a certain sound when listening to hip-hop and/or by harming the artist’s creativity and output as well as their physical and mental well-being. Opposers to rappers and hip-hop music may take this same angle but with a healthy dose of ignorance. It is easy to come across as disrespectful to a culture and history when challenging the place of drugs in hip-hop, specifically those that shaped a sound or helped a region become popularized in the mainstream. What must be stressed is that this stance is not rooted in the opposition to the inclusion of drugs in hip-hop, but rather, the genuinity of that inclusion and how that translates to the impact on listeners. To many rappers, the use of drugs is simply part of their everyday lives, and to censor the truth from their stories goes against the fundamentals of the core of hip-hop. In the south, the drugged out “chopped and screwed” music “spoke of everyday life, which for some people included drinking drank” (Bella). Even with pharmaceutical companies like Actavis discontinuing their line of promethazine codeine cough syrup, one of the most popular bottles used to concoct purple drank, promethazine codeine cough syrup was prescribed over 4 million times in the US during 2016.