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 ​ ​ ’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 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, 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 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 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 ​ ​ 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. When asked about drugs in hip-hop, rap pioneer Jay Way “Jeezy” Jenkins said the following:

“I can get it if that’s your vice, that’s what you like doing,” he said. “We gon’ respect ​ that. But once your words get out, and you tell the people that this is it and that’s how it

is, it’s like I don’t know if I can respect that.” (Ivey)

Jenkins also stresses the fact that rappers, whether they like it or not, are leaders with influence, and that as a veteran of the hip-hop community, “it takes people like me to step in and say, ‘that’s cool, man, but you could do this also over here.” Here, he makes it clear that hip-hop

6 can exist outside of the inclusion of drugs. Jenkins was speaking from a health perspective, but what about the impact of opioids on the sound itself? There are elements of modern rap that go hand-in-hand with the consumption of purple drank, and one of these elements is the “triplet flow.” Popularized by artists like Migos and Future, the triplet flow is a style of that has become hard to ignore in mainstream hip-hop to the point where rappers like Snoop Dogg cannot help but call out. “Once you be you, who can be ‘you’ but you? That’s the problem right now, everyone tryin’ to rap the same style...and that shit is addictive.” (Cowen) As purple drank has become synonymous with modern hip-hop, so has the triplet flow, and the laziness of contemporary rap is evident in the style of music. Because the effects of promethazine and codeine create a consistently mellowing effect, many rappers and producers seek a certain sound or lyrical melody that mirrors the moodiness and laziness of consuming these drugs. While this is similar to the impact of marijuana on hip-hop, where the mellow atmosphere of the recording studio allowed rappers, like Snoop Dogg, to perform with a nonchalant coolness and ease of enunciation on the microphone, a marijuana sound is sonically different from an opioid sound.

The health dangers that come with opioids are much more prominent, but on a musical level, the high that one experiences on codeine more often halts creativity than widens it, as one could argue that marijuana or LSD does for creatives. Rapper Isaiah Rashad, a member of the TDE, a label including artists like and SZA, described battling opioid addiction:

“I got my shit together, I’m cool… [but] ain’t nobody cool. Like, I was addicted to some

shit. It’s not like I don’t think about it once in a while… I just know I got a bigger goal to

do… I could feel my clout going away.” (Epstein)

7 In the same interview, Rashad also made clear that the CEO of TDE, Anthony “Top Dawg”

Tiffith, refused to let Rashad be a part of the label, including recording, touring, or even socializing, until he cleaned himself up. Fellow TDE member and acclaimed rapper Kendrick

Lamar also advocates for a drug-free lifestyle and approach to the genre, but also stresses the importance of authenticity in hip-hop, saying:

“You may have certain artists portraying these trends and don’t really have that lifestyle ​ and then it gives off the wrong thing. And it becomes kinda corny after a while. It’s really

about keeping hip-hop original and pushing away the corniness in it.” (Jideonwo)

Many other rappers, old and new, have voiced their distaste for opioids in hip-hop culture, either criticizing the authenticity, artistry, or work ethic that results from the use. One perspective that should be included in this argument is the economics of including opioids in hip-hop, essentially asking the question: “Do opioids help sell rap songs?” According to Billboard’s Artist 100 year-end chart of 2017, which ranks musicians based on album sales and popularity on the radio, streaming platforms, or online music marketplaces, 24 of the 100 artists can be classified as being hip-hop or rap artists. , ranked number 3 on the list, has minimal drug references, including marijuana, on his last two albums. Kendrick Lamar, ranked number 4, has reported living a drug-free lifestyle. , even without releasing a commercial album, was ranked at number 80, and has stated his long-time addiction to Xanax and other drugs inhibited his creative growth, saying:

“I was Xanned out every fucking day. I was just fucking tweaking. I was a ​ Xan-zombie...not doing anything productive and just going through relationship after

relationship after relationship.” (How Xanax)

8 Since he recovered from addiction, Chance The Rapper had arguably his biggest year of his career by winning three Grammy awards and becoming a household name in hip-hop.

Kendrick Lamar has also become a staple of mainstream music, and his music has been critically acclaimed along with Chance The Rapper and Drake. Hip-hop still prospers without the mention or use of opioids, and the most popular artists in the world reflect that sentiment. There are artists like Future or Migos, however, who have found a formula with their music and have not changed their stance on these drugs. However, these artists are often identified as the leaders of this new generation of codeine-inspired rap, and their lyrics come from a place of authenticity because of the lifestyle they truly exhibit. Additionally, because they have been the main contributors to the sound, the issue is not with their own artistry, but their copycats who name-drop these drugs in their songs not because it is necessarily part of their everyday lifestyle or culture, but because it is what helps Future sell albums. There is a clear problem with opioids in hip-hop, whether it inhibits creativity, stalls work ethic, endangers the lives of musicians, or creates a negative image for the genre. No matter the age of the rapper, there is a level of influence they hold, and because this new generation of hip-hop is predominantly an internet-driven culture, the spread of these ideals leaks onto listeners or even aspiring musicians. The desire for young producers is not to carve their own niche and create their own sound, but to mold their style of production to a moody and codeine-laced aesthetic that throws them into a competition with other producers over who can sound the most intoxicated by pharmaceuticals. Rappers now only have to name-drop certain pharmaceutical brands and mumble inauthentic lyrics that even the most intoxicated and drugged out can enunciate at concerts or with their headphones on. The formula works in its current state, but much like modern rock music, which has become a contest of

9 sounding the most inoffensive and transferable as possible, this runs the risk of diluting the genre. Creativity and authenticity can still occur even when using opioids, but for every one rapper that is able to stay true to themselves and rap about or consume opioids in a non-obstructing way, it is as if there are four other rappers that use it simply as a means to sell records or conform to the lowest common denominator.

While the notion that opioids in hip-hop are stagnating and diluting the quality of music in the genre, that same notion can be flipped, and an argument can be made that this transition of sound is similar to other genres that have undergone metamorphoses. A common opinion held by users on online music forums such as KanyeToThe and Reddit’s HipHopHeads is that diversity is stronger than ever in hip-hop and that opioids are simply another drug that has fueled the meteoric rise of this sound and culture. Additionally, rappers such as Future are simply capitalizing on what kids are doing, and this can be reflected in the number of sales they accumulate. Even though both these stances are defensible, the lack of addressing the internet’s role in the rise of this genre somewhat devalues this argument. While diversity and inclusion in hip-hop is at an all time high, the culture of opioids and prescriptions in the genre is not the reason. These artists have become popular largely because of the internet before being discovered by record labels, as well as collaboration being much easier in a connected world.

The rise of opioids in rap has been a resultant of pursuing a certain sound, one that requires less writing ability or production experience but more catchy hooks and similar sounding beats.

Bedroom producers have replaced expensive and professional recording studios, which is mostly a good thing for musicians trying to make a name for themselves, but one cannot ignore the sameness between many aspiring producers as they make no effort to expand their production

10 capabilities outside of the bare minimum for a catchy song. These drugs are more easily accessible than cocaine, heroin, or even marijuana, due to their legal status, thus what is taken at parties or concerts are concoctions that often contain codeine, Xanax, or promethazine. The entirety of this problem is rooted in accessibility, whether it comes to the trends of popular music, the availability of pharmaceuticals, the access to music production equipment (often simply a laptop, software, and speakers), or the word-of-mouth spread of popularity to which many rappers attribute their success. There is no denying that these artists sell, but for how long will this trend last? Even though many listeners believe that this current state of hip-hop will never die out, following the deaths of Lil Peep and Fredo Santana, many rappers who have voiced their remorse for not only the death, but the vices that claimed them, may seek to change their style. This era is similar to the grunge movement of the 1990s, where “The dissonance between their lyrics and their reception is reminiscent of the grunge era, and, indeed, these artists are far more likely to worship Kurt Cobain or Marilyn Manson than Jay-Z or .”

(Battan) Grunge was largely fueled by the younger demographic, and while the genre is still beloved by many, the ubiquity of it in the 1990’s was catalysed by teenage outcasts and rebels.

There are obviously those that remain in this frame of mind, but there are also those that eventually grow up and move out of these phases, and this is reflected in today’s hip-hop. The intouchable and invincible mindset held by teenagers has the potential to fade, especially when their role models, whether it is Kurt Cobain, Pimp C, or Lil Peep, are victims of the same drugs they consume. Furthermore, the emotions conveyed in their lyrics are lethargic:

“Nihilism, taken to an extreme that feels almost competitive, has become its own form of

braggadocio. The sound is a sincere expression of anguished youth, but it’s also a

11 backlash against a previous micro-generation of hip-hop artists obsessed with

self-actualization and revelry.” (Battan)

The appeal of these artists is not that these artists live lives that they would want, but that they understand the feelings of depression, anxiety, and melancholia that plague the minds of teenagers and young adults. While turning to music is often a healthy medication for mental health, this genre has become synonymous with drug use. These songs do not simply glorify sadness as something that is desirable, but to consume drugs to further these feelings. Popular rapper with a fitting name, Lil Xan, on his most popular song “Betrayed” describes Xanax as something to be feared, yet this can appear enticing to a young listener:

“Xans don't make you ​ Xans gon' take you

Xans gon' fake you

Xans gon' betray you.”

Even though an argument can be made that there have been drugs included in hip-hop lyrics for decades and that they were also portrayed as wholly negative, much of this is rooted in storytelling. While there were many songs that were only about marijuana or cocaine with no rhetorical or narrative substance, at the very least, these drugs were a part of the artist’s life. Lil

Xan has recently denounced Xanax use and has used his platform to form a campaign against opioid use, yet even if the entirety of his lyrics consisted of bashing drug companies and pharmaceuticals, if the sonic component of the songs attempts to mirror the sound of opioid-induced rap, then hardly anything has been accomplished. Lyrics have become a secondary attribute of hip-hop to most listeners, while the production and atmosphere of the

12 songs have become the focal point. Often, an upcoming album will generate buzz not because of the artist’s name, but because of which producers will be producing tracks on the project.

Because of this shift in focus, if there is to be reform in the hip-hop community towards opioid addiction, much of it will have to be in the realm of production. Rapper and singer Austin

Richard “Post Malone” Post’s #1 hit song “Rockstar” depicts a star-studded and luxurious lifestyle as something morose and bleak, with the hook consisting of “I’ve been fucking hoes and poppin’ pillies, man, I feel just like a rockstar.” Two months later, Lil Peep, a close friend of his, overdosed on Fentanyl, and even though he expressed his sadness and remorse over his death,

Post continues to perform this song rather than take a stand and denounce the glorification of opioids. Critics of the anti-opioid opinion often believe that the criticism of its drug is merely a lack of appreciation for the genre, and while the defense of authenticity is admirable when it comes to a genre such as hip-hop, what is being defended is, in all actuality, inauthentic. Even with rappers like Lil Xan, Post Malone, and Lil Uzi Vert voicing their fight against opioids and pharmaceuticals, their sound and their lyricism remains the same and can be enjoyed in the same realm as Future or Young Thug who have become leaders of this wave of hip-hop. Ultimately, these artists are not always set on pleasing hip-hop purists or critics, but the average music listener who knows radio hits. As of right now, it would be hard to defend modern rap as a sober genre, for even though artists like and Tyler The Creator pursue this lifestyle, their songs barely scratch the bottom half of the charts and radio play. It takes a lyrical and musical anomaly like Kendrick Lamar to impress the average listener beyond the allure of including drug names in their lyrics. While hip-hop is currently enjoying its highest peak of popularity it has ever experienced, if this glaring problem is not addressed or changed by modern

13 day icons of the genre, hip-hop runs the risk of being compartmentalized by both hardcore fans and average listeners as “drug music”, and the barrier-breaking genre redefiners become less digestible for listeners. For a music genre to thrive and continue to inspire artists to create, the realm must continue to transform and show signs of artists seeking to push boundaries, especially if they are at the forefront of popular music. Yet, even though these artists may voice their regret and remorse over the deaths of thousands of people due to opioids, what sells is the danger these drugs bring, the emotions that these drugs induce, and the sound that is created when under the spell of opioids. Opioids in hip-hop are here to stay, but at the cost of preventing a genre from continuing to evolve.

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