The Drug Culture Is Killing Hip-Hop and Its Artists
By Ruben Ayala III
In recent years, Hip-Hop music and its artists have seemed to began to make a shift to endorsing the hard drug culture and more importantly many Hip-Hop artists have started to dab into hard drugs and in result there have been artists that have been dying left and right in recent years. Drugs have unfortunately always been apart of music history and there have been some early examples of Hip-Hop artists dying from substance abuse perhaps most notably Ol’ Dirty Bastard of The Wu-Tang Clan. Many of the younger generation of Hip-Hop artists are very much into the hard drug culture and are also into things like “Lean” which is a mixture of sprite soda and a mix of cough syrup and in result there have been countless deaths of artists especially recently. The most unfortunate part of these happenings are the extremely young ages of these artists that have unfortunately fallen into dabbing into these harder drugs, pretty much every artist that have passed away from substance abuse in recent years were barely in their 20’s or at the most in their mid 20’s. Most of these artists’s deaths have unfortunately been low profile by the masses due to the lower profile of many of them that have succumbed to substance abuse, but it seems like the recent and incredibly sad passing of rapper, Mac Miller, have finally brought the issue of substance abuse particularly in Hip-Hop to the masses.
Hip-Hop Music has never been completely innocent when it came to referencing drugs or alcohol with weed being a vocal reference and drug of choice for many a Hip-Hop artist, but the difference with past artists and most of today’s generation is that a lot of the artists that were around in the 1980’s and 1990’s never promoted the use of hard drugs or the over indulgance of alcohol and some were vocally against it through their music and always tried persuading their listeners to stay away from the hard stuff. Particularly in the 1990’s Hip-Hop artists like Jay-Z, 2pac, and The Notorious B.I.G took a new approach and while they did tell stories of being the drug dealer, they also would say that that’s not what their listeners should try to be or want to be. They hammered this point home by painting pictures on the degrading things people would do when hooked on drugs and scaring their listeners that into realizing the realities of what it can do. During the 1980’s and 1990’s Hip-Hop was vocal against drugs like crack cocaine with acts like Public Enemy and NWA penning powerful songs about the drug and how it effected that generation with “Night Of The Living Baseheads” and “Dopeman”. NWA’s particular song told the story of being the drug dealer it also hammered the point that the drug users were people the listeners didn’t want to be. Not all acts were completely over on these messages, but no artists from that era were directly making it seem cool or something the young generation wanted to indulge in.
The drug and alcohol culture seems to be a huge part of “Hip-Hop” music nowadays and it seems like Hip-Hop gains a younger audience every year so it’s important that the bigger Hip-Hop artists somehow can get together like artists used to and vocally call out the drug users and the effects of it. It seems like the unfortunate death of Mac Miller due to what seems to be an overdose have opened the doors to this conversation. Artists like J.Cole and Childish Gambino have vocally spoke out in the wake of the rapper’s death and made it into an opportunity to not only use it as a lesson and message, but a way to reach out to those that may need it. That’s a great start and J.Cole has also released an album talking about the issues of addiction with his recent effort in “KOD”. Unfortunately drugs and alcohol will probably never be completely be wiped out from music or the culture, but the more people that can be steered away from that stuff the better.
Not everybody was a fan of people like Lil’ Peep or many of the other artists that have unfortunately soccumbed to drugs or alcohol, but it’s always sad when people aren’t even making it out of their 20’s, because of this stuff and the wrong people around them. Again, Mac Miller was probably the first major death to be directly related to drugs and to have effected a wide range of people and has gotten people talking about the issue of drugs and alcohol. Unfortunately, drugs and alcohol will always be around and unfortunately there will continue to be people and artists the succumb to indulging in this stuff which is just the unfortunate truth, but the more people persuaded or warned about the dangers of an overindulgence of drugs or alcohol the better. Even though artists shouldn’t be viewed as role models many people do see them as such and so it’s not a bad idea for Hip-Hop and other genres to vocally show some distain for drugs and alcohol and maybe reach people in that way.
Hip-Hop is probably the most important genre of music to ever come into existence and is the best genre to take this stand. Especially with the significant amount of fans of all ages it’s important to at least try and reach the listener when talking about these issues. Not everybody was a fan of the guys that have recently passed due to things like pills and alcohol, but it’s still sad to see people die when they’re still in their 20’s. Unfortunately, this drug culture might always be a subculture of Hip-Hop, but the bigger the impact that a majority of today’s artists and even older artists can make the better for the fans and more importantly the artists themselves.
